Adobe Creative Suite 6 -With the MGE they ditch CUDA.

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
#1

Good news everyone!

Adobe Photoshop CS6 ditches CUDA and switches to OpenGL/OpenCL:

The Mercury Graphics Engine (MGE) represents features that use video card, or GPU, acceleration. In Photoshop CS6, this new engine delivers near-instant results when editing with key tools such as Liquify, Warp, Lighting Effects and the Oil Paint filter. The new MGE delivers unprecedented responsiveness for a fluid feel as you work.
MGE is new to Photoshop CS6, and uses both the OpenGL and OpenCL frameworks. It does not use the proprietary CUDA framework from nVidia.
In order to use MGE, you must have a supported video card and updated driver. If you do not have a supported card, performance will be degraded. In most cases the acceleration is lost and the feature runs in the normal CPU mode. However, there are some features that will not work without a supported video card.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4289204

Does anyone know yet if the CS6 Student licenses also allow commercial usage like the CS5?

#2

not sure, but it will be interesting to see how this impacts the CUDA vs OpenCL front…seeing as Adobe is a major player in the app market.

#3

I bought a Nvidia card and 16GB RAM when I purchased a new machine specifically for upgrading to CS6, under the assumption that the entire suite would become 64-bit and GPU accelarated across the board. Not so much it seems!

#4

i dont understand a lot about graphics cards. so CUDA is from nvidia and opengl is from ATI?

does this mean that you can not use every tool in CS6 if you a nvidia?

#5

blend_B OpenGL/OpenCL is an open standard that is used by ATI , Nvidia and others.

Cuda is a closed standard only usable by Nvidia hardware.

That being said I applaud the move by Adobe for chosing this direction.

#6

thanks. is there a site that has more info that is accurate without fanboys fighting which one is better?

because for 2 years i have been told that its best to have a nvidia because more software will work on it. for example Mari (texture painting program) doesnt work on ATI. not that i am buying it. but lets say i buy a new computer. is there a chance that a good new software will be realesed that doesnt work on my computer?

#7

New topic for tech support maybe?

#8

is there a chance that a good new software will be realesed that doesnt work on my computer?

Yes.
I still expect the usage of CUDA to drop and the usage of OpenCL to rise. Nice to see that Adobe has jumped on the bandwagon.
As for which is better: CUDA is better than OpenCL, but it only runs on Nvidia, and DirectX is better than OpenGL but it only runs on Windows. Flame away :wink:

#9

I wonder how well the Nvidia cards will work.

#10

I can see no noticeable difference in performance between Photoshop CS5 and the public beta of CS6. Both use my GTX 560ti well. Panning, zooming and canvas rotation works exactly as before. Those are the main features I use day to day when doing 2D illustration work. I don’t own the Extended version of CS5 and am not interested in the 3D stuff within Photoshop. All of the old GPU accelerated features work as before and the new or modified ones work fine also. So if you use an Nvidia card I wouldn’t worry too much.

Here’s a comparision of the relevant settings under Photoshop’s Performance tab within Preferences.

#11

Adobe have been promising the full integration of a consistent application framework (short cuts: control d for place?), GPU acceleration and 64-bit versions across the entire suite, not just Photoshop and Premiere, for several versions already. CS4 not so much, CS5 & 5.5 not so much, CS6 not so much. A bit like a Duke Nukem for features. Bmesh has happened, so I imagine I will be told to be patience, no doubt.

#12

This is excellent news - Premiere CS6 now uses opencl acceleration as well. Before switching to AMD, I used a gtx280 in Premiere CS4 with the new Mercury engine, and render times went down by at least 50%: a huge time saver. The switch to AMD threw me back into ‘slow mode’ - until now.

The 7970 should perform really well. I am glad I stuck with AMD, and the prospects are looking better every day now. More and more companies are making the switch to opencl, and I applaud the move away from proprietary CUDA.