Reviewer's Guide
Reviewer's Guide
Reviewer's Guide
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
2008-11-10<br />
Reviewer’s<br />
<strong>Guide</strong><br />
NVIDIA Quadro ® CX<br />
The Accelerator for<br />
Adobe CS4 Suite<br />
i
Table of Contents<br />
Introducing the Nvidia Quadro CX .................................................................................1<br />
NVIDIA Quadro CX ..............................................................................................................2<br />
NVIDIA Professional Graphics and Compute Highlights ..........................................................3<br />
Quadro CX Product Features ..........................................................................................4<br />
CUDA Parallel Computing Processor......................................................................................4<br />
DisplayPort .........................................................................................................................4<br />
Taking Color Beyond 8-bit....................................................................................................5<br />
Support for Today’s Professional 3D API’s .............................................................................5<br />
OpenGL ..........................................................................................................................5<br />
DirectX 10.......................................................................................................................5<br />
Essential for Microsoft Windows Vista ...................................................................................6<br />
Professional Video Support...................................................................................................6<br />
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Acceleration ...............................................................................8<br />
Testing Adobe Photoshop CS4 GPU Acceleration....................................................................8<br />
Verify GPU Settings..........................................................................................................9<br />
Testing Adobe Photoshop CS4 GPU Functions .....................................................................12<br />
Zoom Acceleration .........................................................................................................12<br />
Rotation Acceleration .....................................................................................................14<br />
Flick Panning Acceleration ..............................................................................................16<br />
Smooth Image Display...................................................................................................17<br />
Brush resizing................................................................................................................18<br />
Birds Eye View ..............................................................................................................19<br />
Nvidia Quadro CX & RapiHD Professional Video Encoding for Adobe Premiere CS4 ...21<br />
Testing Adobe Premiere Pro with RapiHD H.264 GPU Accelerated Encoding ..........................22<br />
Installing RapiHD...........................................................................................................22<br />
Copy Content Files.........................................................................................................23<br />
Start Premiere Pro .........................................................................................................24<br />
The Premiere Pro Layout................................................................................................25<br />
Encoding to H.264.............................................................................................................26<br />
CPU Encoding with Main Concept H.264..........................................................................26<br />
GPU Encoding with RapiHD .........................................................................................28<br />
Additional Options .............................................................................................................30<br />
Video Up-sampling to 1920x1080p resolution ..................................................................30<br />
Changing the Portion of Video Encoded .........................................................................30<br />
Adobe After Effects CS4 Acceleration...........................................................................32<br />
Testing Adobe After Effects CS4 GPU Acceleration...............................................................32<br />
Verify Settings...............................................................................................................33<br />
After Effects User Interface Basics......................................................................................36
Reviewer’s <strong>Guide</strong>: NVIDIA Quadro FX Professional Graphics Cards<br />
Testing Adobe After Effects CS4 GPU Effects.......................................................................38<br />
Bilateral Blur .................................................................................................................38<br />
Turbulent Noise.............................................................................................................40<br />
Cartoon.........................................................................................................................41<br />
Depth of Field ...............................................................................................................43<br />
Nested Compositions .....................................................................................................45<br />
Performance Metrics..........................................................................................................47<br />
Test Machine Specifications............................................................................................47<br />
NVIDIA Quadro CX Advantages ...................................................................................49<br />
Why Choose the Quadro CX Workstation Board Over NVIDIA GeForce? ................................49<br />
Delivers All the NVIDIA GeForce Advantages.......................................................................50<br />
NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) ...........................................................................50<br />
Benefits ........................................................................................................................51<br />
NVIDIA nView ® Multi-Display Technology ...........................................................................51<br />
Appendix A: Product Specifications .............................................................................55<br />
Appendix C: Testing Basics ..........................................................................................57<br />
Testing Checklist ...............................................................................................................57<br />
Additional Product Information...........................................................................................57<br />
Appendix E: NVIDIA Marketing and PR Information ...................................................59<br />
Branding <strong>Guide</strong>lines...........................................................................................................60
List of Tables<br />
Reviewer’s <strong>Guide</strong>: NVIDIA Quadro FX Professional Graphics Cards<br />
Table 1. NVIDIA Quadro CX.........................................................................................................55
Reviewer’s <strong>Guide</strong>: NVIDIA Quadro FX Professional Graphics Cards<br />
Introducing the Nvidia Quadro CX<br />
With the release of Adobe® CS4 the power of the GPU is now an integral part of<br />
the creative workflow. The Quadro CX is designed to accelerate the complex<br />
workflows of professional CS4 Suite users. The Quadro CX is built around the core<br />
principle that design professionals need a professional product that offers rock solid<br />
stability, blazing fast performance and offers features and functionality not offered<br />
by consumer solutions. By combining the latest in NVIDIA GPU technology with a<br />
massive 1.5GB frame-buffer the Quadro CX is designed to accelerate the workflow<br />
of the digital creative professional.<br />
Key Features<br />
• Accelerate your workflow by taking advantage of accelerated encoding on the<br />
Quadro CX board using the CUDA based Adobe Premiere Plug-in, RapiHD<br />
accelerator from Elemental Technologies. The Quadro CX rivals dedicated<br />
H.264 hardware encoders and offers speed of up to 4X the encode speed of<br />
a typical CPU. This plug-in is exclusive to the Quadro CX.<br />
• Designed to take advantage of the GPU accelerated canvas features within<br />
Photoshop CS4, the Quadro CX allows users to work more fluidly and<br />
interactively with their digital images than ever before possible, saving time<br />
and streamlining the creative process.<br />
• Taking advantages of new GPU accelerated features within Adobe After<br />
Effects, such as accelerated bilateral blur effects, fractal noise generation and<br />
Depth of Field preview give videographers the first chance to work with<br />
advanced effects in real time.<br />
• Professional color support. The Quadro CX offers 30-bit color output via<br />
optional SDI output card to allow unrivaled color control within Adobe<br />
After Effects and Premiere Pro. Additionally the Quadro CX supports 30bit<br />
color over DisplayPort for advanced color fidelity within Photoshop.<br />
• Accelerate your digital workflow with accelerated Adobe Digital Negative<br />
(DNG) RAW file preview and conversion.
NVIDIA Quadro CX<br />
The accelerator for Adobe CS4 Suite, the Nvidia Quadro features a 1.5GB<br />
frame buffer and greater than 8-bit color fidelity, the Quadro CX also<br />
features a 192-core CUDA Parallel Computing Processor, designed to enable<br />
advanced visual supercomputing tasks such as GPU based Video Encoding,<br />
GPU accelerated filters within Photoshop and After Effects, or to provide<br />
blazing fast RAW preview and decode functionality. The Quadro CX is the<br />
complete solution for the creative design professional.<br />
The Quadro CX also features dual DisplayPort connectors to support the<br />
latest high end monitors, as well as a single Dual-Link DVI connector to<br />
provide users with flexible display connectivity. Combined with the massive<br />
framebuffer, the Quadro CX allows for the maximum number of GPU<br />
accelerated windows when using dual 30” professional displays.<br />
Figure 1: Quadro CX – Connectors<br />
Figure 1 shows the output connectors for the Quadro CX which shows the dual DisplayPort<br />
connectors, Dual-Link DVI connector and the stereo 3-pin mini din connector.
NVIDIA Professional Graphics<br />
and Compute Highlights<br />
No other computer subsystem has advanced in its technology as fast as the<br />
visual computing subsystem powered by a GPU. In fact, NVIDIA’s current<br />
professional line of GPUs provide far more processing capability than just<br />
high-end graphics. NVIDIA’s new Quadro CX is designed to bring the<br />
power of advanced workstation class performance to the creative<br />
professional, by providing a robust solution that is designed to increase user<br />
interactivity and enhance productivity. The advanced capabilities in encoding<br />
and image processing are achieved by harnessing the power of the GPU to<br />
allow supercomputer-level computation on the desktop enabled by<br />
NVIDIA’s CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) technology<br />
Think of NVIDIA’s GPUs as delivering “Graphics Plus” by utilizing a<br />
dual-personality parallel processing engine able to deliver both amazing<br />
graphics capabilities and high-performance floating-point computation.<br />
The NVIDIA Quadro CX delivers unrivalled performance, the highest<br />
quality graphics and fastest compute speeds available within Adobe CS4.<br />
NVIDIA’s professional workstation graphics line targets the specific needs<br />
of the professional and provides many additional features which are not<br />
available on NVIDIA’s consumer GeForce line, as enumerated below in the<br />
section titled “Why Choose NVIDIA Quadro CX Over NVIDIA<br />
GeForce?”.<br />
In addition to it’s superior function with Adobe CS4 Suite of applications, ,<br />
NVIDIA’s new Quadro CX board is ideally suited for the entire range of<br />
professional graphics users including:<br />
� Native DirectX 10/Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL 2.1 support for<br />
authoring the latest 3D entertainment content.<br />
� NVIDIA’s Second Generation Unified graphics and compute core that<br />
provides both high speed graphics and a parallel compute platform using<br />
NVIDIA’s open CUDA technology..<br />
� Dual-Link Digital Display Connectors: A single dual-link TMDS<br />
transmitter supports ultra-high-resolution panels (up to 3840 x 2400 @<br />
24Hz) --which results in amazing image quality producing detailed<br />
photorealistic images<br />
� DisplayPort Digital Display Connectors: Dual DisplayPort connectors<br />
support ultra-high-resolution panels (up to 2560 x 1600) --which result in<br />
amazing image quality, producing detailed photorealistic images
CUDA Parallel Computing<br />
Processor<br />
DisplayPort<br />
Quadro CX Product Features<br />
The NVIDIA Quadro CX utilizes the CUDA Parallel Computing Processor,<br />
which is based on the second generation version of NVIDIA’s Unified<br />
Computing Core architecture. This CUDA Parallel Computing Processor is<br />
built as a scalable processor array with a number of individual CUDA<br />
programmable cores. The Quadro CX features 192 cores, and offers full<br />
double-precision units for floating point calculations (64-bit).<br />
Each processing core is a hardware-multithreaded processor with multiple<br />
pipeline stages that execute an instruction for each thread every clock.<br />
Various types of threads exist, including pixel, vertex, geometry, and<br />
compute. For graphics processing, threads execute a shader program, and<br />
many related threads often simultaneously execute the same shader program<br />
for greater efficiency.<br />
All NVIDIA GPU’s include a substantial portion of die area dedicated to<br />
processing, unlike CPUs where a majority of die area is dedicated to onboard<br />
cache memory. Rough estimates show 20% of the transistors of a CPU are<br />
dedicated to computation, compared to 80% of GPU transistors. GPU<br />
processing is centered on computation and throughput, where CPUs focus<br />
heavily on reducing latency and keeping their pipelines busy (high cache hit<br />
rates and efficient branch prediction).<br />
The NVIDIA Quadro CX supports the new DisplayPort connector standard.<br />
DisplayPort supports ultra-high-resolution panels (up to 2560 x 1600)-which<br />
results in amazing image quality producing detailed photorealistic images.<br />
Additionally the slim form factor of the DisplayPort connector means that<br />
connecting your monitor to your workstation is now easier than ever.<br />
The QuadroCX offers Dual DisplayPort connectors along with a single<br />
Dual-Link DVI connector.
Note: Any combination of DisplayPort and DVI connected monitors can be used<br />
however, only two outputs can be active at any one time.<br />
Taking Color Beyond 8-bit<br />
To support the needs of the creative professional market where accurate<br />
color representation is critical, the NVIDIA Quadro CX provides support<br />
for 10-bit color output per component.<br />
30-bit Color Support<br />
With integrated support for 30-bit color (10-bit color per color channel) over<br />
DisplayPort the Quadro CX board offers a new level of color fidelity.<br />
Instead of the traditional 16.7 million discrete colors which are supported by<br />
24-bit color monitors, the Quadro CX can take advantage of 30-bit display<br />
monitors to display 1.7 billion colors simultaneously. The new Hewlett-<br />
Packard DreamColor® LP2480zx Professional Display supports 30-bit color.<br />
With 64x the available color values available, 30-bit color support eliminates<br />
banding issues, and provides graphics professionals with unmatched color<br />
accuracy and tonal response.<br />
Support for Today’s<br />
Professional 3D API’s<br />
OpenGL<br />
DirectX 10<br />
Used extensively within the Adobe CS4 Suite and long the standard 3D API<br />
for professional applications, the NVIDIA Quadro CX board supports<br />
OpenGL 2.1, including the newest OpenGL extensions that enable support<br />
for many new capabilities, including equivalent functionality to the<br />
capabilities added to DirectX 10, such as geometry shaders, instancing of<br />
rendered objects, compressed HDR images, and more.<br />
DirectX 10 is supported under Microsoft Windows Vista and is a major<br />
update to Microsoft’s 3D graphics library. Although once primarily used for<br />
video games, some of the major digital content creation (DCC) application<br />
vendors have switched their development focus to include full support of<br />
DirectX in order to be tightly coupled to the needs of those creating content
for game engines. For example, Avid’s XSI and Autodesk’s 3ds Max both<br />
support DirectX 10 in their most recent application versions.<br />
Essential for Microsoft Windows<br />
Vista<br />
Microsoft Windows Vista is seeing more widespread usage among<br />
workstation users, as the major professional applications have released Vista<br />
compatible versions. Offering an enriched 3D user interface, a workstation<br />
running Windows Vista requires a high end GPU in order to take advantage<br />
of the operating systems new visual features and advanced desktop<br />
compositing system. The Quadro drivers are optimized for both 32- and 64bit<br />
architectures to provide the best Windows Vista experience, including<br />
high performance and reliability.<br />
Professional Video Support<br />
In addition to the industry leading video support offered by NVIDIA’s<br />
second generation PureVideo Engine, which is designed to deliver<br />
unprecedented picture quality, smooth video, accurate color and precise<br />
image scaling for SD and HD content, the Quadro CX is designed to take<br />
advantage of high end professional video features such as SDI output for the<br />
highest quality digital video output.
NVIDIA Quadro SDI<br />
Figure 2: Realtime Video Compositing with Quadro SDI Option Board<br />
The Quadro CX can be combined with a Serial Digital Interface (SDI) card<br />
to allow output to SDI capable displays when using Adobe Premiere Pro and<br />
Adobe After Effects, through the use of the application plugins provided<br />
with the Quadro CX. SDI is the SMPTE broadcast video standard for<br />
transfer of uncompressed broadcast-quality video throughout a production<br />
environment, including cameras, recorders, and displays. With the additional<br />
of an SDI interface card the Quadro CX is an ideal solution for digital<br />
broadcast professionals who use various applications—such as virtual sets,<br />
sports, and weather news systems—to composite live video footage onto<br />
virtual backgrounds and send the result to live video for TV broadcast.<br />
Quadro SDI solutions also allow film production, post-production, and<br />
finishing professionals to preview the results of 3D compositing, editing, and<br />
color grading in real time on high-definition (HD) broadcast monitors. This<br />
graphics-to-video-out solution delivers uncompressed 8-bit, 10-bit, or 12-bit<br />
SDI from programmable graphics, enabling a direct connection to broadcast<br />
monitors, switchers, tape decks or SDI projectors.
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Acceleration<br />
Adobe Photoshop CS4 uses the<br />
NVIDIA Quadro CX to create a<br />
digital canvas that is interactive in<br />
ways that are simply not possible<br />
without a GPU. NVIDIA GPU’s<br />
enable real-time image rotation,<br />
zooming, and panning, and<br />
making changes to the view<br />
instantaneous and smooth.<br />
Adobe Photoshop CS4 also taps<br />
the GPU for 2D and 3D<br />
compositing and high-quality<br />
image display, making jagged<br />
edges of text and objects a thing<br />
of the past. Brush size and shape<br />
preview, 3D movement, highdynamic-range<br />
tone mapping, and color conversion are also accelerated by<br />
the GPU.<br />
Testing Adobe Photoshop CS4<br />
GPU Acceleration<br />
1. Install the full version or the 30-day trial version of Adobe<br />
Photoshop CS4.<br />
2. Download the latest NVIDIA product drivers from the Web or FTP<br />
site and install them.<br />
3. Sample images are available on the press FTP. Copy these demo files<br />
onto the desktop.<br />
4. Launch Adobe Photoshop CS4.<br />
5. Select 'No' for the message about video card manufacturer website.<br />
(You can disable this message to keep it from reappearing.)<br />
6. Select 'Close' for the 'Software Setup' popup window. (Will be<br />
present if you are running the Trial Version).<br />
Adobe PSD Image Files are available in the Photoshop Demo Files.zip on the<br />
Quadro CX Press FTP site.
Verify GPU Settings<br />
GPU Settings<br />
From the menu select Edit ��Preferences ��Performance<br />
Figure 3: Preferences - Performance – OpenGL Drawing Enabled<br />
Under the GPU Settings section (Figure 11), verify that Enable OpenGL<br />
Drawing is checked. Enable the setting if necessary. If the option is grayed<br />
out, you may need to close and reopen Photoshop. If the setting remains<br />
grayed out, this may be an indication that your graphics driver isn’t properly<br />
installed. In this case uninstall the current drivers and reinstall.<br />
Advanced GL Settings<br />
Clicking on the Advanced Settings button will open the GL Settings Menu<br />
which will allow you to verify what settings are currently being used within<br />
the application.
The GL Settings menu (Figure 2)., will show how the application is currently<br />
configured to use OpenGL. The recommended settings are to enable all<br />
options with the exception of “Force Bilinear Interpolation”.<br />
CPU vs. GPU Testing<br />
Figure 4: Advanced Settings<br />
When comparing the new GPU accelerated features it is important to keep in<br />
mind that many of these functions are either not available using the older<br />
CPU based methods, or the behavior is radically different. It is possible to<br />
configure Photoshop with both a GPU accelerated view and a non-GPU<br />
accelerated view so that the differences can be seen side by side. To<br />
configure Photoshop follow these steps:<br />
1. Start Photoshop.<br />
2. From the menu select Edit �� Preferences �� Performance dialog<br />
and verify that Enable OpenGL Drawing is checked, if it isn’t then<br />
check it now.<br />
3. File ��Open… Navigate to your Photoshop Demo Files Folder and<br />
select Monster.PSD<br />
Monster.PSD is a 20,000 x 20,000 pixel image. It is over 700MB on disk and consumes over 1GB of memory<br />
when opened in Photoshop. It represents how easy it is to work will large images using the GPU<br />
accelerated canvas features<br />
4. Wait for File to completely load. This window is now your GPU<br />
accelerated window.<br />
5. From the menu select Edit �� Preferences �� Performance dialog<br />
and uncheck Enable OpenGL Drawing. All windows created after this<br />
point will not be GPU accelerated.
6. From the menu select Window ��Arrange��New Window for<br />
Monster.PSD<br />
7. This new Window is not GPU accelerated.<br />
Figure 5: Arrange Documents – 2UP<br />
8. From the menu bar click the Arrange Documents drop down as<br />
illustrated above. (Figure 5: Arrange Documents – 2UP)<br />
9. Click in each window and press “Ctrl+0” or from the Menu View ��<br />
Fit on Screen.<br />
Figure 6- Layout
10. The left window will be accelerated, the right window is nonaccelerated<br />
(Figure 6- Layout).<br />
Testing Adobe Photoshop CS4<br />
GPU Functions<br />
Zoom Acceleration<br />
Adobe has enabled a whole new way of interacting with the canvas in realtime,<br />
with no stuttering or preview lags – just speedy zooming in and out of<br />
all file sizes, big and small.<br />
Figure 7: Zooming Featuring Pixel Grid - GPU Enabled<br />
The new Pixel Grid has also been added for pinpoint accuracy of highly<br />
magnified images.<br />
Testing GPU Zoom Acceleration:<br />
Figure 8: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Tool Bar
Testing GPU enabled Zooming: (In the GPU Accelerated<br />
Window)<br />
1. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the upper right side of the tool<br />
bar on upper side of the window to select the zoom tool (Figure 8).<br />
2. Now place the zoom tool icon on the image and click the left mouse<br />
button and keep it pressed down. You should see that the app zooms<br />
into the image smoothly. There will be no choppiness in the<br />
zooming.<br />
3. Now press the 'Alt' key and press down on the right mouse button.<br />
You will see the image zoom out in a smooth fashion. There will be<br />
no choppiness<br />
Figure 9: Zooming Without GPU - Pixel Grid Feature Not Available<br />
Testing Zoom without GPU Acceleration: (In the Non-<br />
Accelerated Window)<br />
1. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the upper right side of the tool<br />
bar on upper side of the window to select the zoom tool (Figure 8).<br />
2. Now place the zoom tool icon on the image and click the left mouse<br />
button and keep it pressed down. You will see that the image does<br />
not zoom in continuously. It will just zoom in one level and stop. To<br />
further zoom in you will have to keep clicking the right mouse<br />
button.
Rotation Acceleration<br />
3. Now press the 'Alt' key and press down on the right mouse button.<br />
You will see that the image does not zoom out continuously. It will<br />
just zoom out one level and stop. To further zoom out, you will have<br />
to keep clicking the right mouse button.<br />
By using the dedicated graphics memory, the new Rotate View tool is instant,<br />
fast, and smooth. Great for tablet sketch artists, this feature matches the<br />
natural arrangement of pencil and paper - simply grab and spin the canvas to<br />
any orientation you want without extended conversion wait-times.<br />
Figure 10: GPU Accelerated Canvas Rotation<br />
Testing GPU Rotation Acceleration:<br />
Figure 11: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Tool Bar<br />
Testing GPU Accelerated Rotation: (In the Accelerated<br />
Window)<br />
1. Click on the rotate icon at the upper right side of the tool bar on<br />
upper side of the window to select the rotate tool (Figure 11).
2. Now place the rotate tool icon on the image and click the left mouse<br />
button and keep it pressed down. Move the mouse around. You<br />
should see that the image dynamically and instantly rotates based on<br />
your mouse movement without any lag or choppiness<br />
Testing Rotation without GPU Acceleration: (In the Non-<br />
Accelerated Window)<br />
1. Click on the rotate icon at the upper right side of the tool bar on<br />
upper side of the window to select the rotate tool (Figure 11).<br />
2. Now place the rotate tool icon on the image and click the left mouse<br />
button and keep it pressed down.<br />
3. You will see that without GPU acceleration the application is not<br />
capable of performing this function. You will see the following error<br />
message on your screen:<br />
Figure 12: Rotation Error Message<br />
4. Because the GPU canvas rotation feature is disabled users must<br />
manually input the degrees of rotation via the Menu item Image ��<br />
Image Rotation �� Arbitrary.<br />
5. Rotate the image using the Menu option to rotate 45 degrees. A large<br />
image can take between 10-30 seconds just to perform a simple<br />
rotation; additionally the rotation has expanded the canvas so our<br />
total image is now larger.<br />
6. Now rotate the image back by repeating the 45 degree Rotation and<br />
changing the direction of rotation to the opposite of the original<br />
rotation. The rotation takes even longer (remember the image size<br />
was increased, and is being increased again.)<br />
7. From the menu select View �� Fit on Screen. You can now see that<br />
in performing a simple rotation the image canvas is now 4 times<br />
larger than before, and will need to be cropped by the user to get<br />
back to its original dimensions (Figure 9).
Figure 13: Canvas Enlarged After Non-GPU Canvas Rotation<br />
The Accelerated and non-Accelerated windows are linked representations of the same window. It is normal<br />
to see the Accelerated Window updated when the Non-Accelerated Window is rotated, because the image<br />
data itself is being affected by a non-GPU accelerated rotation.<br />
Flick Panning Acceleration<br />
"Toss" images across the screen with the Hand tool for a natural, real-time<br />
pan in any direction.<br />
Figure 14: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Tool Bar<br />
Testing GPU Acclerated Flick Panning: (In the Accelerated<br />
Window)<br />
1. Click on the pan icon at the upper right side of the tool bar on upper<br />
side of the window to select the pan tool (Figure 14).<br />
2. Now place the pan tool icon on the image and click the left mouse<br />
button and keep it pressed down. With the right mouse button<br />
pressed, move the mouse quickly to the right or left and release the<br />
right mouse button.
3. You should see that the image pans smoothly and it will continue to<br />
pan even after you have released the right mouse button.<br />
Testing Flick Panning without GPU Acceleration: (In the Non-<br />
Accelerated Window)<br />
Smooth Image Display<br />
1. Click on the pan icon at the upper right side of the tool bar on upper<br />
side of the window to select the pan tool (Figure 14).<br />
2. Now place the pan tool icon on the image and click the left mouse<br />
button and keep it pressed down. With the right mouse button<br />
pressed, move the mouse quickly to the right or left and release the<br />
right mouse button.<br />
3. You will see that the image will pan only when you move the mouse<br />
with the right button pressed. The moment you release the right<br />
mouse button the panning will stop. Also, the panning will not be<br />
smooth.<br />
By using the graphics capability of the GPU Adobe Photoshop CS4 has been<br />
able to improve image quality by removing the need to interpolate at nonstandard<br />
zoom settings.<br />
Figure 15: Image smoothing With GPU Presence
Brush resizing<br />
In previous versions of Photoshop which did not support the GPU<br />
accelerated Canvas, the application performed an interpolation of the screen<br />
image whenever the image was shown at a zoom factor other than 25%,<br />
50%, 100% or 200%. The result was that degradation of the on screen image<br />
occurred which was most commonly seen as “jaggies” on text and vector<br />
shapes.<br />
By using the GPU to handle the image processing and display of the image<br />
canvas, images can now be viewed at any magnification factor without the<br />
need to degrade the image quality by doing an image interpolation step. The<br />
result is that users no longer have to worry about what zoom level they are<br />
using, as they will now get the highest level of image quality at any setting.<br />
Simply dragging the mouse to resize brushes allows instant previewing of<br />
brush size, shape and softness settings visually before making a single<br />
brushstroke.<br />
This allows users to work more interactively with all brush based tools and<br />
experience higher precision tablet tracking.<br />
To test dynamic brush resizing:<br />
1. Select the brush tool from tool palette<br />
2. With the brush on the image hold the Alt key and press the right<br />
mouse button. Drag the mouse to see the brush size change.<br />
Figure 16: GPU Brush Resizing Top, Non-GPU Brush Bottom
Birds Eye View<br />
One of the new features introduced in Photoshop CS4 is the Birds Eye View<br />
Zooming feature. Previously if a user wanted to navigate within their image,<br />
they would either have to zoom out and zoom back in to a new area,<br />
repeatedly pan the image looking for the area of interest, or using the<br />
navigator window to view a small representation of the image to navigate.<br />
Because zooming is now instantaneous on by leveraging the power of the<br />
GPU, users have a new intuitive way to navigate their images. The Birds Eye<br />
View feature allow users to instantly view the image full screen while an on<br />
screen selection tool allows them to navigate to a different section of the<br />
image and immediately return to the previous zoom level at the new location.<br />
The aerial zoom feature is only supported when OpenGL Drawing is<br />
enabled, it will not function without a GPU.<br />
1. Zoom into an image until the image is larger than can be viewed on<br />
the screen.<br />
2. Press and hold the “h” key, now press and hold the left mouse<br />
button.<br />
3. The image will zoom to fill the screen and a rectangular selection box<br />
will be displayed. Use the mouse to move the selection box to a new<br />
location and release the mouse button. The image will instantly<br />
zoom into the area indicated by the selection rectangle (Figure 17:<br />
Birds Eye View Zooming)
Figure 17: Bird Eye View Zooming
Nvidia Quadro CX & RapiHD Professional<br />
Video Encoding for Adobe Premiere CS4
Testing Adobe Premiere Pro<br />
with RapiHD H.264 GPU<br />
Accelerated Encoding<br />
Installing RapiHD<br />
1. Install the full version of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. The Trial<br />
Version does not contain the codec’s needed to support HD content.<br />
2. Install the Quadro CX board, making sure to connect the 6-pin<br />
power connector.<br />
3. Install the Quadro CX driver 178.26 .<br />
4. Make sure your machine is capable of connecting to the internet.<br />
5. Run the setup program for the RapiHD Plugin.<br />
Double click the RapiHD_Accelerator_1.0.exe file to launch the installer.<br />
Follow the installer prompts accepting the default values provided by the<br />
installer.<br />
The install will ask for your Registration Key, this is a key made up of 8<br />
letters and numbers, which you should have received with your installation<br />
files. Enter the Key in the box and click the Activate Button.<br />
You must be connected to the internet in order for activation to complete.
Copy Content Files<br />
Figure 18: Installation – Enter Registration Key<br />
Continue to follow the prompts from the installation screens until the<br />
installer completes the installation.<br />
Note: When the system prompts you to upgrade your software, it is<br />
important that you update to the latest release via the network as future<br />
versions will have bug fixes and additional optimizations to improve<br />
performance.<br />
Copy the self extracting QoS_007_1440x1080p.exe archive file to the local<br />
test machine.<br />
Double-click the file to extract the project files to the local machine.<br />
Make sure to note where the files are extracted, as you will need to know this<br />
information to open the project.<br />
Note: QoS_007_1440x1080p Project Files are available on the Quadro CX<br />
Press FTP site.
Start Premiere Pro<br />
1. Start Premiere Pro<br />
Figure 19 – Welcome Screen with Recent Projects Listed<br />
2. The Welcome to Premiere Pro Screen (Figure 2) should appear. If<br />
you have previously opened the QoS_007_1440x1080p project it will<br />
appear in the Recent Projects list and you can select it. Otherwise<br />
continue to Step 3.<br />
3. Click Open Project.<br />
4. From the File Explorer dialog, navigate to the QoS_007_1440x1080p<br />
project folder and open the project QoS_007_1440x1080p.prproj<br />
5. The QoS_007_1440x1080p Project.
The Premiere Pro Layout<br />
Figure 20 – Premiere Pro Layout<br />
The Premiere Pro layout is shown (Figure 3) above. The Preview area and Timeline are<br />
labeled for reference. The timeline shows a visual representation of the arrangement of<br />
video and audio clips within the current project. The Preview area allows scrubbing and<br />
playback of the current arrangement. Clicking on the different layout sections makes that<br />
section active. Before performing a encoding session, the timeline section must be made<br />
active.
Encoding to H.264<br />
CPU Encoding with Main Concept H.264<br />
Figure 21 – Export video<br />
1. Click your cursor anywhere inside the Timeline section of the layout.<br />
The Timeline area will become highlighted by a yellow outline.<br />
2. From the application menu bar, select File >> Export >> Media …<br />
(Figure 4).<br />
3. From the Format drop down select: H.264 Blu-ray<br />
Figure 22 – MainConcept Export Settings
4. From the Preset drop down select: 1440x1080p 23.976 High Quality.<br />
5. Click OK to send the video to the Adobe Media Encoder.<br />
Figure 23 – Adobe Media Encoder<br />
6. The Adobe Media Encoder will launch and will list the details of your<br />
current encoding session. Click Start Queue to begin the encoding<br />
process. The encode will start and begin processing.<br />
7. You can view details about the encode after it completes from the<br />
Media Encoder menu File >> Show Log…<br />
The Encoding Time listed in the log file also takes into account the file loading and saving and as such will<br />
be a longer time period than the actual encoding process.
GPU Encoding with RapiHD<br />
Figure 24 – Export video<br />
1. Click your cursor anywhere inside the Timeline section of the layout.<br />
The Timeline area will become highlighted by a yellow outline.<br />
2. From the application menu bar, select File >> Export >> Media …<br />
(Figure 8).<br />
3. From the Format drop down select: ETI RapiHD<br />
Figure 25 – Enabling Advanced Mode Options
4. From the Preset drop down select: 1440x1080p 23.976.<br />
5. Click OK to send the video to the Adobe Media Encoder.<br />
Figure 26 – Adobe Media Encoder<br />
6. The Adobe Media Encoder will launch and will list the details of your<br />
current encoding session. Click Start Queue to begin the encoding<br />
process. The video encode will start and begin processing.<br />
7. You can view details about the encode after it completes from the Media<br />
Encoder menu File >> Show Log…<br />
The Encoding Time listed in the log file also takes into account the file loading and saving and as such will<br />
be a longer time period than the actual encoding process.
Additional Options<br />
Video Up-sampling to 1920x1080p resolution<br />
One of the advantages of using GPU encoding is that it frees the CPU to<br />
perform other tasks such a re-sampling the video to use a different output<br />
resolution or framerate than the source video.<br />
1. Follow the above steps for testing CPU or GPU encoding.<br />
2. Use the HDTV 1080p 23.97 Preset<br />
Changing the Portion of Video Encoded<br />
You may want to tailor the length and or the section of video you are<br />
encoding. These steps explain how this can be accomplished.<br />
Figure 27 – Export Settings (In/Out Points)<br />
When the Export Settings dialog is displayed look at the left hand panel, here<br />
you will see the Source/Output preview panel. At the bottom is a yellow<br />
timeline with triangular markers at either end. This yellow portion defines<br />
the section of video which will be encoded during the current export. By<br />
moving either the beginning (In Point) or ending (Out Point) triangles, you
can change how much or which portions of the scene are going to be<br />
rendered by the current export.<br />
When comparing the RapiHD encoder to CPU encoders, make sure that you have the same section of video<br />
selected each time.<br />
fps<br />
fps<br />
160<br />
140<br />
120<br />
100<br />
80<br />
60<br />
40<br />
20<br />
0<br />
Premiere CS4 (1440x1080p)<br />
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.33 Ghz Dual)<br />
Encoding Time 147 37<br />
GPU Encoding is 397% faster<br />
GPU: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.33Ghz) + Quadro<br />
CX<br />
Figure 28 - Encoding Times 1440x1080p<br />
250<br />
200<br />
150<br />
100<br />
50<br />
0<br />
Premiere CS4 (HDTV 1080p)<br />
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.33 Ghz Dual)<br />
Encoding Time 223 47<br />
GPU Encoding is 474% faster<br />
GPU: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.33Ghz) + Quadro<br />
CX<br />
Figure 29 - Endcoding Time HDTV 1080p
Adobe After Effects CS4 Acceleration<br />
Testing Adobe After Effects<br />
CS4 GPU Acceleration<br />
1. Install the full version or the 30-day trial version of Adobe After Effects<br />
CS4.<br />
2. Download the latest NVIDIA product drivers from the FTP site and<br />
install them.<br />
3. Sample project file is available on the press FTP. Copy these demo files<br />
onto the desktop.<br />
4. Launch Adobe After Effects CS4 by double clicking the project file<br />
LiveDemo.aep.
Verify Settings<br />
GPU & CPU Preview Settings<br />
From the menu select Edit ��Preferences ��Previews<br />
Figure 30: Preferences - Previews – Enable OpenGL<br />
1. Under the Fast Previews section (Figure 30) verify that Enable<br />
OpenGL is checked. If the option is grayed out, you may need to close<br />
and reopen After Effects or restart your computer. If the setting remains<br />
grayed out, this may be an indication that your graphics driver isn’t<br />
properly installed. In this case uninstall the current drivers and reinstall.<br />
2. Disable Enable Adaptive Resolution with OpenGL.<br />
3. Confirm that Accelerate Effects using OpenGL (when possible) is<br />
enabled.
Figure 31: Preferences – Previews – OpenGL Info…<br />
4. Click the OpenGL Info… button and in the Texture Memory field<br />
(Figure 31) enter a value that is less than or equal to 75% of your GPU’s<br />
total memory.<br />
5. Set the Adaptive Resolution Limit to ½ if you want to stress the<br />
performance difference between GPU & CPU rendering. Set this limit<br />
to ¼ if you want to stress the quality difference between GPU & CPU<br />
rendering.<br />
Memory & Multiprocessing Settings<br />
Select the Memory & Multiprocessing option in the list on the left side of<br />
the Preferences dialog. Make sure that Prevent DLL Address Space<br />
Fragmentation is unchecked. This option can cause conflicts with<br />
OpenGL rendering.<br />
CPU vs GPU Testing<br />
The primary benefit of OpenGL in After Effects is acceleration during<br />
interactive Fast Previews when the user is altering values or moving the play<br />
head along the timeline. This requires that Live Update be enabled. This<br />
button is at the top of the timeline panel (Figure 32).<br />
Figure 32: The Live Update Button
If Live Update is not enabled then the Composition Viewer panel will not<br />
update as the user drags the Current Time Indicator along the timeline. It<br />
will only update when the user releases the Current Time Indicator.<br />
Figure 33: The Composition Viewer<br />
There are several Fast Preview modes in After Effects, accessible in the<br />
Fast Preview menu (Figure 34) in each Composition Viewer panel (Figure<br />
33). Each composition can use a different mode, and these modes are<br />
remembered per composition. The only modes we are concerned with are<br />
Adaptive Resolution, which renders using the CPU and dynamically<br />
reduces the resolution of the preview to maintain interactivity, and OpenGL-<br />
Always On, which always renders using OpenGL if possible (some effects<br />
and capabilities are not OpenGL supported, these are still rendered using the<br />
CPU).<br />
Figure 34: Fast Preview Mode<br />
Switching back and forth between these two preview methods is as simple as<br />
accessing the Fast Preview menu (Figure 34) and selecting your desired<br />
mode.
After Effects User Interface<br />
Basics<br />
Figure 35: The After Effects Interface
The Project Panel (Figure 36) contains all Footage items and<br />
Compositions in a directory system. Compositions can be opened by<br />
double clicking.<br />
Figure 36: The After Effects Project Panel<br />
The Effect Controls Panel (Figure 37) shares a pane with the Project<br />
Panel and can be accessed by clicking on the tab at the top of the pane. This<br />
panel is where you can adjust the properties of an effect.<br />
Figure 37: The Effect Controls Panel
The Timeline Panel (Figure 38) is where you can select layers and move the<br />
Current Time Indicator to move forward or backward in the composition.<br />
Figure 38: The Timeline Panel<br />
Testing Adobe After Effects<br />
CS4 GPU Effects<br />
Bilateral Blur<br />
This Bilateral Blur example is up to 2.9x faster when using<br />
OpenGL on Quadro CX than Dual Core CPU rendering (Figure 48).<br />
Bilateral Blur is a new OpenGL accelerated effect in After Effects CS4.<br />
This effect is useful for blurring areas of similar color to reduce noise while<br />
maintaining the edges and form of the affected footage. The Threshold<br />
property is used to determine how much of the image will be affected.<br />
Higher Threshold values will result in more blurring across the edges of the<br />
image and generally more areas of the image being blurred. The Radius<br />
property determines the radius of the blur being applied. Higher Radius<br />
values will result in a heavier blur. This effect is almost identical to the<br />
Surface Blur filter in Photoshop.<br />
Figure 39: Before (left) and after (right) Bilateral Blur. Note the noise in the<br />
left image.<br />
Testing GPU Accelerated Bilateral Blur:
3. Double click the Bilateral Blur composition in the Project Panel to<br />
open it.<br />
4. Verify that the Fast Preview mode is set to OpenGL (Always On).<br />
5. Select the BGPlane layer in the timeline.<br />
6. Zoom into the composition at this point to get a better look at the<br />
shadows under the cubes, where the effect of the Bilateral Blur will<br />
be most noticeable (Figure 39). Press ‘z’ to select the Zoom tool<br />
and click in the Composition Viewer to zoom in, hold alt and click<br />
to zoom out.<br />
7. In the Effects panel adjust the Radius and Threshold values to<br />
demonstrate the interactivity of the effect under OpenGL. Settle on<br />
a value around 6 for the Radius and 30 for the Threshold.<br />
8. Drag the Current Time Indicator along the timeline slowly to<br />
demonstrate the interactivity with the timeline under OpenGL.<br />
Testing Bilateral Blur without GPU Acceleration:<br />
8. Change the Fast Preview mode to Adaptive Resolution.<br />
9. Make sure you still have the BGPlane layer selected in the timeline.<br />
10. In the Effects panel adjust the Radius and Threshold values to<br />
demonstrate the slow speed at which the CPU renders Bilateral Blur.<br />
Also note the degradation of the image under Adaptive Resolution,<br />
this makes it harder to see when you’ve arrived at the ‘best’ values.<br />
11. Drag the Current Time Indicator along the timeline slowly to<br />
demonstrate the lack of interactivity with the timeline under CPU<br />
based rendering.<br />
12. When done, return the composition to its original 100% zoom value<br />
by going to the Magnification popup at the bottom of the<br />
Composition Viewer and selecting Fit up to 100% (Figure 40).
Turbulent Noise<br />
Figure 40: Composition Viewer - Magnification popup<br />
These Turbulent Noise examples are up to 7.1x faster when<br />
using OpenGL on Quadro CX than Dual Core CPU rendering<br />
(Figure 48).<br />
Turbulent Noise is a new OpenGL accelerated effect in After Effects CS4.<br />
It is similar to the older Fractal Noise effect, but uses a newer process to<br />
create more dynamic and turbulent animations. This effect can be used to<br />
simulate a variety of organic systems such as clouds, water, fire, tree bark,<br />
marble, etc. There are quite a few properties involved that we won’t touch<br />
on here. You can read more on these properties at:<br />
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS47C7ABE9-E920-4752-A286-5418B881300B.html<br />
The properties we are primarily interested in are Complexity and Evolution<br />
(Figure 41). Complexity is the number of levels of noise composited<br />
together to form the final pattern, the maximum value is 20 and this value<br />
should be used for a more dramatic CPU v. GPU comparison. Evolution<br />
determines the state of the pattern, as this value changes the pattern of noise<br />
‘evolves.’<br />
Figure 41: Turbulent Noise – Complexity & Evolution<br />
Testing GPU Accelerated Turbulent Noise:<br />
1. Double click the Turbulent Noise_fire composition in the Project<br />
Panel to open it.
Cartoon<br />
2. Verify that the Fast Preview mode is set to OpenGL (Always On).<br />
3. Select the Noise layer in the Timeline.<br />
4. In the Effects panel click on the Evolution value and drag to the<br />
right and left. Note the smooth real-time animation of the effect in<br />
the Composition Viewer.<br />
Testing Turbulent Noise without GPU Acceleration:<br />
1. Change the Fast Preview mode to Adaptive Resolution.<br />
2. Make sure you still have the Noise layer selected in the timeline.<br />
3. In the Effects panel adjust the Evolution value slowly. Pause<br />
occasionally to wait for the CPU to render. Note the dramatic<br />
difference in performance.<br />
Optional Additional Example:<br />
1. Double click the Turbulent Noise_water composition in the<br />
Project Panel to open it<br />
2. Verify that the Fast Preview mode is set to OpenGL (Always On).<br />
3. Drag the Current Time Indicator slowly through the Timeline and<br />
note the smooth rendering of the Turbulent Noise.<br />
4. Change the Fast Preview mode to Adaptive Resolution.<br />
5. Drag the Current Time Indicator slowly through the Timeline and<br />
note the incredibly slow render.<br />
This Cartoon example is up to 38x faster when using OpenGL on<br />
Quadro CX than Dual Core CPU rendering (Figure 48).<br />
Cartoon is a new OpenGL accelerated effect in After Effects CS4. It applies<br />
several algorithms to the given layer to detect edges and smooth areas of<br />
similar color. These algorithms are computationally expensive. As a result<br />
Adobe forces the Cartoon effect to use OpenGL acceleration under any<br />
Fast Preview mode. As a result you will not see dramatic differences<br />
between the Fast Preview modes (OpenGL (Always On) and Adaptive<br />
Resolution).<br />
Testing GPU Accelerated Cartoon:<br />
1. Double click the Cartoon composition in the Project Panel to open<br />
it.
2. Select the footage layer Cartoon_source.<br />
3. Verify that Use OpenGL When Available is enabled in the<br />
Advanced section of the effect controls (Figure 44).<br />
4. Make sure that the Fast Preview mode is set to Adaptive<br />
Resolution. It is important to remember that the Cartoon effect<br />
renders using OpenGL even when the Fast Preview mode is set to<br />
Adaptive Resolution!<br />
5. Drag the Current Time Indicator along the timeline slowly.<br />
Explain that the GPU performs all of the image processing on the<br />
footage and the computer is still very much responsive.<br />
Figure 42: Cartoon effect setting adjustments.<br />
6. To demonstrate the interactivity of the effect, and the ability to<br />
quickly try different looks (Figure 42): Click on the Detail<br />
Threshold and drag to the right until the value reaches 70. Drag to<br />
increase the Shading Steps to 10 and the Shading Smoothness to<br />
60. The footage should take on a more impressionistic look (Figure<br />
43).
Figure 43: Cartoon effect before (left) and after (right) adjustments.<br />
Depth of Field<br />
7. Use the Undo command (ctrl-z) repeatedly to return the effect to its<br />
original settings (visible in Figure 44).<br />
Figure 44: Cartoon – Use OpenGL When Available<br />
Testing Cartoon effect without GPU Acceleration:<br />
1. Double click the Cartoon_CPU composition in the Project Panel<br />
to open it.<br />
2. Select the footage layer Cartoon_source_small. Explain that this<br />
footage is at half the resolution used in the previous GPU based<br />
example.<br />
3. Disable Use OpenGL When Available in the Advanced tab of the<br />
effect controls panel (Figure 44).<br />
4. Drag the Current Time Indicator along the timeline slowly. Explain<br />
that the even at half the native resolution, the effect performs poorly<br />
under CPU (no OpenGL) rendering. The interactivity that was<br />
present in the OpenGL example is severely reduced.<br />
5. Enable Use OpenGL When Available in the Advanced tab of the<br />
effect controls panel.<br />
This Depth of Field example is up to 3x faster when using<br />
OpenGL on Quadro CX than Dual Core CPU rendering (Figure 48).<br />
Depth of Field is not a new feature in CS4, but is OpenGL accelerated for<br />
the first time. Depth of field refers to the zone in which objects are in focus
in a scene. As objects move farther away from the focal plane of a camera<br />
they become blurred. Depth of Field in After Effects is not an effect, but a<br />
Camera attribute. As such it requires a 3D Camera and 3D layers. As in<br />
real world optics, there are many Camera attributes that affect Depth of<br />
Field within After Effects.<br />
1. Focus Distance – This determines the focal plane. Layers that<br />
reside on this plane, or parts of a layer that intersect it, will be<br />
perfectly focused.<br />
2. Aperture – As the aperture value increase the depth of field<br />
becomes ‘shallow’ and less area will be in focus.<br />
3. Blur Level – This attribute does not exist in real world optics.<br />
This does not affect what is blurred (the depth of field) but<br />
instead affects how much things are blurred.<br />
Testing GPU Accelerated Depth of Field:<br />
1. Double click the Depth of Field composition in the Project Panel<br />
to open it.<br />
2. Verify that the Fast Preview mode is set to OpenGL (Always On).<br />
3. Select the DoF_Camera layer and press ‘aa’ to reveal the Camera<br />
Options.<br />
4. Click on the Focus Distance value and drag to the right to extend<br />
the focus of the camera (holding shift will increase the speed at which<br />
the value changes by 10x). The stop sign in the background should<br />
come into focus quickly. Return the value of the Focus Distance to<br />
2580 either manually or by undo (ctrl-z). Do not reduce the focus<br />
distance below 2000 as this may cause rendering to slow<br />
dramatically.<br />
Figure 45: The Unified Camera Tool<br />
5. Press ‘c’ to select the Unified Camera Tool (Figure 45). Warning:<br />
pressing ‘c’ multiple times will cycle through additional camera tools,<br />
you should try to use the Unified Camera Tool only.<br />
6. Click with the Right Mouse Button in the Composition Viewer<br />
and drag upward to track in to the scene (hold shift to move 10x<br />
faster).
7. Click with the Left Mouse Button in the Composition Viewer and<br />
move the mouse around to pan the camera.<br />
8. Press ‘uu’ to reveal the camera properties you have altered, then click<br />
the Reset text next to the Transform heading (Figure 46) to return<br />
the camera to its original position.<br />
Figure 46: Reset Transformations<br />
Testing Depth of Field without GPU Acceleration:<br />
Nested Compositions<br />
1. Change the Fast Preview mode to Adaptive Resolution.<br />
2. Repeat the steps 3-8 from above, calling attention to the much slower<br />
rendering speed and the inability to distinguish focused areas from<br />
out of focus areas due to the reduced resolution.<br />
This Nested Compositions example is up to 5.3x faster when<br />
using OpenGL on Quadro CX than Dual Core CPU rendering<br />
(Figure 48).<br />
Advanced compositing work in After Effects often requires creating nested<br />
relationships between compositions. One composition is added as footage in<br />
another composition. Organizing projects this way allows the compositor to<br />
work on elements separately and bring them together in a more elegant way.<br />
Previous versions of After Effects were only able to use OpenGL to<br />
accelerate the current composition. In After Effects CS4 all ‘nested’<br />
compositions (compositions within compositions) will use OpenGL to<br />
render if possible.<br />
Testing GPU Accelerated Nested Compositions:<br />
1. Double click the NestedComps composition in the Project Panel<br />
to open it.<br />
2. Verify that the Fast Preview mode is set to OpenGL (Always On).<br />
3. Drag the Current Time Indicator slowly along the Timeline.<br />
Interaction, in this case, is not real-time but should be significantly<br />
better than under CPU rendering.<br />
4. Press ‘c’ to select the Unified Camera Tool.
5. Click with the Right Mouse Button in the Composition Viewer<br />
and drag upward to track in to the scene (hold shift to move 10x<br />
faster).<br />
Testing Nested Compositions without GPU Acceleration:<br />
1. Change the Fast Preview mode to Adaptive Resolution.<br />
2. Drag the Current Time Indicator slowly along the Timeline. Note<br />
the deterioration of interaction and image resolution.<br />
3. Press ‘c’ to select the Unified Camera Tool.<br />
4. Click with the Right Mouse Button in the Composition Viewer<br />
and drag upward to track in to the scene (hold shift to move 10x<br />
faster).<br />
More on Nested Compositions:<br />
In order to show the nested relationships of this composition, press ‘v’ to<br />
enable the Selection tool, right-click in the Composition Viewer, and go<br />
down to the Composition Flowchart contextual menu option to activate<br />
the Composition Flowchart (Figure 47):<br />
Figure 47: Composition Flow Chart. Double click any of the ‘nodes’ to enter<br />
that composition.<br />
You can now double click any of the nodes in the flowchart to open that<br />
composition in the composition viewer.
Performance Metrics<br />
CPU Render<br />
(seconds)<br />
GPU Render<br />
(seconds) Factor<br />
Bilateral Blur 623 215 2.90<br />
Cartoon 915 24 38.13<br />
Turbulent Noise 563 79 7.13<br />
Depth of Field Blur 537 178 3.02<br />
Nested<br />
Compositions 684 130 5.26<br />
Test Machine Specifications<br />
Figure 48: Performance Metrics<br />
Dual-Core AMD Opteron 2.8GHz, 3.5GB RAM w/ Quadro CX
Why Choose the Quadro CX<br />
Workstation Board Over<br />
NVIDIA GeForce?<br />
NVIDIA Quadro CX Advantages<br />
Today’s high performance consumer graphics boards while possessing<br />
extremely powerful graphics performance, are primarily designed for gaming<br />
performance, whereas professional visual imaging and 3D applications have<br />
more intricate needs that require additional features and a different balance in<br />
some aspects of the graphics boards features.<br />
NVIDIA Quadro CX solutions offer features that provide additional<br />
functionality required by professional creative professionals:<br />
� Accelerated Video Encoding: Utilizing the RapiHD Plugin, the Quadro<br />
CX can encode High Definition H.264 video up to 4x faster than is<br />
possible using CPU based encoding.<br />
� GPU Accelerated RAW Preview and Decoding: The Quadro CX uses<br />
the power of the GPU to perform lightning fast previews and RAW file<br />
decoding on Adobe Digital Negative Files (DNG). Rapidly view and rate<br />
images as the first step in a Digital RAW workflow.<br />
� Support for Professional SDI Output: The Quadro CX also provides<br />
support for professional video output via SDI for film and video postproduction<br />
and broadcast graphics. The boards support 2 channels of SD<br />
or HD-SDI output. Plugins for SDI output from within Premiere Pro<br />
and After Effects are included with the Quadro CX.<br />
� Application testing and certification: All NVIDIA Quadro CX<br />
graphics boards are a certified professional solution for Adobe CS4 Suite.<br />
� Support commitment of three years: NVIDIA provides support and<br />
driver updates for all NVIDIA Quadro graphics boards for three years<br />
from the date of introduction.<br />
� Planned availability of boards for 18 months: With NVIDIA GeForce<br />
and other consumer cards, there is no guarantee how long the card will be<br />
available, but NVIDIA Quadro boards typically have an availability of 18<br />
months, providing a more stable IT platform across your enterprise.<br />
� Enhanced driver configuration: Designed to support the more varied<br />
needs of professional applications, Quadro CX drivers let users adjust<br />
settings for texture memory size, buffer flipping mode, anti-aliasing line
gamma, texture color depth, stereoscopic display settings and overlay<br />
control–all of which are unavailable on NVIDIA GeForce cards. This<br />
allows users to customize DirectX and OpenGL settings that are<br />
important for professional 3D, Professional Imaging and Visualization<br />
applications.<br />
Delivers All the NVIDIA<br />
GeForce Advantages<br />
Just because the Quadro workstation boards are designed to provide the best<br />
professional features for high end applications, doesn’t mean that<br />
workstation professionals have to sacrifice the ability to play today’s hottest<br />
consumer games and visual applications. The Quadro CX offers similar<br />
gaming performance as that found on NVIDIA’s consumer level cards.<br />
When not running high performance professional applications, the Quadro<br />
professional cards can also run today’s most exciting gaming titles.<br />
Note: While Quadro cards can generally run the same gaming applications as Geforce<br />
cards, the Qaudro cards do not currently support the gaming profiles used by some<br />
of these applications.<br />
NVIDIA Unified Driver<br />
Architecture (UDA)<br />
The NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) allows forward-andbackward<br />
as well as top-to-bottom compatibility, greatly reducing support<br />
costs by simplifying system maintenance. With the NVIDIA UDA,<br />
performance optimizations and bug fixes apply to all Quadro products,<br />
providing CAD and IT managers with a strong investment protection.<br />
Patented UDA technology is found only in NVIDIA products. UDA also<br />
allows every generation of Quadro graphics products to use any certified<br />
driver. The UDA model allows a single graphics driver update to be applied<br />
across a mixed installation of NVIDIA products, reducing the burden on IT<br />
resources.
Benefits<br />
� Decreased maintenance time and total cost of ownership: With a<br />
single UDA driver across your enterprise, only one driver has to be<br />
managed, configured, and installed.<br />
� Ongoing improvements: NVIDIA continues to add more functionality<br />
and performance to the UDA driver. This allows older processors to<br />
enjoy new features and run faster at no additional cost.<br />
� Reduced hardware/driver conflicts: Every driver is thoroughly tested<br />
with all previous products and new products are even tested with old<br />
drivers.<br />
� Increased scalability: Upgrading products and adding new hardware is<br />
simplified when your graphics solution is based on NVIDIA hardware<br />
and the UDA driver.<br />
� Future-ready: The NVIDIA driver is available for 10 different operating<br />
systems, including Windows XP 32-bit/64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit/64bit,<br />
Linux and FreeBSD.<br />
NVIDIA nView ® Multi-Display<br />
Technology<br />
The NVIDIA Quadro CX professional graphics solutions feature NVIDIA’s<br />
nView multi-display technology, providing the ultimate in multiple display<br />
flexibility and user control. The combination of nView hardware and<br />
software technology leverages NVIDIA’s industry-leading hardware and<br />
software expertise to deliver multi-display functionality with immense<br />
flexibility. nView incorporates built-in attributes and performance tuning for<br />
each display device, including CRTs and flat panel LCDs, in a highly intuitive<br />
and flexible user interface.<br />
Highlights include:<br />
� Windows integration: Offers seamless integration within the familiar<br />
Windows environment, which enables users to quickly and easily take<br />
advantage of nView’s advanced multi-display functionality.<br />
� Setup wizard: Allows users to configure their multiple display solutions<br />
quickly and correctly.<br />
� Window and application management: Gives users full control over<br />
repositioning dialog boxes and application windows.
� Application extensions for Microsoft Internet Explorer: Enables<br />
more efficient Web searches through Internet Explorer extensions.<br />
� Hot keys: With its straightforward configuration utility, nView lets users<br />
bind every nView action to a keyboard hot key.<br />
� Advanced zoom features: Let users to quickly enlarge portions of the<br />
screen for easier close-up viewing and precision editing.<br />
� Desktop management: Allows user to create up to 32 different<br />
Windows desktop workspaces to control information flow. Each desktop<br />
is fully customizable, allowing users to change the desktop name, select a<br />
custom desktop background, and control the availability of applications.<br />
� Advanced Windows Effects: Maximizes valuable desktop real estate.<br />
Effects, such as transparencies, can be applied to applications such as<br />
Internet Explorer so users can easily see incoming e-mail messages hidden<br />
behind windows.
�
Appendix A: Product Specifications<br />
Table 1. NVIDIA Quadro CX<br />
Quadro CX<br />
Announced 2008-11-10<br />
MSRP $1,999<br />
GPU GT200GL<br />
Bus type PCIe ×16<br />
Process 55 nm<br />
Transistors 1.4 B<br />
Memory size 1.5 GB<br />
Memory type GDDR3<br />
Memory width 384-bit<br />
Memory bandwidth 76.8 GB/s<br />
Triangles/s 300 M<br />
Texels/s 38 B<br />
Color depth 128-bit<br />
OpenGL 2.1<br />
DirectX/Shader Model 10.0/4.0<br />
FSAA/SLI FSAA 32×/64×1.4 B<br />
RG FSAA ✔<br />
VESA stereo ✔<br />
Edge blending ✔<br />
G-Sync support ✔<br />
SLI support ✔<br />
PureVideo ✔<br />
PureVideo HD ✔<br />
Board Width 2<br />
Power usage 150 W<br />
RAMDACs 400 MHz<br />
Max. analog res 2048×1536<br />
Max. digital res<br />
2560×1600 (DP)<br />
3840 x 2400 (DVI)<br />
Display connectors 2 DP<br />
1 DVI-I DL<br />
1 Stereo
Testing Checklist<br />
Appendix C: Testing Basics<br />
The following checklist is provided as a quick reminder. We have prepared<br />
more detailed instructions on installing and configuring hardware and<br />
software for workstation graphics board benchmarking.<br />
Having problems? Not getting the results you expect? Make sure you do all<br />
of the following:<br />
� Always uninstall graphics board drivers before switching boards or<br />
changing driver versions.<br />
� Always disable V-sync when benchmarking<br />
� Always run with the latest display driver.<br />
� Keep the NVIDIA Control Panel closed while benchmarking.<br />
� Always restart the application before each benchmark test.<br />
� Disable unneeded background processes, virus checkers, and indexing<br />
services.<br />
� Read our relevant Evaluation Notes:<br />
Note: Please be aware that having V-sync enabled is the chief cause of poor<br />
benchmarking results. If V-sync is enabled the full performance which the<br />
graphics card is capable of will not reflected in performance tests<br />
Additional Product Information<br />
� NVIDIA Quadro FX Line Card<br />
� NVIDIA Quadro CX Product Data Sheet<br />
� NVIDIA Quadro FX Product Overview
North<br />
America<br />
Europe,<br />
Middle-East,<br />
Africa, and<br />
India<br />
Asia and<br />
Pacific<br />
Region<br />
Nick STAM<br />
Director, Technical Marketing<br />
215-504-0321 (Office)<br />
215-514-0400 (Cell)<br />
nstam@nvidia.com<br />
Sean Kilbride<br />
Technical Marketing Manager,<br />
Workstation Product Reviews<br />
408-486-2313 (Office)<br />
510-673-4570 (Cell)<br />
skilbride@nvidia.com<br />
Luciano ALIBRANDI<br />
Director of Product PR EMEA<br />
+33 6 07405498<br />
lalibrandi@nvidia.com<br />
NVIDIA Ltd<br />
14, place Marie Jeanne Bassot<br />
92593 Levallois Perret, FRANCE<br />
Jens NEUSCHAEFER<br />
Central European Product PR Manager<br />
+49 173 528 2912<br />
jneuschaefer@nvidia.com<br />
NVIDIA GmbH<br />
Rosenheimerstr.145b<br />
81671 München, GERMANY<br />
Kaori NAKAMURA<br />
Japan Marketing Manager<br />
+81 (3) 6743-8712<br />
knakamura@nvidia.com<br />
NVIDIA Japan<br />
Akasaka Tameike Tower 2F, 2-17-7 Akasaka<br />
Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 JAPAN<br />
Sunny LEE<br />
Korea Marketing Manager<br />
+82 (2) 6000-8012<br />
slee@nvidia.com<br />
NVIDIA Korea<br />
#2101, COEX Trade Tower<br />
159-1 Samsung-dong<br />
Kangnam-gu, Seoul 135-729 KOREA<br />
Appendix E: NVIDIA<br />
Marketing and PR Information<br />
Derek PEREZ<br />
Director of PR<br />
408–486-2512<br />
dperez@nvidia.com<br />
Stephane QUENTIN<br />
Southern European Product PR Manager<br />
+33 6 14308655<br />
squentin@nvidia.com<br />
NVIDIA Ltd<br />
14, place Marie Jeanne Bassot<br />
92593 Levallois Perret, FRANCE<br />
Benjamin Berraondo<br />
Northern European Product PR Manager<br />
+44 118 903 3078<br />
bberraondo@nvidia.com<br />
NVIDIA Ltd<br />
1310 Arlington Business Park<br />
Theale, Berkshire RG7 4SA<br />
United Kingdom<br />
Cynthia LEE<br />
Director of Marketing, Japan and Korea<br />
+88 6-2-21755769<br />
cynlee@nvidia.com<br />
Peizhi (Perry) DENG<br />
Technical Marketing Manager, APAC<br />
+86-10 5866 1518<br />
PDeng@nvidia.com<br />
NVIDIA Corp.<br />
Unit 2901-2904, China World Tower 1<br />
N0.1 Jian Guo Men Wai Avenue<br />
Beijing, P. R. China
Branding <strong>Guide</strong>lines<br />
The correct way of writing NVIDIA is the name “NVIDIA” in all uppercase.<br />
Upon first reference, the name should be followed by a registered trademark<br />
symbol, “NVIDIA ® .”<br />
Quadro is written with an uppercase “Q,” lowercase “uadro.” In the first<br />
reference, the name Quadro should be followed by a registered trademark<br />
symbol, “Quadro ® .”<br />
If the first reference to NVIDIA is “NVIDIA Quadro,” the registration<br />
mark may be omitted after NVIDIA, “NVIDIA Quadro ® .” In such a case,<br />
the first use of NVIDIA separate from the Quadro name should be followed<br />
by the trademark symbol, as described above.<br />
� Write the name “Quadro” (according to the preceding guidelines),<br />
followed by a space, and all uppercase “CX.”
Notice<br />
Reviewer’s <strong>Guide</strong>: NVIDIA Quadro FX Professional Graphics Cards<br />
ALL NVIDIA DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS, REFERENCE BOARDS, FILES, DRAWINGS, DIAGNOSTICS, LISTS, AND<br />
OTHER DOCUMENTS (TOGETHER AND SEPARATELY, “MATERIALS”) ARE BEING PROVIDED “AS IS.” NVIDIA<br />
MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE WITH RESPECT TO THE<br />
MATERIALS, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NONINFRINGEMENT,<br />
MERCHANTABILITY, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.<br />
Information furnished is believed to be accurate and reliable. However, NVIDIA Corporation assumes no<br />
responsibility for the consequences of use of such information or for any infringement of patents or other rights<br />
of third parties that may result from its use. No license is granted by implication or otherwise under any patent<br />
or patent rights of NVIDIA Corporation. Specifications mentioned in this publication are subject to change<br />
without notice. This publication supersedes and replaces all information previously supplied. NVIDIA<br />
Corporation products are not authorized for use as critical components in life support devices or systems<br />
without express written approval of NVIDIA Corporation.<br />
Trademarks<br />
NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, Quadro, ForceWare, nView, GeForce, Tesla, G-Sync, CUDA, SLI, PureVideo, Gelato,<br />
FX Composer, PerfHUD, and PerfKit are trademarks or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the<br />
United States and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective<br />
companies with which they are associated.<br />
Copyright<br />
© 2008 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved.<br />
NVIDIA Corporation<br />
2701 San Tomas Expressway<br />
Santa Clara, CA 95050<br />
www.nvidia.com