CS5 x64 and Mercury Playback Engine
 

It looks like CS5 will be 64 bit only and will require 12GB ram as the min. Adobe suggests 24GB ram.
DAVTechTable - Sneak Peek at the New Adobe Mercury Playback Engine Technology | Adobe TV

Holy @#$%

WOWOWOWOWOWOW

I want!!!

David,

Keep in mind this demo was done on a HP Z800 with dual W5590's, 24 Gb memory and a nVidia Quadro 4800 card. I don't know yet what the disk setup is, but hope to get that info shortly, as well as the benchmark results from this system.

I think it'll run just fine with less then that. I don't believe that he said CS5 will require 12GB of RAM, but it will help...and if you want to take advantage of the new playback engine, more RAM will be helpful.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium: Accelerate your HD workflows
"For optimal performance, we recommend a minimum of 12GB of RAM."

Pretty much what I have been yelling at CS4 for the past year.

I have expressed some initial thoughts on CS5 and MPE. It may be of interest: Adobe Forums: Thinking aloud about CS5

Do the CS5 requirements preclude usage on today's laptops right out of the gate?

It seems unlikely that Adobe wants to exclude that target market, but it seems likely that laptop users will not benefit from MPE nor from the move to 64 bits if they don't have the hardware and that may well be the case for most current laptops.

My laptop is already x64. All I need to do is install the x64 OS and I am good. I had been waiting 2 years to get some x64 drivers for this tascam mixer I have been using. Finally they released them a few months back.

What laptop will meet the hardware/memory requirements of CS5?

No need for RT.X2?
 

I have CS3, and am going to ugrade to the CS5 when it comes out. I currently am editing SD only, but have the EX1/3 on my purchase list for 2010. With that I was looking at adding the RT.X2 to my system. With the Mercury engine, it looks like I can simply get the NVidea card (and more memory) and get the faster processing from there. Does the RT.X2 provide any other benefit then to PP than speed?

This is also probably a stupid question, but am I right in assuming that this Mercury engine will also have the same speed affect on AE as well?

The Matrox RT.X2 has four serious advantages IMO:

1. It costs a bundle (makes you popular with the Financial Director).
2. It seriously messes up stability and causes regular hangs/errors etc (makes for serious headaches for you and snide remarks from the Financial Director).
3. It precludes using standard PC's, only Matrox approved and outdated systems (leaving you wishing for a better system).
4. It can be thrown in the garbage can when CS5 comes out due to incompatibilities (causing another snipe remark from the Financial Director).

One might argue that these are not advantages, but rather disadvantages.

First of all Bill, before you take Harm's comments seriously, the RT.X2 card is an HDV accelerator, and unlike the original posting at the top, WILL NOT resolve any AVCHD or other proprietary codec issues...

If you're working with HDV, then yes, the RT.X2 card is the way to go..But since you're using (planning to get) the Sony camera, it's not necessary..Choose another route.
If i'm not mistaken, Sony's codec on the SxS cards edit pretty smoothly on a modern system...

Thanks for the reply. I can tell Harm and the Financial director usually see eye to eye. I bet they probably like to enjoy a few beers together and argue aboutwho gets to pay...

Thanks, guys, Next one's on me!

So who can't wait for this mercury engine?

I'm holding off buying a new PC until I see this - Might just buy a Nvidia 295 card for this?

I sincerely hope the nVidia GTX295 will be supported, but at this moment the only video cards that will be supported now are the GTX285 and the Quadro 3800, 4800 and 5800. I do hope this list will be extended to include more cards, like the GTX 295, 360, 380 and maybe even the 275 or below. I am also curious to know whether the C20x0 coprocessor will be supported. One thing is for sure, SLI will not be supported. At least not initially.

SLI would be cool - Cheaper than a new PC with the speeds of GFX cards?

Is CS5 still due out in April?

The old saying still applies: Those who know, don't tell, those who tell don't know.

Here are some other problems, which I have posted elsewhere. First, CS5 will be the first "supposedly" full 64 bit Adobe suite. What I worry about is that Sony Vegas Pro has had two 64 bit versions (8.1 and 9.0) and neither has been full 64 bit. Various codecs and filters that are included with Vegas (not add ons that you you buy from a 3rd party) are still 32 bit. Vegas uses a surrogate program to communicate with the 32 bit components. The 32 bit codecs cannot address all the physical RAM that the OS can address. I don't know whether this is the source of instability or not, but neither 64 bit version of Vegas is stable enough for production work, at least for me. Sure, it uses as much physical RAM as you have, but what's the point, if it crashes and corrupts projects, without any warning?

Now, consider that on top of Adobe going to 64 bit with PP and AE CS5 (or possibly some 64/32 bit hybrid), they are also going to add in the Mercury CUDA acceleration engine. Now can we expect that to also be bug free immediately? Keep in mind that Adobe has been clever about only certifying a small number of video cards and that should help matters. But Mercury CS5 will still be an initial release. What's the chance that it will be good enough for production? And then you have nVidia's propensity for constantly issuing and upgrading it's buggy video drivers. The good news with that is that PC video gaming is almost dead (crushed by the gaming consoles), so nVidia will probably concentrate more on enterprise users.

But all in all, CS5 is going to be a very hard sell, unless initial reviews are favorable. We can only hope.

I think Adobe has made it clear it's 64bit only, so there won't be any weird 64/32bit hybrids. I read somewhere where they flat out said CS4 will be the last to run on 32bit platforms. And given that Photoshop has been out for a while already in a pure 64bit version already, I'm sure a lot of filters already exist in 64bit form.

Also, I don't think PC gaming is dead. I don't play them, but the propensity of MMO's guarantees that PC gaming will be around for awhile. How that affects nVidia's business direction, who knows.

I disagree! Can't wait for CS5

The problem is that some codecs that are included with both PP and Vegas are authored by 3rd parties (such as MainConcept). MC now has 64 bit codecs available for sale, so you are probably right that CS5 will 100% 64 bit. The question is why SCS didn't use the 64 bit MC codecs for Vegas Pro?

This is getting way off topic, but if you check any website that summarizes video game sales, you will see that the Nintendo Wii platform sells the most games (units sold), then XBox360, then Sony Playstation 3 and bringing up the rear by a considerable margin, PC-based games. Most popular new game titles are not even available for the PC platform. The PC gaming market could come back, but in the mean time, this is not a good sign for the overall development of PC-based graphics cards.

I'm looking forward to the new release, but I think we've all learned by now to not even think about installing anything from Adobe until the .2 update. You don't have to burn me more than 16 or 17 times...

My files (HD) are playing back about that smoothly now. No bullsh*t. Even with some of the simpler dissolves. I guess I'm supposed to be impressed but, er, unless I'm just not seeing it, where's the colossal advantage? Granted it plays smoother with 900 layers of video. The smooth real-time playback was one of the new (and realized) selling points of CS4. The perpetual Technology Trap™ raises the bar yet again.

Yeah Rob, but i think the performance sale is targeted for those that use AVCHD mainly....And the fact that each APP can get RAM filled without sharing resources, is the greater selling feature...

It's all speculation at this point....
But yes, looking forward to hearing more...

Nolo contendere; we've all been there. Then again, Adobe's first go at 64 bit for their flagship application, Photoshop CS4 x64, is ROCK stable and notably more speedy than the 32bit version for me. It CAN be done; I don't see a lot of point to either praising or condemning CS5 until we are able to give the release version a try.

I guess the main idea is to stay with what's working for you. I used to fall into the Technology Trap™ all the time. I had to have the latest and greatest, just because it was new. I was a chronic. Until I realized it was mostly a rat race. Point and fact: I know someone who still uses AE 5.5, and composes better looking stuff than most people using AE 9 (CS4). Guys with $5000 DSLRs (lens not included) who can't compose a memorable or striking photograph to save their life, as opposed to the old codger using a 70+ year old large format camera whose photographs end up on display in galleries.

It always goes to prove it's not what you have, but how well you use it.

I totally agree with Rob. Althought I do believe 64-bit is the future.

I 100% agree with that, Floris. And more software manufacturers need to get onboard with 64 bit.

I'm still using CS2 on my 4 year old Dell system.

Anxiously awaiting CS5, so I can upgrade to a new computer system, which hopefully will last me another 4 years (or longer!)

That MPE feature looks pretty cool. I am impressed.

Is anyone else getting excited about CS5? I am counting down the days and looking to buy a new GTX 275 card to put it through some testing

FYI, you want the GTX 285 if you are interested to use CUDA acceleration in CS5. The GTX 275 is not certified and will not give you any CUDA goodness in CS5.

You may have made a typo, but if not, dont waste your money on the GTX 275. :)

Yeah meant the 285 - Though probably will purchase one second hand and wait for the new GFX fermi to come out.

Just read this comment:

"I will point out that there has been no mention of the Mercury Playback engine will be a part of the next version of Premiere Pro."

here

The Genesis Project: Technology Sneek Peek: Adobe® Mercury Playback Engine

I'd be curious as to the support. If you check nVidia's website, you will see that most of the 200 series have CUDA support. I would think that CUDA is CUDA, I would be surprised if they are only targeting a select card. I'm curious if this list was just a "ok we tried these cards and these definitely meet our requirements. No guarantees on the CUDA supported cards." You have to figure that if the 300 series comes out they will also be CUDA supported and should be a bit better than the 285 will they not be supported?

You don't need 900 layers of RED footage to choke even a big machine. Also consider that color correction done on the edit timeline is moving more and more down-budget. When every clip on the timeline has a color correction filter on it before you even start with anything specific, it can be tough to get decent playback for any substantial period of time without a preview render.

The idea behind Mercury is to make non-rendered playback available to pretty much all formats. Now the limiting factor for many will be the harddrive's ability to keep up.

I dont know, but it sounds reasonable. I guess we have to wait until the 300-series and CS5 is released. :)