New video card

[Steve Rusk]

I've got a 5770 and the GPU acceleration feature works fine for me. Have you checked to make sure you are running the newest catalyst drivers? I had driver issues when I first tried to enable GPU acceleration and it wouldn't recognize the card until I cleared off some old nvidia drivers.

I can't say for sure the 5770 makes a lot of difference, if any over my i7 processor alone, but some renders feel faster than when I was on VP9.

Anybody hear from anybody using the new 7970 cards? On paper at least, it looks like they would offer at least twice the rendering speed of the 5770.

[John McCully]

Just getting back to this, belatedly. Thanks for your input Steve, much appreciated. Latest drivers, well in Device Manager I go ‘update driver’ and am told ‘Windows has determined you have the latest’ so I presume that’s true. I downloaded a product titled Fumark which is designed to stress the video card and no problems there. That product also confirmed I have the latest drivers for the card. I determined that using Vegas 11 I can render using the MainConcept AVCHD Max 60p only if in the customize box under encode mode I select render using cpu only. Any of the other options including automatic crashes Vegas 11. I have no idea why.

I note at the Sony website that features GPU acceleration using a computer almost the same as mine but admitedly with probably a more powerful video card that renders 2 to 3 times as fast are obtained utilizing GPU assist. That’s a huge performance increase. That would be nice.

Not sure what to do. Might do a complete reinstall and see if that solves the problem. That will have to wait until I have the time and the inclination. In the meantime I have Vegas 11 rendering as it should albeit without the acclaimed GPU acceleration, which is disappointing.

[Edward Troxel]

John, clicking on "Update Driver" will very rarely find the NEWEST driver out there. What catalyst version do you have installed? You can find out by right-clicking a blank area of the desktop. There should be an "AMD Control Center" type entry listed there. Click on that. On the screen that opens, scroll down to the bottom of the left side, click on "Information", and then click on "Software Update". You should now see on the right where it says "AMD Catalyst" and gives the version installed. What version does it say? The current Catalyst version is 12.2.

[Jeff Harper]

John, also try completely uninstalling all software associated with your video card, then install the newest driver as listed on you manufacturer's website. This helped me a few months ago, I had installed updates over old drivers, a real no no, which I should have known better. Anyway, this method did clear up some issues for me.

[John McCully]

Short update: I have now successfully utilized the video card, a Radeon HD 5770, on my Dell XPS 9000 desktop during rendering. I rendered a short AVCHD file shot using a NEX 5n camera from the Vegas Pro 11 timeline without any changes resulted in no significant differences in time with and without GPU involvement.

Longer update: Thanks Edward and Jeff for your most helpful suggestions. I followed both your suggestions and first uninstalled and deleted the drivers utilizing the Device Manager. I then reinstalled the original drivers that are on the Dell support website, R242640, driver version 8.930.0.0 dated 5/12/2011. I experimented with that setup. I then downloaded the Catalyst package and updated the drivers to 8.950.0.0 dated 14/02/2012. Made no difference whatsoever.

The option to utilize GPU rendering appears in two location (that I am aware of – there may be more), the first being options, preferences, video and there we see GPU acceleration of video processing: and we have the choice of ‘Advanced Micro Devices Inc (Juniper) or Off. Also on the MainConcept AV/AAC template near the bottom under Encode method we have the option of rendering 1) Automatic (recommended), 2) Render using GPU if available, and 3) Render using CPU only.

My results:

Options preferences video GPU ‘Off’:
1) Render AVCHD file unaltered with either Automatic or ‘Render using GPU if available’ failed to render.
2) Rendering was successful when ‘Render with CPU only’ was selected. The video card was not utilized as indicated by GPU temperature remaining steady.

Options preferences video ‘Advanced Micro Devices Inc (Juniper)’ selected.
1) Render AVCHD file unaltered with either Automatic or ‘Render using GPU if available’ failed to render.
2) Rendering was successful when Render with CPU only. The video card was untilized as indicated by a 10 degree increase in GPU temperature but the render time remained the same.

Go figure; I think I need a new video card!

[Jeff Harper]

If possible I would focus on a faster processor rather than a better card, but that is just me.