What Graphics Card and why?

[xmanflash]

I am going to test out an Asus EN8600GT tomorrow. It is dual DVI, 512MB, PCIe 16x and even has a component output cable. It's a $125. card.

If it works, would you consider that a reasonably low cost solution that you would buy?

This is an excellent card series (8600GT) for general and Edius use, and a little 3D game and Vista interface thrown in on the weekends :-)

[gdame]

Jerry - Kenneally, that's exactly why I brought up the subject of overkill.

Aside the issues that some cards are better for other things, and that some people might also use the bundled Xplode (can't think why?) my point is that there is no reason to 'over-buy' a gfx card for Edius. I am specifically trying to establish what softwware/hardware is responsible for what, with ref. to Edius - not Edius with AE, Edius with Microsoft Office or Edius with cherries on top - just Edius - and the formats and features it supports.

We agree, there is absolutely no need to buy an Nvidia Quadro FX series, even the FX370, as something like the ATI HD PRO 2400 can handle a 1080p signal on a monitor@2560x1600, so it is more than overkill for Edius work at $60. Not cool, not luxury, not nice - just functional.

In my experience Nvidia drivers and hardware tend to be very picky about which systems they live in. Spending $10.000 on a powerful Nvidia will not give you peace of mind or guaranteed errorless performance. On my color grading sytem I'm running the FX4500 with SDI - the drivers for that thing constantly drive me nuts, but it is necessary for grading in realtime on that system. A Quadro FX1500 is not necessary for doing HD on Edius with no specific software written to use the features on the harware.

xeberdee,

I have built dozens of low end systems as well as high end and I have dozens of ex Storm edit users that have migrated to Edius. Some are at 3.xx, while others are at 4.5x. In these systems most are running the GeForce FX 5200. This is an AGP card with 256MB and has dual VGA. Works great with Edius and all other apps. It's a $60-80 card.

My preference for Nvidia over ATI is purley because I like the dual desktop management software better and all the system that I sell come with dual monitors.

As for PCIe choices, there are plenty Nvidia based cards out there at less than $50. It has been a long time since I have tried to build a system at the lowest cost possiable, but I bet that some of the low end components would work. I will tell you what. I have a rather high end system on my bench right now. I am going to test out an Asus EN8600GT tomorrow. It is dual DVI, 512MB, PCIe 16x and even has a component output cable. It's a $125. card.

If it works, would you consider that a reasonably low cost solution that you would buy?

[xeberdee]

Jerry - Kenneally, that's exactly why I brought up the subject of overkill.

Aside the issues that some cards are better for other things, and that some people might also use the bundled Xplode (can't think why?) my point is that there is no reason to 'over-buy' a gfx card for Edius. I am specifically trying to establish what softwware/hardware is responsible for what, with ref. to Edius - not Edius with AE, Edius with Microsoft Office or Edius with cherries on top - just Edius - and the formats and features it supports.

We agree, there is absolutely no need to buy an Nvidia Quadro FX series, even the FX370, as something like the ATI HD PRO 2400 can handle a 1080p signal on a monitor@2560x1600, so it is more than overkill for Edius work at $60. Not cool, not luxury, not nice - just functional.

In my experience Nvidia drivers and hardware tend to be very picky about which systems they live in. Spending $10.000 on a powerful Nvidia will not give you peace of mind or guaranteed errorless performance. On my color grading sytem I'm running the FX4500 with SDI - the drivers for that thing constantly drive me nuts, but it is necessary for grading in realtime on that system. A Quadro FX1500 is not necessary for doing HD on Edius with no specific software written to use the features on the harware.

[xmanflash]

It's not necessary for running EDIUS alone. It's still a hotly debated topic around the globe. There is a list of driver specific settings with each Quadro card that written especially for many programs like Lightwave, Maya, 3dsMax, After Effetcs, AutoCad etc etc a big list.

OK - I'll rephrase the question :-)

"Why would anyone choose a Quadro card over a Geforce card for an Edius rig.."

I cant imagine any tangible benefit in Edius. They were designed to handle serious OpenGL display list processing (for 3D vector based applications) back when normal games cards had little firepower.

The Games market is now more demanding than the CAD CAM market in exactly the same areas, 3D vector rendering of photorealistic scenes, so complex they are glorious! and according to my CAD/Drafting friend there is little benefit for the absurd price difference these days in his profeasion... Some benchmarks may be in order..

[Jerry]

Jerry,

Are you saying the new ATI 38XX cards are not working for you? What ATI cards have you tried that don't work? Also have you tried the ATI/Nvidia Driver posted by Antonsvideo?

In some systems ATI cards are IRQ hogs and will not play well with some controller cards. My 1950x has that problem in my big system. Thats why I went to a Quadro card. I moved the 1950x onto my other system and it works fine. Since I use Vitascene in 1920x1080 settings, I have to move to a 512mb card in order to use all of the effects.
Randys receipe works great on the right card. It did not give me RT on Xplode with the 1950x or on my Quadro. My definition of RT is no red line above the timeline. It will play through in SD but still has a red line. RT is welcomed, but it is not all things to me.
It did work on my 9800pro.
I have never had an IRQ issue with an Nvidia card. I have to attribute that to the drivers.

[majormauser]

I noticed you have an 8800gt. How is that working for you? Some posters have mentioned issues with the 8800 series with Edius. Is that the G92 version that you have or one of the early ones. I;m looking at that, the 9800 and the 9800gt2. I have to move to a 512 card. ATI won't work for me.

Jerry,

Are you saying the new ATI 38XX cards are not working for you? What ATI cards have you tried that don't work? Also have you tried the ATI/Nvidia Driver posted by Antonsvideo?

[Jerry]

Radeon 38xx as well as 29xx make a lot of trouble for non-gamers, do not go for it. The best choice for Xplode is Radeon X1950 Pro or XT, better with 512mb DDR3 memory- tested!
By the way X1900 for Powermac is much better then budget-type card 2600.
What about processors- I have Quad Core Extreme for $1300 and I can say that it is wasting of money... Go for Dual Core that can support faster bus speed- you computer will be faster and you will save something...

I noticed you have an 8800gt. How is that working for you? Some posters have mentioned issues with the 8800 series with Edius. Is that the G92 version that you have or one of the early ones. I;m looking at that, the 9800 and the 9800gt2. I have to move to a 512 card. ATI won't work for me.

[mike0130]

Radeon 38xx as well as 29xx make a lot of trouble for non-gamers, do not go for it. The best choice for Xplode is Radeon X1950 Pro or XT, better with 512mb DDR3 memory- tested!
By the way X1900 for Powermac is much better then budget-type card 2600.
What about processors- I have Quad Core Extreme for $1300 and I can say that it is wasting of money... Go for Dual Core that can support faster bus speed- you computer will be faster and you will save something...

[majormauser]

Hello,

I want to merge to Edius software and I have to change my computer.
So I have 2 questions :
1)I read a lot of things about graphic cards and Xplode RT, so I would like to know if a recent card as RADEON HD 38XX - 512Mo works with Xplode RT
2)Is processor Q6600 best solution for the future Edius version than E6850?

Right now I have not seen a HD 38XX but I have the HD2600 working in real time on My MacPro which is a Quad Core. Right now Quad Core processors seem to be supported more by RENDERING codecs like MPEG... But the Main App "Edius" seems to only use 2 Cores.

[pablo01]

Hello,

I want to merge to Edius software and I have to change my computer.
So I have 2 questions :
1)I read a lot of things about graphic cards and Xplode RT, so I would like to know if a recent card as RADEON HD 38XX - 512Mo works with Xplode RT
2)Is processor Q6600 best solution for the future Edius version than E6850?

[GrassValley_KH]

Firstly let's talk about Edius here. We can talk about After Effects on the After Effects forum. I'm interested in knowing what the minimum requirements for grphic cards on a fully functional Edius Broadcast 4.xx are.


Question for gdame:

If Edius is written to specifically use features from the FX Quadro series, it would be nice to know which features they are:

Is GPU used for PC monitor signals only?
Is GPU used to help process the signals that appear on the GV baseband outputs?
Is GPU used in any way to process streaming file output?


There is rather a large price difference between a card meeting the minimum system requirements and the FX1500/1700 (I believe are used in the turnkeys).

Also I have not seen any information regarding specific features enabled from the Nvidias on Edius on the official website.

Of course the quality of cards are an issue (noise etc.), but I am a little confused as to what I am missing out on if I use a card with the minimum requirements and not a 'fully functional' Nvidia card.

I'm not GDame, but I'll field this one - there aren't presently any NVIDIA-specific optimisations within EDIUS, beyond being able to use Direct3D for overlay reproduction. This is a feature that is found within any Direct3D v9 compatible graphics card that supports PixelShader 2.0. Regular "gamer" NVIDIA and ATI boards from the last 18months will happily accept this.

The only other requirement is 128MB of graphics RAM needed for both SD and HD reproduction, from v4.5 onward. Again, it's almost impossible to buy a graphics board with 64MB of graphics RAM nowadays. The only systems that might be at risk are some laptops, and desktops that share overall system RAM for graphics RAM.

At present, EDIUS is not, nor should not be the determining factor for purchasing a Quadro over a Geforce. Rather, it is the associated applications you plan to use that would determine your choice. That's what this thread is getting at.

[cuervo]

I had been using an nVidia Geforce 7800GT...very expensive card...and I was getting corrupted displays. On the recommendations of this forum, I just replaced that Geforce with a Quadro FX1500. Everything seems smoother. No more screen corruptions. I'm convinced.

[majormauser]

I have the ATI 2600HD in my Mac Pro. The Standard card. with the ATI Edius Graphics Patch. I am running in Real time (SD).

is there any standard test we can do to see which is fastest?

Support for even more current graphics cards would be welcome.

[Jerry]

Firstly let's talk about Edius here. We can talk about After Effects on the After Effects forum. I'm interested in knowing what the minimum requirements for grphic cards on a fully functional Edius Broadcast 4.xx are.


Question for gdame:

If Edius is written to specifically use features from the FX Quadro series, it would be nice to know which features they are:

Is GPU used for PC monitor signals only?
Is GPU used to help process the signals that appear on the GV baseband outputs?
Is GPU used in any way to process streaming file output?


There is rather a large price difference between a card meeting the minimum system requirements and the FX1500/1700 (I believe are used in the turnkeys).

Also I have not seen any information regarding specific features enabled from the Nvidias on Edius on the official website.

Of course the quality of cards are an issue (noise etc.), but I am a little confused as to what I am missing out on if I use a card with the minimum requirements and not a 'fully functional' Nvidia card.

If you are not going to use AE or any other programs and have small displays,
then you could get by with any cheap card. Older ATI 800 series actually were the last ones to get really good reliable RT out of Xplode.
If you are not going to be using a full raster 1920x1080 project settings and using Vitascene, you won't need 512mb of ram. I now have to replace my Quadro 1500 because it has 256mb instead of the 512 needed. I am looking at the G92 8800gt and waiting to see the price on the 9800gt2. The mid price range of Nvidia 9600gt or the ATI 3970 are both in the $180 range.
Keep in mind several people have posted that they have had issues with the 8800 series. Now, I do not know if any of those are the G92 chipset or not.
You can do a search to read about this.

I have an ATI 1950x and a Quadro FX 1500. In Edius, there really is no difference. Except, in some systems I have found that ATI does not play well with some other cards in the system. I have yet to find that with Nvidia cards.
Or as I stated earlier within Vitascene.
Keep in mind that Xplode is an obsolete fx package and will be replaced, especially when we go to Vista. So, if you are buying the card based on
Xplode, I would think otherwise. Any new effects package will be driven by the GPU, much like Vitascene.
The bottom line:
If you are not doing any complicated effects, have large displays requiring 2560x1600 resolution, use other open gl programs, or expect some sort of Rt out of Xplode, then a basic PCIe card, if that is what you have, will work for you.
Hope this helps.

[xeberdee]

Firstly let's talk about Edius here. We can talk about After Effects on the After Effects forum. I'm interested in knowing what the minimum requirements for grphic cards on a fully functional Edius Broadcast 4.xx are.


Question for gdame:

If Edius is written to specifically use features from the FX Quadro series, it would be nice to know which features they are:

Is GPU used for PC monitor signals only?
Is GPU used to help process the signals that appear on the GV baseband outputs?
Is GPU used in any way to process streaming file output?


There is rather a large price difference between a card meeting the minimum system requirements and the FX1500/1700 (I believe are used in the turnkeys).

Also I have not seen any information regarding specific features enabled from the Nvidias on Edius on the official website.

Of course the quality of cards are an issue (noise etc.), but I am a little confused as to what I am missing out on if I use a card with the minimum requirements and not a 'fully functional' Nvidia card.