REDCINE and GPU = co-work?

[Martin Jäger]

hej!

is redcine taking advantage of the GPU? if yes - what graphics-card makes
most sense? personally i'm interested in a mac-compatible model...

 

[Bruce Allen]

Smartin, what I think would make sense is to wait until RedCine is released, then buy the card. Graphics cards double in speed every year.

Macs are a whole generation behind at present - they don't have the nvidia 8000 series yet. Also, if they decided to make the code heavily GPU-oriented, you'd want SLI. Which Macs also don't offer yet. Buying a GPU for a Mac is like shooting yourself in the foot right now. Actually, it has historically been this way (they are often a generation behind), however the people who swallow the rest of the Reality Distortion Field believe they are "faster for graphics"...

I say this as a guy who uses Macs on a daily basis. I like them very much in fact. I even look forward to buying one once for myself one day - preferably when they catch up to what a year-old PC can do, GPU-wise!

Bruce

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Bruce, do you think it's reasonable to expect 8800 GTX in new 8 core Mac Pro ?
I would really like to see that option.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Bruce, do you think it's reasonable to expect 8800 GTX in new 8 core Mac Pro ?
I would really like to see that option.

Apple would be slitting their own throat to not offer the 8800GTX and upcoming 89x0 models in the (hopefully soon to be updated) Mac Pro line.

I prefer OSX over Windows and it's my platform of choice for doing most things, but when it comes to performance graphics -- be it games or 3D visualization, the Mac is a generation (or even two) behind most of the time as Bruce said.

I plan to buy a new 8-core Mac Pro later this year. Hopefully they will offer SLI style multi-video-card configurations and I'll take mine with dual nVidia 8950GTX cards, thank you very much.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Yes

Especially if FCP, and Shake('s followup) would start engaging all that horsepower.

I actually just ordered a mini to take care of some renderingtasks, because I want to hold off on a tower untill the octocore is out.

What a laugh!

Gunleik

 

[Zach Hilton]

hej!

is redcine taking advantage of the GPU? if yes - what graphics-card makes
most sense? personally i'm interested in a mac-compatible model...

I asked a similar question recently. http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1010 Mr. Rob said that we'll find that out at or after NAB.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Smartin, what I think would make sense is to wait until RedCine is released, then buy the card. Graphics cards double in speed every year.

Macs are a whole generation behind at present - they don't have the nvidia 8000 series yet. Also, if they decided to make the code heavily GPU-oriented, you'd want SLI. Which Macs also don't offer yet. Buying a GPU for a Mac is like shooting yourself in the foot right now. Actually, it has historically been this way (they are often a generation behind), however the people who swallow the rest of the Reality Distortion Field believe they are "faster for graphics"...

I say this as a guy who uses Macs on a daily basis. I like them very much in fact. I even look forward to buying one once for myself one day - preferably when they catch up to what a year-old PC can do, GPU-wise!

Bruce

Bruce, it looks you are pretty outdated with yours Mac state opinion. Mac is on Intel more than year and Macintosh is really looking to get the best from that CPU-GPU hardware platform. I think you are still believe in all that "foggy" high-end PC propaganda. There are really many options but not any works well as advertised. To conclude is to say everybody want to make money with a fog on Windows platform as we all know well. And they are all rich and fat, Ballmer, Gates, etc... With the Mac is a bit opposite. It works as advertised. And also they want to make money. So keep in mind that before you talk Mac, Bruce!

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Bruce, it looks you are pretty outdated with yours Mac state opinion. Mac is on Intel more than year and Macintosh is really looking to get the best from that CPU-GPU hardware platform. I think you are still believe in all that "foggy" high-end PC propaganda. There are really many options but not any works well as advertised. To conclude is to say everybody want to make money with a fog on Windows platform as we all know well. And they are all rich and fat, Ballmer, Gates, etc... With the Mac is a bit opposite. It works as advertised. And also they want to make money. So keep in mind that before you talk Mac, Bruce!

You're drinking too much Apple kool-aid. Sorry. Currently the two best graphics options available to the Mac platform are the ancient, nVidia FX4500 and the ATI X1900XT. The X1900XT in PC land is an upper-mid range card.

On the Mac there is no SLI or CrossFire graphics configurations, let alone even single card options in line with the upper end of PC options. This has nothing to do with "foggy high-end PC propaganda". There are several solutions in the PC world that are nowhere close to the top end of the spectrum that will outperform the offerings from Apple. And let's not bring Microsoft, Gates, Balmer, etc.. into the equation. This has little to do with the overall hardware picture in terms of graphics cards. All of which, especially on the nVidia side of the fence are fully supported under Linux.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Apple systems. But a properly configured and cared for PC is every bit as stable and productive and also "works as advertised". But this isn't a discussion about platform reliability or productivity in general. This is about graphics card options and what GPU is available on which platform... Right now the Mac is way behind and it has been this way for a few years. Apple has the power to change this on a whim, anytime they wish, but they don't.

SLI/Crossfire configurations not considered, where are current upper mid range offerings we see in the PC world? No nVidia 8xxx cards, no ATI X1950XT, ...Not even the X1900XTXi, only the 'XT. And Apple also has their model underclocked by 150MHz vs. the same card from other PC vendors... Why?

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Have to agree here, even with 7 macs and 1 PC in house.


Gunleik

 

[Martin Jäger]

ok..

ok..

i assume one reason could be that apple want's to keep their reputation of "it just works" - so might be that they are just carefull with choosing their components.. well i changed to apple 12 years ago and i'm far away from changing back to wintel - that's why i really hope for either a new compositing software from apple or a mac version of fusion.. unless after-effects 8.0 will change alot.. and i'm willing to take a step back in GPU performance just because i know the hassle you can have with wintel machies (or let's say no-name macs )

 

[Anders Holck]

Yeah, when Apple switched to intel I was sure hoping that there was going to be a revival of the third party GFX card market.
Now that big-endian, open firmware, ADC etc. are long gone, it's hard to see why Nvidia and ATI couldn't release mac drivers for their PC cards and get SLI going as well...

 

[Bruce Allen]

Yeah, when Apple switched to intel I was sure hoping that there was going to be a revival of the third party GFX card market.
Now that big-endian, open firmware, ADC etc. are long gone, it's hard to see why Nvidia and ATI couldn't release mac drivers for their PC cards and get SLI going as well...

True! I will ask my friend who writes drivers for nVidia to see if he can give us any hints as to why this is.

Similarly, I thought they would have 2x4 core Macs at the same time as PCs.

Bruce, it looks you are pretty outdated with yours Mac state opinion. Mac is on Intel more than year and Macintosh is really looking to get the best from that CPU-GPU hardware platform. I think you are still believe in all that "foggy" high-end PC propaganda. There are really many options but not any works well as advertised. To conclude is to say everybody want to make money with a fog on Windows platform as we all know well. And they are all rich and fat, Ballmer, Gates, etc... With the Mac is a bit opposite. It works as advertised. And also they want to make money. So keep in mind that before you talk Mac, Bruce!

I usually agree with everything you post, but not this one.

1. A Geforce 8 series is much faster than the Geforce 7 series.
2. I can put two Geforce 8's in most PCs and run them in parallel (SLI)

So, we have:

PC - two Geforce 8's
versus
MAC - one GeForce 7 or old-gen ATI.

Not fuzzy. You can put more GPUs in the Mac, but they won't run in parallel to render the same frame.

This should change at NAB (I assume either GeForce 8 or the new ATI to go with the new Macs).

Oh, and if the above setup for PC wasn't fancy enough, you could get two Quadro Plexes

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Anders,

There are two problems with using / creating graphics hardware for Macs. First of all, Apple is not using the same type of BIOS structure that most PCs use... Their systems are EFI, which some PCs are also, but even EFI PCs have PC BIOS fallback and compatibility. Windows supports both BIOS and EFI, the latter to a lesser degree. So this requires peripheral cards on the Mac to have different firmware than they do for the PC in most cases. Not a big deal, but there is the issue of getting hardware vendors to actually create and implement the necessary firmware. AMD/ATI is starting to do this. They have released the X1900GT card for G5 PCI-E Macs, which was nice and made sense. But I'm unsure why they're not pushing any other Mac options at the moment except for the OEM X1900XT for the Mac Pro which is only sold through Apple.

The other problem with video devices on the Apple platform is Apple's driver distribution model. Graphics drivers are tied directly to the kernel under OSX and hardware vendors have to submit their code and driver software to Apple for testing, approval and incorporation into OS updates.

These are inconveniences to hardware vendors and they have little desire to produce Mac graphics hardware when they can't even keep up with demand on the PC side of things.

Bruce, if you know someone at nVidia, I've got a question for them! Ask them why their Mac drivers don't support display rotation... It's standard fare on their PC drivers and ATI rotates the display with their Mac drivers. I prefer nVidia over ATI in most cases because they have a better OpenGL implementation and more polished dirvers in PC land, but this is one nagging thing about their Mac support that drives me nuts.

For NAB I bet we see the latest Quadro cards for Mac and most likely a couple GeForce 8 series options. I will be very surprised if we don't see an announcement of 8-core Macs too.

Most likely the big reason Apple held off on the 2x4-core Macs thus far is the quad-core Intel release didn't co-incide with their typical ~6month product cycle. Combined with waiting for the upcoming Stoakley/Seaburg chipset, which provides far better support for the quad-core CPUs as well as support for the upcoming unified quad-core and 45nm offerings from Intel we may see late this year or early next.

Apple likes to pace themselves. And while their sales have never been higher, I also think that they're cutting themselves short. A lot of people still purchase systems regardless of OS and just by studying CPU and hardware options. They no longer have the mystique of the different CPU platform and all the marketing voodoo associated with it. No matter how you slice it, they're just an Intel PC these days. A very well built one too, especially for the price, but they need to step up a bit on peripheral options and update cycles. Their slower pace keeps a lot of potential "switchers" from coming over.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Bruce,

when thinking Apple my logic is very simple and it goes like this:

1. RED is according to computer hardware primary Apple on Intel Mac OS X oriented.
2. REDCINE is developed on Apple computers.
3. Jim and Graeme like "GODS" of REDCINE are also extremely Apple oriented.
4. As all above is Apple based together with REDCINE why should I think or care about "How PC is more GPU powerful than Apple!!??"?

And NAB 2007 will show us power of REDCINE+APPLE hardware for sure. We don't have to worry about it. Everything is already set up earlier and now driving in that direction safely.

 

[Rob Lohman]

2. REDCINE is developed on both Windows & Apple systems!

Although RED is Apple oriented there are enough Windows work stations around. I'm already running several here...

 

[Gunleik Groven]

2. REDCINE is developed on both Windows & Apple systems!

Although RED is Apple oriented there are enough Windows work stations around. I'm already running several here...

And that is crucial for the migration of Red.

Gunleik

 

[Anders Holck]

Yeah it's true about the BIOS, but I guess will see winpc going all EFI at some point.

Apples driver model only applies to the OEM cards they ship with their computers.

Ati's third party cards have their own driver update cycle, and you need to download the driver updates from Ati.

BTV. have you seen ATI's new campaign: http://ati.amd.com/online/red/red.html

 

[Bruce Allen]

Bruce, if you know someone at nVidia, I've got a question for them! Ask them why their Mac drivers don't support display rotation... It's standard fare on their PC drivers and ATI rotates the display with their Mac drivers. I prefer nVidia over ATI in most cases because they have a better OpenGL implementation and more polished dirvers in PC land, but this is one nagging thing about their Mac support that drives me nuts.

AFAIK, there are different teams writing drivers for Mac, XP, Vista, Linux, etc. Inside that, there are teams of people working on DirectX only, OpenGL only, etc.

The reason the Mac drivers don't support the same things the Windows drivers do is because the Mac team hasn't done it yet I will ask my friend if he knows why and ask him to send them a gentle nudge...

By the way, my friend says that despite what rumors you might have heard about prioritizing DirectX for Vista, OpenGL is still a very high priority in Windows driver development - all of the great coders who wrote the early OpenGL drivers for nVidia are still there, still 100% working on OpenGL. That was reassuring.

Also reassuring is that, having gone through Comp Sci undergrad with my friend, I can tell you that he is by far the most talented programmer I know. He used to write 3D engines in assembly. He does the most beautifully fast and understandable C++ you have ever read. He is the one coder I know who I'd rank at genius level.

The fact that nVidia somehow found him in South Africa (where he was working on PS2 games...) and brought him over to the USA really says a lot for them scouring the globe for the best graphics programmers out there. I have no doubt that their Vista drivers will very shortly become awesome. I'm sure ATI is similar... but still, they didn't find and hire my friend, so they can't be quite as good

By the way, if anyone on the Red team has problems / questions with RedCine on Vista on a Geforce 8, or if you just want to optimize it a bit, let me know - I will get you in touch with my friend.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Zach Hilton]

4. As all above is Apple based together with REDCINE why should I think or care about "How PC is more GPU powerful than Apple!!??"?

Just offering my opinion here. If encoding your redcode footage through redcine is at all helped by the GPU, then that is why you would care about having more GPU processing power (2 geforce 8800's in SLI for example). There is A LOT of processing power in the GPU and when you can accurately program it and take advantage of that power, you can CHEAPLY have a reasonable super computer in your home. I would assume that eventually the Red Team will incorporate GPU acceleration of the Redcine process and when and if they add CUDA programming as well...all the more better. Check this article...http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/16/nvidia_cuda/.
It just makes me really excited to be able to have a computer for under 3k that would be capable of processing teraflops. Very impressive in my opinion.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

AFAIK, there are different teams writing drivers for Mac, XP, Vista, Linux, etc. Inside that, there are teams of people working on DirectX only, OpenGL only, etc.

The reason the Mac drivers don't support the same things the Windows drivers do is because the Mac team hasn't done it yet I will ask my friend if he knows why and ask him to send them a gentle nudge...

I pretty well figured that... It's just curious that display rotation continues to be ignored on the Mac. It's a feature that tons of people are screaming for and most desktop publishing and page layout pros who know their Mac hardware will not buy a Mac with an nVidia chip because of this reason.

By the way, my friend says that despite what rumors you might have heard about prioritizing DirectX for Vista, OpenGL is still a very high priority in Windows driver development - all of the great coders who wrote the early OpenGL drivers for nVidia are still there, still 100% working on OpenGL. That was reassuring.

Reassuring yes, but I would have never doubted that... Regardless of Microsoft's DirectX / Vista propaganda. Too many professional apps and cross-platform games use OpenGL. Actually, the way I understand it anyway, Vista actually lets OpenGL move closer in to the kernel and core OS components vs. Win2K/XP so it's better for us all.

Also reassuring is that, having gone through Comp Sci undergrad with my friend, I can tell you that he is by far the most talented programmer I know. He used to write 3D engines in assembly. He does the most beautifully fast and understandable C++ you have ever read. He is the one coder I know who I'd rank at genius level.

I have a friend that's on that level as well. He's mostly been in game programming since college. We didn't go to college together, but were old high school buddies. It was funny, he used to ask me programming questions and I originally taught him C++. Anymore, he's a programming god and it's me asking the questions. His last job was as some kind of programming or code director at Activision, but he's since moved on. I don't know where he works now, he told me but it slips my mind. He's essentially their lead programmer now and working on some kind of revolutionary new 3D game engine.