Unflashed GTX 980, CUDA for Premiere & After Effects, Mac Pro 4,1

[Babyboi]

Hello mac pro forum.

My objective is to enable accelerated performance gains with CUDA support via the drivers from NVIDIA using After Effects & Premiere Pro.

My setup is: MacPro4,1 on 10.11.6, unflashed GTX 980.
The 980 is powered via this cable: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OSLLUPG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The problem that I am having is although I have installed Webdrivers and CUDA drivers, After Effects & premiere pro do not allow me to select the 980 for ray tracing acceleration. It says incompatible hardware or CUDA drivers.

I followed this guide:
http://create.pro/blog/how-to-insta...x-titan-x-980-ti-980-970-or-960-in-a-mac-pro/

I don't know how many drivers i've installed but I think I went through the ones that were suggested. the only thing I didn't install is probably the drivers for the 600 series which I think I saw from reading macrumors. Even in system preferences show the most recent drivers and updated. AE still won't show CUDA support.

Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe it's my process. If i'm missing any details please ask. Thank you for reading.

 

[h9826790]

You may pick the wrong GPU. GTX 980 is not in the supported list (not even Windows CUDA).

Supported GPUs for ray-traced 3D renderer
Windows CUDA

• GeForce GTX 285
• GeForce GTX 470
• GeForce GTX 570
• GeForce GTX 580
• GeForce GTX 590
• GeForce GTX 670
• GeForce GTX 675MX
• GeForce GTX 680
• GeForce GTX 680MX
• GeForce GTX 690
• GeForce GTX 760
• GeForce GTX 770
• GeForce GTX 780
• GeForce GTX TITAN
• GeForce GT 650M

• Quadro CX
• Quadro FX 3700M
• Quadro FX 3800
• Quadro FX 3800M
• Quadro FX 4800
• Quadro FX 5800
• Quadro 2000
• Quadro 2000D
• Quadro 2000M
• Quadro 3000M
• Quadro 4000
• Quadro 4000M
• Quadro 5000
• Quadro 5000M
• Quadro 5010M
• Quadro 6000
• Quadro K2000
• Quadro K2100M
• Quadro K3000M
• Quadro K3100M
• Quadro K4000
• Quadro K4000M
• Quadro K4100M
• Quadro K5000
• Quadro K5000M
• Quadro K5100M
• Quadro K6000
• Tesla C2075

macOS

• GeForce GTX 285
• GeForce GTX 675MX
• GeForce GTX 680
• GeForce GTX 680MX
• GeForce GT 650M
• Quadro CX
• Quadro FX 4800
• Quadro 4000
• Quadro K5000

 

[chrfr]

You may pick the wrong GPU. GTX 980 is not in the supported list (not even Windows CUDA).

You're not looking in the right place. http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/cuda/supported-gpus
[doublepost=1487187677][/doublepost]

Hello mac pro forum.

My objective is to enable accelerated performance gains with CUDA support via the drivers from NVIDIA using After Effects & Premiere Pro.

What versions of these applications are you using? The Ray Tracing functionality in these apps is pretty much at a dead end anymore, so if the newer cards don't work you can pretty much expect that they'll never work.

 

[Babyboi]

You're not looking in the right place. http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/cuda/supported-gpus
[doublepost=1487187677][/doublepost]
What versions of these applications are you using?

CC 2015

 

[h9826790]

You're not looking in the right place. http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/cuda/supported-gpus

980 has CUDA doesn't mean it can be used in AE ray trace. My list is from Adobe, the software that OP is talking about.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/system-requirements.html

 

[chrfr]

CC 2015

I would look at your rendering settings and use something other than raytracing.
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2196193

 

[Babyboi]

so basically my 980 doesn't support ray tracing? That sucks, I thought I could. I actually have another MacPro4,1 (2x 3.33 GHz 6 Core, 56GB RAM) that has a flashed 680 installed and the ray tracing is enabled via the CUDA drivers. And even then, it couldn't do what I wanted so I figured I'd get the 980 for my 2nd MacPro4,1.

My primary objective is to load this particular template I bought and have it playback without skipping frames. it is very laggy and couldn't process the template. This is the template I am trying to preview and edit:

 

[chrfr]

so basically my 980 doesn't support ray tracing? That sucks, I thought I could. I actually have another MacPro4,1 (2x 3.33 GHz 6 Core, 56GB RAM) that has a flashed 680 installed and the ray tracing is enabled via the CUDA drivers. And even then, it couldn't do what I wanted so I figured I'd get the 980 for my 2nd MacPro4,1.

My primary objective is to load this particular template I bought and have it playback without skipping frames. it is very laggy and couldn't process the template. This is the template I am trying to preview and edit:

I did a Google search and found this hack/workaround to get the 980 to work:
https://forums.adobe.com/message/8550766#8550766

 

[Babyboi]

I did a Google search and found this hack/workaround to get the 980 to work:
https://forums.adobe.com/message/8550766#8550766

nice find bro! and thank you, now maybe I can try the hack when I get home.

 

[nognome]

My primary objective is to load this particular template I bought and have it playback without skipping frames. it is very laggy and couldn't process the template. This is the template I am trying to preview and edit:

Raytracing won't have any impact on real-time playback in AE. It's purely a different way of calculating the frames ahead of playback.

The frames always have to be rendered/cached before playing back, be that with normal CPU methods or with CUDA/raytracing – and only the absolute simplest scenes can play back at anything approaching realtime. A faster card will render these frames faster before finishing and playing back, but it will never be seamless right as you hit the play button.

Also, as an animator and longtime user of AE – raytracing in AE is dead. It's not worth upgrading just for this. Though for CUDA in Premiere, Octane Render/C4D, or the like, that card would be great.

 

[Babyboi]

Raytracing won't have any impact on real-time playback in AE. It's purely a different way of calculating the frames ahead of playback.

The frames always have to be rendered/cached before playing back, be that with normal CPU methods or with CUDA/raytracing – and only the absolute simplest scenes can play back at anything approaching realtime. A faster card will render these frames faster before finishing and playing back, but it will never be seamless right as you hit the play button.

Also, as an animator and longtime user of AE – raytracing in AE is dead. It's not worth upgrading just for this. Though for CUDA in Premiere, Octane Render/C4D, or the like, that card would be great.

Thanks for sharing that bit of information. This may explain why my first MacPro with flashed 680 enabled raytracing still wouldn't render the preview without lagging. I don't know how to use AE. What's the best method to let it cache so I can preview smoothly? Let it sit there for a few hours then press play? LOL this sounds like a nightmare.

So then how did the original author of the 80's retro theme create the template? What is required to play it back smoothly?

 

[nognome]

Thanks for sharing that bit of information. This may explain why my first MacPro with flashed 680 enabled raytracing still wouldn't render the preview without lagging. I don't know how to use AE. What's the best method to let it cache so I can preview smoothly? Let it sit there for a few hours then press play? LOL this sounds like a nightmare.

Working with complicated files in AE is a bit of a balancing act. Sometimes you reduce the resolution of the viewport if you're just dialing in motion – everything gets a bit pixelated, but it renders fast and you can preview the feel of your movements easily. And sometimes you're just working on the look of the piece, and have it set to full quality but aren't rendering movement.

To "play" in after effects, you generally hit RAM preview – the zero on your numpad if you have a big keyboard. It pre-caches your frames, and then plays back at full speed. In a real-life workflow, you're usually not doing this process on your whole timeline if it's very long or complicated, you're doing it on little bits at a time as you work on them. And this precaching could take any amount of time depending on your hardware and how the scene is put together. Hitting the space bar to play in after effects is never a good idea unless your thing is already precached.

The key is, no hardware plays back smoothly in the way you are thinking – meaning that you hit play and it instantly plays like in a video editing program. Sadly, AE just doesn't operate like that. It always needs to render its frames to cache first – but it will always play back smoothly after this process.

The folks who made your template didn't have any special hardware. They just know how to wrangle the program and its preview/playback system, and it's a bit of a doozy at first if you're jumping in for the first time with a complicated sequence.

 

[Babyboi]

Working with complicated files in AE is a bit of a balancing act. Sometimes you reduce the resolution of the viewport if you're just dialing in motion – everything gets a bit pixelated, but it renders fast and you can preview the feel of your movements easily. And sometimes you're just working on the look of the piece, and have it set to full quality but aren't rendering movement.

To "play" in after effects, you generally hit RAM preview – the zero on your numpad if you have a big keyboard. It pre-caches your frames, and then plays back at full speed. In a real-life workflow, you're usually not doing this process on your whole timeline if it's very long or complicated, you're doing it on little bits at a time as you work on them. And this precaching could take any amount of time depending on your hardware and how the scene is put together. Hitting the space bar to play in after effects is never a good idea unless your thing is already precached.

The key is, no hardware plays back smoothly in the way you are thinking – meaning that you hit play and it instantly plays like in a video editing program. Sadly, AE just doesn't operate like that. It always needs to render its frames to cache first – but it will always play back smoothly after this process.

The folks who made your template didn't have any special hardware. They just know how to wrangle the program and its preview/playback system, and it's a bit of a doozy at first if you're jumping in for the first time with a complicated sequence.

wow thanks dude. i thought pressing the space bar was the only way to play something. I'll definitely try your suggestions. Are there any other things I should do? like dedicating more RAM to AE

 

[nognome]

I can't know what that template file looks like, but i'd imagine there's a whole lot of applied effects, blurring, and precomping going on. Drill down into the template and see if there's a source composition that doesn't have all the effects applied yet. Then, work on that one to preview/test – it will render much faster because it doesn't have all the compositing work.

Alternatively – if the file isn't set up like that, toggle off the "fx" in the timeline panel to disable any effects and speed up preview rendering.

 

[Babyboi]

With your suggestions, I was able to enable ray tracing by adding my graphics card to the existing plain text file. (see attachment) I am currently "playing from RAM" and it's caching 1 frame at a time. When this is done i'm sure it will preview just fine. Thanks everyone for their comments!