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HELP on if/how to upgrade cMP 5,1 for video production work
- Thread starter johnnydevil
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You haven't had to handle RMAs when people send back card and say "I was just trying it out to see what would happen" like a 5 year old playing with matches.
Only I'm the one who gets burned.
Alrighty. So, for those who have been following along with this nonsense, here's where things have ended up for now.
First, I'm actually up and running. So, feel free to strike up the band.
Couple interesting tidbits. First, before doing the swap, I did a new export of this project from AE 2014 with my old ATI Radeon HD 5770 just to get a non-scientific benchmark for speed. Then, after getting up and running with the
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, I rendered the same exact project again. (I've yet to get any additional ram or make any moves on upgrading the processors.)
This was the result (#5, the old ATI, #6, the new GTX):
So, not going to lie. This one stung a lil' bit.
And yeah, I adjusted the GPU settings before going for that other render. So, just for FYI:
At first I was like, "oh no! It's an unsupported GPU!" But, after a lil' research, I think it's saying that because RayTraced is no longer supported and this GPU is on the newer side.
So, here, thus far...no substantial change. Now, I should point out, this is ONLY rendering...I've yet to attempt any actual "work" inside of AE or Premiere Pro.
Now, Premiere Pro. After attempting the above AE render, I fired up my feature length documentary Premiere Pro 2014 source file and exported the entire length. And the wonderful news? It didn't crash.
Formerly, there was NO WAY it would make it through a render without me restarting my computer, shutting everything down, and firing up *only* premiere Pro. And even then, it was a guessing game. So this is a major victory.
Plus, I opened up Premiere Pro 2015...and an exciting thing happened. It worked. It played back video and audio right off the bat. And that didn't happen once with the Radeon.
So. Again. Happy. I'm flirting with the idea of going to 64GB of ram...although at this point, I feel as though I've already won. I can't tell you how huge of a deal it is that I rendered my full documentary project timeline, without a crash, the first time, without needing to restart the computer.
ALSO...thus far, the tower seems to be running cooler...which is another huge victory given that my workstation is in a smaller space and would have me in a sauna during the summer months.
I did make one final dumb mistake in all of this, and that was buying two HDMI cables instead of two display port cables. So, I only have two of my three monitors up and running as of right now. BUT, the key is this thing is running. The machine sees the card that's in there *as* the card that's in there.
I really appreciate all the feedback provided. Now. Ram or Processor...what should the next step be?
First, I'm actually up and running. So, feel free to strike up the band.
Couple interesting tidbits. First, before doing the swap, I did a new export of this project from AE 2014 with my old ATI Radeon HD 5770 just to get a non-scientific benchmark for speed. Then, after getting up and running with the
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, I rendered the same exact project again. (I've yet to get any additional ram or make any moves on upgrading the processors.)
This was the result (#5, the old ATI, #6, the new GTX):
So, not going to lie. This one stung a lil' bit.
And yeah, I adjusted the GPU settings before going for that other render. So, just for FYI:
At first I was like, "oh no! It's an unsupported GPU!" But, after a lil' research, I think it's saying that because RayTraced is no longer supported and this GPU is on the newer side.
So, here, thus far...no substantial change. Now, I should point out, this is ONLY rendering...I've yet to attempt any actual "work" inside of AE or Premiere Pro.
Now, Premiere Pro. After attempting the above AE render, I fired up my feature length documentary Premiere Pro 2014 source file and exported the entire length. And the wonderful news? It didn't crash.
Formerly, there was NO WAY it would make it through a render without me restarting my computer, shutting everything down, and firing up *only* premiere Pro. And even then, it was a guessing game. So this is a major victory.
Plus, I opened up Premiere Pro 2015...and an exciting thing happened. It worked. It played back video and audio right off the bat. And that didn't happen once with the Radeon.
So. Again. Happy. I'm flirting with the idea of going to 64GB of ram...although at this point, I feel as though I've already won. I can't tell you how huge of a deal it is that I rendered my full documentary project timeline, without a crash, the first time, without needing to restart the computer.
ALSO...thus far, the tower seems to be running cooler...which is another huge victory given that my workstation is in a smaller space and would have me in a sauna during the summer months.
I did make one final dumb mistake in all of this, and that was buying two HDMI cables instead of two display port cables. So, I only have two of my three monitors up and running as of right now. BUT, the key is this thing is running. The machine sees the card that's in there *as* the card that's in there.
I really appreciate all the feedback provided. Now. Ram or Processor...what should the next step be?
If you upgrade the CPU you may need different RAM for it to be well optimized. Not sure how well premier works with more CPUs, but if it works well, then that would provide a HUGE gain if you move up from 4 core to 12...
That said, the single biggest productivity gain I've had is going to a full SSD boot/work drive. As always, YMMV.
Oh, and congrats on your project, and the card fixing your render problems. 2 out of 3 aint bad.
That said, the single biggest productivity gain I've had is going to a full SSD boot/work drive. As always, YMMV.
Oh, and congrats on your project, and the card fixing your render problems. 2 out of 3 aint bad.
Thanks! I do at least have an 8 core, but yeah. Only the 2.4 GHZ variety. Also, I have two hybrid drives, one for the boot and one for the work. Going full SSD on the work drive for the doc is probably a bit overzealous since the raw footage is at nearly two terabytes. But still, I have an SSD on my 2012 Mac Book Pro (granted only 250GB, so I often have to work around that limitation) so I've experienced that lovely boot speed and such. Weirdly, it hasn't felt much faster *in* AE or Premiere Pro, even if I'm working 100% locally. Course, then Ram and processor of course comes to.
Yeah. I admit it. I feel like I've gone through a very effective vocational school in this thread, but yeah. Me and all of the different hardware formulas. I go cross-eyed in a hurry.
Congrats on the effective upgrade!
Regarding what to update next: can you have a look in activity monitor to see what resources are being gobbled up by Premiere during rendering for example? There you can see how much of your current memory is being used and if an upgrade helps. Especially "Swap Used" should be 0 preferably. I read somewhere (maybe here) that Adobe applications are quite memory hungry so this could indeed help.
And if you can find a nice deal on two X5675/X5680/X5690's; go ahead! The higher single core clockspeed alone will give overal performance a boost and I'm guessing that the rendering part is quite CPU-intensive?
Regarding what to update next: can you have a look in activity monitor to see what resources are being gobbled up by Premiere during rendering for example? There you can see how much of your current memory is being used and if an upgrade helps. Especially "Swap Used" should be 0 preferably. I read somewhere (maybe here) that Adobe applications are quite memory hungry so this could indeed help.
And if you can find a nice deal on two X5675/X5680/X5690's; go ahead! The higher single core clockspeed alone will give overal performance a boost and I'm guessing that the rendering part is quite CPU-intensive?
Thanks! I do at least have an 8 core, but yeah. Only the 2.4 GHZ variety. Also, I have two hybrid drives, one for the boot and one for the work. Going full SSD on the work drive for the doc is probably a bit overzealous since the raw footage is at nearly two terabytes. But still, I have an SSD on my 2012 Mac Book Pro (granted only 250GB, so I often have to work around that limitation) so I've experienced that lovely boot speed and such. Weirdly, it hasn't felt much faster *in* AE or Premiere Pro, even if I'm working 100% locally. Course, then Ram and processor of course comes to.
Yeah. I admit it. I feel like I've gone through a very effective vocational school in this thread, but yeah. Me and all of the different hardware formulas. I go cross-eyed in a hurry.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mushkin-planning-a-4tb-ssd-for-500.1949984/#post-22457655
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/bootable-4tb-ssd-on-classic-mac-pro.1842707/
I feel like a drug pusher. Go ahead, you want more SSD, you want more cores, you want more RAM. It'll feel great. Really.
Actually, if you have 8 cores, you're probably in a good place. Run it for a while as is and see if youre in a happy place. Some here suggested a little more memory might do some good, and that will be your next cheapest option. What I would do if you go forward with ram upgrades is get 16GB sticks that will work at max speed. You can go to 128GB on your rig...
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Ah. Veeeeery interesting. Will keep a close eye on that 4TB SSD mamma jamma.
And wow, you aren't messing around. 128GB. Still, that's more than twice what 64GB would cost. Is it more than twice the performance? Somewhere in there, there has to be a point of diminishing returns.
Says me. Who obviously knows exactly what he's talking about regarding this stuff.
I've got 24 here now, 8GB sticks. Was thinking of just buying another 5 8GB sticks to match the existing DDR3 1066s that I already have. The 16GB sticks are substantially more expensive.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1333-memory
ALSO. Display Port cables officially in tow. All three monitors are functional. Stoked. And, it's official now. My tower is running waaaay cooler without those two Radeons in there. Which, again. Is awesome.
And wow, you aren't messing around. 128GB. Still, that's more than twice what 64GB would cost. Is it more than twice the performance? Somewhere in there, there has to be a point of diminishing returns.
Says me. Who obviously knows exactly what he's talking about regarding this stuff.
I've got 24 here now, 8GB sticks. Was thinking of just buying another 5 8GB sticks to match the existing DDR3 1066s that I already have. The 16GB sticks are substantially more expensive.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1333-memory
ALSO. Display Port cables officially in tow. All three monitors are functional. Stoked. And, it's official now. My tower is running waaaay cooler without those two Radeons in there. Which, again. Is awesome.
Yea not sure if the price per gigabyte is worth it, and how much it actually helps productivity with the higher capacity 16gb sticks...so youre likely right.
Much less expensive here. Lots of members here vouch for this vendor:
http://www.datamemorysystems.com/ap...06ghz-md771ll/a-cto-mid-2012-memory-upgrades/
Only get a lot of RAM if your machine runs heavy-duty applications that need that much.
http://www.datamemorysystems.com/ap...06ghz-md771ll/a-cto-mid-2012-memory-upgrades/
Only get a lot of RAM if your machine runs heavy-duty applications that need that much.
I got these.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008542F60?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage
128GB. Run cool without heat sinks. Runs at 1333MHz despite using all 8 banks.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Given the kind of work I do, I've decided to just do 64GB after reading this:
http://video.stackexchange.com/ques...ry-adobe-premiere-pro-can-efficiently-utilize
I think that will safely get me to the "end of life" on this particular machine...and candidly, is just...less expensive. I think money not spent on ram would be better spent on an SSD.
Quick aside, did some actual work in photoshop, where I'd never really noticed it being slow before. Opened up a larger file, and then opened up a complex smart layer that was within it, and holy the crap. It's safe to say it opened waaaay faster. No buyers remorse here.
http://video.stackexchange.com/ques...ry-adobe-premiere-pro-can-efficiently-utilize
I think that will safely get me to the "end of life" on this particular machine...and candidly, is just...less expensive. I think money not spent on ram would be better spent on an SSD.
Quick aside, did some actual work in photoshop, where I'd never really noticed it being slow before. Opened up a larger file, and then opened up a complex smart layer that was within it, and holy the crap. It's safe to say it opened waaaay faster. No buyers remorse here.
Glad to hear you're up and running with the 980 Ti.
There are some CUDA functions in AE the new GPU should accelerate but I don't remember what they are. I know in Premiere, how the program handles codecs is greatly affected by the amount of CUDA power, such as building preview files. All you have to do is try building previews with the 980 Ti enable and disabled and you will see a significant speed difference in processing.
What to do next? If you plan to upgrade the processors, personally I would not buy any more PC3-8500 DDR3 ECC 1066MHz ram. You would be better off buying PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz. But what you do now regarding ram really depends on your timeframe for upgrading the processors. While 128GB would be nice, 48GB or 64GB has been plenty in my experience. The only caveat, as you know how much ram you have determines how much buffering you can do in AE. So, in this regard a good argument can be made for using AE with 128GB... Premiere? Not so much from what I can see. Premiere never uses all of the 48GB I'm giving it now.
So, I think you're on track as far as what upgrades to do next and I rate them by importances as follows...
1) SSD for OS and APPs (500GB Samsung EVO 850 in an internal drive bay)
2) Processors (dual 2.93GHz X5670 or better)
3) faster data I/O storage for media files (USB 3.0 6G RAID or better)
4) Ram (48GB or 64GB)
There are some CUDA functions in AE the new GPU should accelerate but I don't remember what they are. I know in Premiere, how the program handles codecs is greatly affected by the amount of CUDA power, such as building preview files. All you have to do is try building previews with the 980 Ti enable and disabled and you will see a significant speed difference in processing.
What to do next? If you plan to upgrade the processors, personally I would not buy any more PC3-8500 DDR3 ECC 1066MHz ram. You would be better off buying PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz. But what you do now regarding ram really depends on your timeframe for upgrading the processors. While 128GB would be nice, 48GB or 64GB has been plenty in my experience. The only caveat, as you know how much ram you have determines how much buffering you can do in AE. So, in this regard a good argument can be made for using AE with 128GB... Premiere? Not so much from what I can see. Premiere never uses all of the 48GB I'm giving it now.
So, I think you're on track as far as what upgrades to do next and I rate them by importances as follows...
1) SSD for OS and APPs (500GB Samsung EVO 850 in an internal drive bay)
2) Processors (dual 2.93GHz X5670 or better)
3) faster data I/O storage for media files (USB 3.0 6G RAID or better)
4) Ram (48GB or 64GB)
Thanks Bytehoven.
Will admit. Stupid lesson just learned. Apple was harping me to upgrade to 10.11.3, and without thinking about it, I relented. Of course, this was before I downloaded the latest NVIDIA drivers. So. Whoops! I've had my first "temporarily swap out to the old Radeon" experience. Aaaaaaaand hopefully the last.
But, good news is, after a few curse words and self loathing...I'm back.
Still, even before this dumb oversight, Illustrator CS2015 was acting a little funny today. It crashed a few times while I was working on a logo, and that had never happened previously with the Radeon. Never once. I hope that maybe, just maybe, there was a font or something in there that wasn't agreeable. I've ran into no such issue in Photoshop thus far. Since actually completing the update, I've ironically yet to do any real video work. Hopefully tomorrow I'll dive in for the first time.
I know. I know. You're all looking forward to getting updates like these FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES about what's going on with me and my 2010 Mac Pro.
Will admit. Stupid lesson just learned. Apple was harping me to upgrade to 10.11.3, and without thinking about it, I relented. Of course, this was before I downloaded the latest NVIDIA drivers. So. Whoops! I've had my first "temporarily swap out to the old Radeon" experience. Aaaaaaaand hopefully the last.
But, good news is, after a few curse words and self loathing...I'm back.
Still, even before this dumb oversight, Illustrator CS2015 was acting a little funny today. It crashed a few times while I was working on a logo, and that had never happened previously with the Radeon. Never once. I hope that maybe, just maybe, there was a font or something in there that wasn't agreeable. I've ran into no such issue in Photoshop thus far. Since actually completing the update, I've ironically yet to do any real video work. Hopefully tomorrow I'll dive in for the first time.
I know. I know. You're all looking forward to getting updates like these FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES about what's going on with me and my 2010 Mac Pro.
I know. I know. You're all looking forward to getting updates like these FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES about what's going on with me and my 2010 Mac Pro.
http://www.macvidcards.com/blog
JayQu... in the future, before you attempt any update, check the link above to see if MacVid has also provided support for the update. This includes even the simple security updates which can break things. I'm staying with 10.10.5 for as long as I can.
Clone, Clone, Clone... never attempt any update or software install without having an up to date clone of your OS/APP volume. NEVER. I keep a 1TB HDD in one of my internal drive bays as a go to OS/APP back up. I use Tech Tool Pro 8 as my cloning software, as it has never failed be like Super Duper or Carbon Copy have.
As the $$$ starts flowing in on my current 4K edit and I start paying off all these upgrades to my Mac Pro, I plan to buy a Samsung EVO 850 500GB SSD to become my master OS/APP boot volume and I'll make my current Crucial 500GB SSD my back up. That will greatly speed up the sync cloning process.
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Checking in after some passing time.
The good news, all is working pretty well. Still, there's been a few weird things.
First, for whatever reason, Adobe Illustrator CC 2015 was *not* getting along with this card (many many crashes). But, once I unchecked this box: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ovm8pya1t6fmvg1/Screenshot 2016-02-18 18.17.55.png?dl=0 all started working fine. (NVIDIA just released new drivers today, so I may try with that box checked again and see how it goes)
There is one odd thing that has been taking place, and I'm not sure what I can do about it. It's like...the card has the monitor order confused until I'm logged into OSX.
For example, as seen here, you can tell that the middle monitor is acting like it's 4x3 with black bars on the left and right. And the right monitor (though you can't tell in this image), is acting like it's 16x9 with black bars on the top and bottom. For frame of reference, these monitors, from left to right, are: 1920x1200 | 1920x1200 | 1600 x 1200.
Once I login to OSX, all seems fine. The center 16x9 is properly 16x9 and the cintiq is proper 4x3. But, there are some odd ghosts in the machine. Number one, Illustrator (and only illustrator, no other software acts this way) always opens halfway underneath the apple Menu bar at the top. Like, the whole application seems to open higher than it should, and I always have to manually pull it down towards the dock on the bottom of the screen (which live on the center monitor).
Second, and a bit more perplexing, is something happening exclusively in Premiere Pro CC 2015. My mouse cursor is sometimes misaligned with the timeline target track. Say, if I want to put a video track on V1, my mouse needs to be hovering over V3 and over to the left.
Here's a quick video that illustrates the problem.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yebns7vc68ukycl/PPplaceIssue.mp4?dl=0
Is this perhaps related to the "monitor order" 16x9 VS 4x3 issue? Any idea in how to tell the Nvidia drivers which monitor is which before login? The Cintiq is hooked to the one DVI output on the card, the other two are connected via the display port cables.
As ever, any feedback is appreciated.
Cheers!
The good news, all is working pretty well. Still, there's been a few weird things.
First, for whatever reason, Adobe Illustrator CC 2015 was *not* getting along with this card (many many crashes). But, once I unchecked this box: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ovm8pya1t6fmvg1/Screenshot 2016-02-18 18.17.55.png?dl=0 all started working fine. (NVIDIA just released new drivers today, so I may try with that box checked again and see how it goes)
There is one odd thing that has been taking place, and I'm not sure what I can do about it. It's like...the card has the monitor order confused until I'm logged into OSX.
For example, as seen here, you can tell that the middle monitor is acting like it's 4x3 with black bars on the left and right. And the right monitor (though you can't tell in this image), is acting like it's 16x9 with black bars on the top and bottom. For frame of reference, these monitors, from left to right, are: 1920x1200 | 1920x1200 | 1600 x 1200.
Once I login to OSX, all seems fine. The center 16x9 is properly 16x9 and the cintiq is proper 4x3. But, there are some odd ghosts in the machine. Number one, Illustrator (and only illustrator, no other software acts this way) always opens halfway underneath the apple Menu bar at the top. Like, the whole application seems to open higher than it should, and I always have to manually pull it down towards the dock on the bottom of the screen (which live on the center monitor).
Second, and a bit more perplexing, is something happening exclusively in Premiere Pro CC 2015. My mouse cursor is sometimes misaligned with the timeline target track. Say, if I want to put a video track on V1, my mouse needs to be hovering over V3 and over to the left.
Here's a quick video that illustrates the problem.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yebns7vc68ukycl/PPplaceIssue.mp4?dl=0
Is this perhaps related to the "monitor order" 16x9 VS 4x3 issue? Any idea in how to tell the Nvidia drivers which monitor is which before login? The Cintiq is hooked to the one DVI output on the card, the other two are connected via the display port cables.
As ever, any feedback is appreciated.
Cheers!
I have not seen that display issues. I have had an issue with apps opening on a different desktop than the main desktop. I have not found a solution yet. Only common issue with monitors I have noticed, sometime if I turn off one or two of the four monitors, it can trigger MIRROR mode on the remaining monitors, but I can turn it off with the system preferences.
Regarding the mouse experience in Premiere, the only thing I have noticed that comes close, is when creating a title. When creating a title for the 1st time and when you're adding a text box, the text field ends up starting above and to the left from where the cursor is located. Otherwise I have not noticed any mouse issues.
Once in awhile, when I'm creating masks for color grading EFXs, Premiere behaves oddly, such as the size of the source image scaling down, moving to the right or even going black while I'm setting points with the mask pen. Restarting Premiere solves this problems so I have assumed it's just another bug within premiere.