OpenCL vs Cuda for CS6

[LJ_Designer]

First of all, My English is not very well please bear with me. I do like to know how comparison with a GTX 6xx and an AMD 7xxx. This discussion is about OpenCL vs Cuda for CS6 programs and general for PS, video-editing and 3D rendering.

I already know about performance in gaming benchmark, value, performance ratio, and etc. I'm from eggxpert in chat room/forums. I'm helping to people who needs help with PC parts and build. Any people usually come to eggxpert ask for PC custom building for a gaming, basic, and needs. Also asking for issue in his or her PC hardware or software. Sometimes asking for help about workstation heavy using rendering (cad, lightwave, autodesk, etc.), more rams, more Hyper-Threading/Cores, and professional graphic cards. We might not best expert in that parts. I always ask them go to adobe forums then I linked for them. However, there are only few people who are graphic design and video-editing such as 2600/3770 w/o "K" if need overclocking or about close price, any GPUs GTX cards or AMD 7750/7770 or higher if buget fit. 2600/3700 8 HT great for "Intermediate" use with any programs like CS6, Cinema4d, and etc. I learned from Harm Millaard. Basic, Intermediate, and Difficult. Budget, Economical, and Warrior. Best bang for the buck for CPU.That is where I googled it and saw in forums about his wrote. Most of us (eggxperts) like this guy and some people too. This forum is great expert with good wise ratio, value, performance, and etc. just like we did in eggxperts but just issue, gaming, general, and PC parts.

I would like to learn more about OpenCL and Cuda. Some forums said OpenCL is faster then Cuda. Some people said CS6 is using OpenCL only. I checked Nvidia Site updated CUDA 5.0 to work with CS6 (GTX 6xx.) Also I checked adobe features for OpenCL there are many use features. Nvidia only some feature like color corrector, warp stabilizer, uninterrupted playback, and mutli cam support from Premiere Pro CS6 and some program. CPU would do work with other features anyway. Can you explain to me about OpenCL vs Cuda in performance/benchmark for those programs?

Thank you

[RjL190365]

Which type of system are you going to run? Windows? OSX?

If you are running Windows, keep in mind that the Windows version of Premiere Pro CS6 still does not support OpenCL at all for GPU acceleration. Therefore, all AMD GPUs will force Premiere to run only in MPE software-only mode. The same goes for any non-NVidia GPU, or an NVidia GPU that either has less than 1GB of total video RAM or is too old to support CUDA. MPE GPU acceleration is still NVidia CUDA only in Windows.

If you are running a Mac (OSX), it does support OpenCL for MPE GPU acceleration - but keep in mind that this support is officially limited to certain HD 67xxM GPUs inside newer MacBook Pros running on newer versions of OSX.

Hope this helps.

[woodybrando]

which is faster cuda or opencl acceleration? are there any benchmarks?

thx,

Jayson

AWDEfilms.com

[ECBowen]

The Question of which GPU processing language is faster is really not answerable. You have to be careful on what you read here. If an Application is developed with CUDA as the primary acceleration language and OPENCL is added later, the CUDA acceleration seems to be faster. If the application is developed in Open CL then the ATI cards seem to be faster than the Nvidia cards with Open CL. That is really about as much of a break down as you can get because the ram optimizations really decide so much of the GPU acceleration performance. So the actual deciding factor between the 2 is caching models versus available ram.

Eric

ADK

[Guest]

Hi RjL190365.

the Windows version of Premiere Pro CS6 still does not support OpenCL at all for GPU acceleration

Back from April last year: http://blogs.amd.com/fusion/2012/04/24/adobe-and-amd-enable-brilliant-experiences/ using PS and PP CS6:

a mainstream notebook PC based on the AMD A8-3530MX APU is up to 672% faster when accelerated by the horsepower of the AMD Radeon™ graphics technology in the APU

More specifically:

Test system was a notebook with AMD A8-3530MX APU with AMD Radeon™ HD 6620G Graphics...Windows 7 Pro, 64-bit.

Looks like Windows does support OpenCL hardware acceleration after all.

[Harm_Millaard]

So what?

[Guest]

Hi Harm. 

So... you're all saying AMD doesn't work, but AMD says it does...

...is what.

And I'm confused - I've explained more in this question I just posted.  Any thoughts?

[RjL190365]

dmbx9000 wrote:

Hi Harm. 

So... you're all saying AMD doesn't work, but AMD says it does...

...is what.

And I'm confused - I've explained more in this question I just posted.  Any thoughts?

As I tried to state (but stated something somewhat similar but also different), that may have been true for a beta (pre-release) version of Premiere Pro CS6 for Windows. However, OpenCL support in MPE is permanently disabled on all released Windows versions of Premiere Pro CS6, with absolutely no way at all whatsoever to enable this support even with hacks.

[Guest]

Thanks for the answer, RjL - I appreciate it.  Does that go for Photoshop too?

Edit: apparently it doesn't.  Weird...

Thanks again for your patience, RjL - you've set my mind at rest!

[RjL190365]

No. The restriction applies only to Premiere. Photoshop does have OpenCL enabled.

And in OpenCL, the Radeons do perform significantly faster than otherwise comparably performing GeForces. This is due to Nvidia's relatively poor OpenCL performance in its gaming GPUs.

[Guest]

Yeah this OpenCL issue just sent me on a long research trail and it's full of contradictions;

Beyond AMD saying it does, Adobe also seem to say it does, at least with Premiere CS6 and excepting only a handful of effects that would be processed by CUDA. In this post on Adobe.com dated 8th of May, one day after the first copies shifted: http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2012/05/opencl-and-premiere-pro-cs6.html

"We got a lot of requests from people using computer systems that couldn’t use CUDA—such as those with built-in GPUs from AMD—to expand our GPU acceleration features to also use OpenCL...So, we did."

That post doesn't mention the MPE once but in the linked post here (created 23rd Feb 2011 but since edited several times) http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2011/02/cuda-mercury-playback-engine-and-adobe-premiere-pro.html there is something that links them pretty clearly:

"processing of some things using CUDA (and OpenCL in Premiere Pro CS6)...Here’s a list of things that Premiere Pro CS5 and later can process with CUDA...Premiere Pro CS6 can use OpenCL to process the same features, with the exception of four effects: Basic 3D, Gaussian Blur, Fast Blur, and Directional Blur"

I also remember seeing in an overview video of Premiere CS6 that said OpenCL was now supported but the reality of the situation from people who have used Premiere CS6 with an ATI/AMD card does seem to be that GPU acceleration for the MPE is only available with CUDA on CS6. Indeed given the number of prosumers (exhibit A = me) who prefer to use ATI/AMD cards over Nvidia for their cost and higher memory bandwith it doesn't make much sense to deliberately cut out OpenCL support but for whatever reason Adobe are still 'working on it'. If it happens soon then the only remaining question for me is that because OpenCL is an afterthought the CUDA acceleration is most likely much faster, and potentially more stable.

this is all very annoying because I need to upgrade my PC and for the money I could actually get a better card from ATI/AMD.

[RjL190365]

FTschepp wrote:

this is all very annoying because I need to upgrade my PC and for the money I could actually get a better card from ATI/AMD.

This may not hold true for much longer if you're in the market for a $150-$200 GPU:

NVIDIA has just filled in the large performance gap between the GeForce GTX 650 Ti and the GTX 660 by introducing a new GTX 650 Ti Boost, a slightly crippled GTX 660 with 768 CUDA cores (instead of the 960 CUDA cores in the GTX 660) but with the same 192-bit memory bus width and 144 GB/s memory bandwidth as the 660 (versus the 128-bit, 86.4 GB/s memory on the regular GTX 650 Ti). Early reviews showed that it kicked the butt of AMD's recently introduced (in the same $150-ish price range) Radeon HD 7790; in fact, the GTX 650 Ti Boost's performance is very close to that of AMD's higher-end Radeon HD 7850.

As such, the GTX 650 Ti Boost should have been called the GTX 660 LE or GTX 660 SE instead of the name that it's officially called.

[Guest]

, nice work but I was actually looking at higher end stuff, not ridiculous expensive but still tasty enough to rely on for some demanding things. I'm working in £'s btw and the difference in cost between an AMD 7970 and a GTX670 is negligable, but going by stats the 7970 seems to top the GTX670 in almost every department (memory clocks a bit slower), an extra 1GB of memory on the 7970 and the bus width is higher, and it only costs a couple of quid more. If I was only interested in it as a gaming card I wouldn't even be considering a GTX670, but CUDA is something I'm just going to need.

[RjL190365]

Looks like Windows does support OpenCL hardware acceleration after all.

That may be true for the Premiere Pro CS6 editor interface itself. But the fact remains that the Mercury Playback Engine (MPE) is still officially locked into the software-only mode with non-CUDA (non-Nvidia) GPUs in the Windows version of Premiere Pro.

[Guest]

Sorry RjL - I'm genuinely confused.  It works for the editor interface but not for... Windows?  Is there something I'm missing?

Also - why are AMD claiming that it works for Windows?  That press release seems pretty unambiguous. 

[RjL190365]

dmbx9000 wrote:

Sorry RjL - I'm genuinely confused.  It works for the editor interface but not for... Windows?  Is there something I'm missing?

Also - why are AMD claiming that it works for Windows?  That press release seems pretty unambiguous. 

Read my post to the reply you made to Harm. You see, Premiere Pro CS6 was not officially released until May 7 of last year. In between that April 24 AMD report and the official May 7 release, Adobe decided to permanently disable OpenCL support for the shipping version of Premiere Pro CS6 for Windows.

[Harm_Millaard]

For Windows it is generally speaking like this:

CS5+ PR uses DirectX and only with nVidia cards with more than 896 MB of VRAM can CUDA acceleration be turned on.

CS5+ AE uses OpenGL and only with nVidia cards with more that 896 MB VRAM can GPU assisted Ray Tracing be turned on.

At this moment AMD/ATI cards can not use hardware acceleration at all. OpenCL is not yet supported for hardware acceleration. There are plug-ins for AE and PR that have real time rendering that can use both DirectX and OpenGL, even in PR.

The most decisive factor for hardware acceleration performance is the memory bandwidth, more so than number of CUDA cores.

On our http://ppbm5.com/DB-PPBM5-2.php benchmark results, the average gain from using a CUDA capable video card over software is around a factor 12 for rendering.

If you want some more background on building a system, look here: http://ppbm7.com/index.php/intro-part-1 including the rest of the pages.