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MillimeterTest Drive: Nvidia Quadro CX and Adobe CS4, Part 1
Jan 12, 2009 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer
Figure 1. Obligatory Photoshop picture with beautiful woman. No wonder Deke McClelland’s tutorials are so popular.
Enter OpenGL
In short, CS4 supports more OpenGL-related functions than does CS3—so much so that OpenGL support should now be considered a requirement. What the heck is OpenGL? Let’s explore.
Back in the dawn of DCC, the host CPU performed all rendering—which was painfully slow because its design was optimized for general computing, and the CPU had plenty of other stuff to do. OpenGL stands for Open Graphics Library, and it’s a cross-platform standard for producing 2D and 3D computer graphics. OpenGL allows DCC programs to hand off rendering tasks to GPUs that were optimized for rendering, which lets the CPU do its thing and speeds overall throughput.
OpenGL started in the DCC market, but game vendors soon found that they faced a similar problem: how to speed game play. Not surprisingly, most game developers started to support OpenGL as well as Direct3D, Microsoft’s proprietary competing standard. This meant that game-oriented cards also started supporting OpenGL, which means there’s probably a good chance that your current workstation—even without a workstation-class card—supports OpenGL and can take advantage of the CS4 OpenGL-related features.
Figure 2. If the checkbox for Enable OpenGL Drawing is active in Photoshop, you’ve got an OpenGL card.
What CS4 features are now supported by OpenGL? They vary by program.
Most of Photoshop’s new navigational features, such as Animated Zoom and hand toss, require OpenGL. OpenGL also accelerates 3D Axis and the 3D Lights widget. Adobe details the new features in a TechNote appropriately titled “GPU accelerated features in Photoshop CS4 and Bridge CS4”. You can also view a screencam video describing these new functions from Deke McLelland at the Lynda.com site (go here, click Navigation and OpenGL).
How can you tell if your current card supports OpenGL? Open your Preferences window to the Performance page, and if the Enable OpenGL Drawing checkbox is active, you have it. Otherwise, you don’t.
Figure 3. Ditto for After Effects.
After Effects enjoyed extensive OpenGL support in previous versions. In CS4, Adobe added even more, including OpenGL support for camera depth of field and nested compositions. You can tell if you have an OpenGL-enabled graphics card in the Previews page of the Preferences window. If the Enable OpenGL is active, you have an OpenGL capable card. If not, your card either doesn’t support OpenGL, or there’s a driver issue preventing After Effects from seeing your card.
Regarding Premiere Pro, the minimum system requirements include an OpenGL-capable card, but I was unable to find any details as to what functions were accelerated.
OK, by now you should be convinced that you need an OpenGL-enabled graphics card for CS4. The big question is whether you need the Quadro CX.
Before signing off until next issue, I’ll note that Adobe has posted a list of compatible cards for both After Effects and Photoshop. Note that the Quadro CX isn’t listed in either, though I’m sure that’s an oversight. Interestingly, the list of supported cards includes game-oriented graphics cards based on chips like the GeForce GTX 260, which costs less than $300.
So if you don’t have an OpenGL-capable card, you can get one for about 1/7 the price of the CX. Does this make the CX overkill? Probably, for many mainstream users. At the high end, however, there are several compelling business cases for the CX, or a card in its class. Check back in two weeks for the test drive.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.