Video Card Setup

In running a 2x2.4g Quad-Core Xeon, 24gb mem, OS 10.7.4
Video cards installed are:
NVidia GeForce GTX285 (Slot 1)
NVidia GeForce GT120 (Slot 2)
Decklink Extreme 3D (Slot 3)

I seem to be having issues with one of the cards, which I think is the GT120 as my screen doesnt update ie pixelates/gets blocks across it which clear when I run the mouse over them, admittedly this is in FCP which I often have to restart to get Real Time playback of footage that should run RT no probs. Although I am having playback issues when I run my monitors out of the 285 as well. ??? Not sure whats happening, but at least the 285 doesnt leaves blocks all over the place.

The question I have is that if the GT120 has 'issues' and they aren't available anymore, then what should I do for cards so that I can run Resolve? Will I have to reconfigure?

Thanks.

Did you install the 120 in slot 1 first, operate the machine, and then swap it with the 285 without any monitors attached to it, and then re-start your computer again? This is a procedure that has been recommended by BMD since they offered the Resolve for Mac.

Luis

[Joshua Helling]

The issue you are seeing with the GT120 graphics card could very well be the graphics card itself behaving badly. If you don't have the issue with the GTX 285, then this is strongly possible.

So...what do you do in this case? See if apple can RMA it. They may not sell the card anymore but they might have have some stock to use for replacements, even if you have to pay for it. Obviously I can't guarantee it, but it's possible.

Another option is to Reconfigure, it will cost money, but you could do it. You can now use ATI cards as the GUI card and use some of the slimmer Qaudro 4000 cards as the Cuda render cards.

But in the case of using a GT120 and a GTX285 (both not on the market anymore) you would definately want the 285 in slot 1 with NO MONITORS connected and BOTH power leads connected (or you can have other issues) and the 120 in slot two with the monitor connected. We have numerous of these machines in our offices and they are still working well as far as processing goes, so I doubt the issue goes back to configuration.

Don't run the monitors off the 285 as this will severely hamper your performance.

Also keep in mind that real time performance is not solely the domain of the GPU's (though the GPU bar in the program monitor reflects only GPU rendering). The GPU's are responsible for rendering the frames, but ultimately your source footage plays off of normal hard drives. If they slow down, your playback does as well. So next time you see the non-real time performance, maybe run a disk speed test (which we bundle with our drivers) and give your drives a test to make sure they are keeping up.

Hope that helps.

Hello I got the Ati radeon 4870 in mine macpro
Is it possible to use this card as GUI for the monitor and buy a NVidia GeForce GTX285 (Slot 1) for the GPU and run resolve

[Joshua Helling]

Hello I got the Ati radeon 4870 in mine macpro
Is it possible to use this card as GUI for the monitor and buy a NVidia GeForce GTX285 (Slot 1) for the GPU and run resolve

Yes, this should work. We made a change a while ago that would allow the use of ATI cards in Resolve as either the GUI board or the processing board. Although the ATI boards don't use CUDA, so the nVidia boards are still preferred for processing. The ATI boards are just fine for GUI.

Hello I got the Ati radeon 4870 in mine macpro
Is it possible to use this card as GUI for the monitor and buy a NVidia GeForce GTX285 (Slot 1) for the GPU and run resolve

Yes, this should work. We made a change a while ago that would allow the use of ATI cards in Resolve as either the GUI board or the processing board. Although the ATI boards don't use CUDA, so the nVidia boards are still preferred for processing. The ATI boards are just fine for GUI.

So does that mean I can run the ATI Redeon 5770 instead of the 120? and keep the GTX285 in slot 1?

[Dwaine Maggart]

There are 2 issues with using an HD5770 with a GTX285.

1. It would require 3 Aux power connections, and the Mac motherboard only has 2. That could perhaps be dealt with somehow.

2. Both cards are double wide. Neither card will go into slot 2. At least not without creating a problem with slot 3, and I'm not sure either card would fit in slot 2 period.

There are 2 issues with using an HD5770 with a GTX285.

1. It would require 3 Aux power connections, and the Mac motherboard only has 2. That could perhaps be dealt with somehow.

2. Both cards are double wide. Neither card will go into slot 2. At least not without creating a problem with slot 3, and I'm not sure either card would fit in slot 2 period.

Thanks. Note to self, look before asking. Yes that is the case.

Did you install the 120 in slot 1 first, operate the machine, and then swap it with the 285 without any monitors attached to it, and then re-start your computer again? This is a procedure that has been recommended by BMD since they offered the Resolve for Mac.

Luis

Thanks. I have done this, and done it again. Still the same issue.

The issue you are seeing with the GT120 graphics card could very well be the graphics card itself behaving badly. If you don't have the issue with the GTX 285, then this is strongly possible.

So...what do you do in this case? See if apple can RMA it. They may not sell the card anymore but they might have have some stock to use for replacements, even if you have to pay for it. Obviously I can't guarantee it, but it's possible.

Another option is to Reconfigure, it will cost money, but you could do it. You can now use ATI cards as the GUI card and use some of the slimmer Qaudro 4000 cards as the Cuda render cards.

But in the case of using a GT120 and a GTX285 (both not on the market anymore) you would definately want the 285 in slot 1 with NO MONITORS connected and BOTH power leads connected (or you can have other issues) and the 120 in slot two with the monitor connected. We have numerous of these machines in our offices and they are still working well as far as processing goes, so I doubt the issue goes back to configuration.

Don't run the monitors off the 285 as this will severely hamper your performance.

Also keep in mind that real time performance is not solely the domain of the GPU's (though the GPU bar in the program monitor reflects only GPU rendering). The GPU's are responsible for rendering the frames, but ultimately your source footage plays off of normal hard drives. If they slow down, your playback does as well. So next time you see the non-real time performance, maybe run a disk speed test (which we bundle with our drivers) and give your drives a test to make sure they are keeping up.

Hope that helps.

Thanks Joshua,

I have run the displays off the 285 just to see if the same issues exist. I dont get that blockyness and it seems to run smoother although I do still get some playback speed issues, which brings me to the drive speeds you mentioned. I have the software but have no idea what the speeds should read / what good speeds are. What should I be hoping to see?

Thanks Justin

[Joshua Helling]

Thanks Joshua,

I have run the displays off the 285 just to see if the same issues exist. I dont get that blockyness and it seems to run smoother although I do still get some playback speed issues, which brings me to the drive speeds you mentioned. I have the software but have no idea what the speeds should read / what good speeds are. What should I be hoping to see?

Thanks Justin

This is gonna depend on what format you want to run. But if you are running 10bit 1080p23.98 you can expect to need around 123MB/second. That's to play one stream. If you have any layering, then you need to account for that. 3 SATA drives in a RAID0 will likely get you there (for 1080p23.98), but if you are using higher resolutions or frame rates you need to adjust for that.

Hey
I have done the speed test on my normal HD (110MB/s) and I bought a SSD with now (260MB/s) but I still don't get my 25fps. Only about 19fps.

I've got a MacPro 3.1, 2.8Ghz 8core
Resolve 8.2
6GB Ram
Gt120
Quadro4000
and a Intensity Card
But also if just one 8bit screen is running I don't get real-time.

What else can I check to get some workable performance?

Thanks
Christian

[Dwaine Maggart]

Christian, it depends on what type of files you are using and what timeline resolution you are using and what types of corrections you are using.

Basically, the 3,1 MacPro does not have great performance with Resolve. You can get best performance on it by using uncompressed source files (though your low disk bandwidth will preclude that) and by setting the Video Monitoring area Bit Depth setting to 8 bits. You should be able to get standard ProRes file playback rates of 25 FPS on an HD timeline with a few primary corrections. If you are using something like ProRes HQ or ProRes 444, maybe not.

Also make sure you have the GT120 and Quadro 4000 cards in slots 1 and 2. And that you do NOT have any displays connected to the Quadro 4000 card.

Thanks for the quick answer.
The advise going 8 bit really helped. Now I can play ProRes444 with a Alexa 3d lut in 25fps. The GPU is just sometimes going red. In 10 bit with the same Lut I get 21fps.
Is there a way to tell my old lady (Macpro) to give Resolve more than 50% CPU. It almost doesn't use ram. Only 1GB in this case.
Is there something else I could do, while waiting for a new MacPro?

Yesterday we where siting on a table with a female friend and we all had to explain here that a 6 year old HP is just to old to install all the stuff she wanted. She couldn't understand why? Only 6 years...

I feel a bit like here now. I don't understand what makes it so impossible to get a more or less good performance. i7 cores are faster, but still the speed increase on the Pro-line wasn't the usual 2x faster per Model. On: http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
My Model has around 10k, 2009 14k and well the 12core has 20k. okay I see...

Would a change to Lion help?

Thanks
Christian

[Dwaine Maggart]

Updating to Lion will likely not help much, if any.

The issue, as I understand it, is related to the vintage of CPU's used on a 3,1 Mac. They are using the front-side bus architecture (FSB) to communicate with other system devices and RAM. The CPU's on the 4,1 and higher MacPros use Intel's QPI (QuickPath Interconnect) architecture to communicate to other devices and RAM. QPI speeds things up a lot. There is really nothing you can do on a 3,1 MacPro to overcome the issue. So CPU intensive things, like QuickTime file decoding, run much slower on a 3,1 system.

I think the PCIE performance is also not as good. We added the 8 bit Video Depth setting to Resolve specifically to make 3,1 systems work better, by reducing the PCIE traffic a bit.

thanks
okay, that's a fact that our friend yesterday also had to realize. Old stays old.
But I just upgraded to v9.01 got the latest Cuda driver and in 8bit I get 25p on a 444 and 22 in 10bit with a technical grade (WB+contrast).
And I guess if I work with rendering while the client is explaining me what he wants I can work like that for the moment.
I really wish Resolve would have make a graph or something like LightBase for there new LOG controls. That would be handy.

Have a great day