Hi Dave -

In Preferences, under Editing, do you have that GPU Acceleration option checked?

Cheers - Tony
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Hi Dave,

Keep in mind that GPU rendering is only possible with certain formats. I use two 5770's and I get Hardware Acceleration for the following file types: mpeg-2, mpeg-4, H.264 AVC, and certain WMV profiles.

And you also need to install the Avivo package which includes the Avivo Video converter found here, just enter in your Operating system and Graphic card.


http://support.amd.com/us/psearch/Pages/psearch.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.36.3.4&contentType=GPU+Download+Detail&ostype=&keywords=&items=20

Does this help?

Kevin
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Hi Kevin, have you always had 2x 5770, or did you upgrade (add the second one at a later date)? I am just curious to know if the addition of the second card (almost) halved the production time or if there wasn't a substantial speed increase. I know this is fairly subjective.
Richard

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Hi Richard,

Yes when I built this computer this March, I put both 5770's in at the same time so I don't have a reference point to compare One card versus Two. I based part of my decision on the following Benchmark. What is interesting to note is that there is very little additional score by adding a third card. I have been very pleased though with the rendering speed so far, it has been a nice improvement over my other system.


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Hi guys.

Yes I have it checked in preferences.

It should be supported for h.264 iPod encodes, because that works fine on my 4670 on my other machine.

I think I'm going to re-install the drivers for the second time

Dave do you have the Avivo package installed?

I am not trying to be rude...just asking the question.
This is off the cyberlink website.


Without the converter/encoder it doesn't matter what you have checked off in your preferences, it won't give you the ability to select hardware acceleration when rendering/encoding your final video. The GPU acceleration choice in the preferences is for "decoding" or playback of your video during editing.
I hope I am not coming across to harsh....I just want to help.

Kevin
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Thanks Kevin, I do appreciate the help.

I was about to download the converter, until I read that it is only for the 4000 series cards. I'll give it a try though.

Thanks,
Dave.

Well, son of a gun, that fixed it. Many, many thanks Kevin.

Now, would you believe that on an i7-860 system it's actually slower than doing cpu only encoding?

The other odd thing is that Mediashow Expresso does gpu encoding without Avivo installed, so that begs the question of does all Director do is pass the video through to Avivo?

Thanks again, you have earned yourself good karma tonight.

Dave.

Hi Dave,

Glad you have it working....

I am sure it is quite possible that your processor might render faster. Some of the more technical guys in the forum have done some tests comparing the efficiency of CPU only versus CPU/GPU acceleration. I can't find the posts...

But I suppose with GPU acceleration it frees your CPU for other tasks. I don't really know for sure, my projects are usually short so rendering times aren't a factor for me.

I have Media Expresso as well....I don't tend to use it, but I wasn't aware of that difference. I wonder why that is so? I certainly don't have a clue!

I need good Karma!! I already got someone upset at me on the Director Zone forum. So thank you for your positive comments.

Glad you got it working!

Kevin
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One more update...

The culprit is is using the GPU to do the decoding. At least on my config, turning that off, but still leaving the GPU enabled for encoding is the fastest.

Hi Dave,

So...what you are saying is....even though your GPU isn't decoding anything, your file renders faster with that option unchecked/disabled? Doesn't the resources of the GPU shift to fully encode a file?

Do you have any ideas why that would be?

Kevin
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That's exactly what I'm saying. It seems to be faster to use the available GPU power to do just the encoding, rather than both the decoding and encoding.


I'll bet that it's very configuration dependent.

I can't wait to experiment with a few files and compare rendering times with the different options disabled. I have the i7 920 O.C. at ~ 4.0 Mhz, so it will be interesting to see the differences with just CPU encoding vs. the combination with the GPU encoding.

Thank you for the update!

It was fun exchanging ideas and results with you!!!

Kevin

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