Poor OpenGL Performance with 4890

[GearJunkie]

I just upgraded from an 8800GT (with 185.85 Drivers) to a 4890 (with Cat 9.4 Drivers). I noticed that the performance in Photoshop CS4 is much slower when using the smooth pan and zoom tools with the 4890. In general, the 4890 seems a tad slower than the 8800GT with most of the functions in CS4 and in Lightroom 2.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is ATI's OpenGL performance substandard compared to Nvidia's? Or is this some sort of fluke?

Thanks!

 

[SunnyD]

OpenGL has always performed better on Nvidia cards.

 

[Munky]

Maybe it's an issue with Photoshop? My 4890 is definitely faster than my 8800gt in OpenGL games and apps.

 

[dguy6789]

I don't have an 8800GT on hand to compare with, but Photoshop CS4 runs very nicely on my machine with a 4870.

 

[GearJunkie]

Thanks for the replies!

Yes, the 4890 smokes the 8800GT in games. In photoshop CS4, panning is smooth with the 8800GT, but choppy with the 4890. The new panning feature, where you grab and throw the image to pan around quickly is where the difference is most noticable.

 

[lopri]

Hello, check the following link out and other Adobe KB articles.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404898.html

And make sure to have the latest patch and latest drivers for both CS4 and 4890. 4890 is very new, so it's possible that it's not fully recognized by CS4.

Welcome to AnandTech Forums.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: GearJunkie
Thanks for the replies!

Yes, the 4890 smokes the 8800GT in games. In photoshop CS4, panning is smooth with the 8800GT, but choppy with the 4890. The new panning feature, where you grab and throw the image to pan around quickly is where the difference is most noticable.

I opened CS4 up, loaded a picture, zoomed in a bit and threw it around. The scrolling was extremely smooth. That's how it should be right?

 

[GearJunkie]

Thanks for the link to the article. I had seen that before, but I didn't notice the link to supported GPU's. Come to find out, the 8800GT is supported, but the 4890 is not. It looks like newer Nvidia cards are also not supported... I guess Adobe has a 6-month to 1-year lag time before adopting the support of newer GPU's.

Thanks!

 

[GearJunkie]

Originally posted by: dguy6789

Originally posted by: GearJunkie
Thanks for the replies!

Yes, the 4890 smokes the 8800GT in games. In photoshop CS4, panning is smooth with the 8800GT, but choppy with the 4890. The new panning feature, where you grab and throw the image to pan around quickly is where the difference is most noticable.

I opened CS4 up, loaded a picture, zoomed in a bit and threw it around. The scrolling was extremely smooth. That's how it should be right?

Yes, that's exactly how it should be! When I threw it around with the 4890, the scrolling was chunky, and not smooth at all. With the 8800GT, the image scrolled around completely smooth.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: GearJunkie
Has anyone else noticed this? Is ATI's OpenGL performance substandard compared to Nvidia's? Or is this some sort of fluke?

Perhaps it is a result of Photoshop CS4 supporting CUDA? You know, that overhyped useless technology everyone mocks? 😛

Cuda significantly accelerates Photoshop CS4 and Premiere CS4

We?ve seen videos of Photoshop CS4 with and without GPU and the performance of real time image rotation, instant zooming and panning are notably faster with GPU.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: Zap
Perhaps it is a result of Photoshop CS4 supporting CUDA? You know, that overhyped useless technology everyone mocks? 😛

Cuda significantly accelerates Photoshop CS4 and Premiere CS4

We?ve seen videos of Photoshop CS4 with and without GPU and the performance of real time image rotation, instant zooming and panning are notably faster with GPU.

Umm.. That's not true. What CUDA speeds up in CS4 is what CPU used to do traditionally. I cannot speak for video apps, though I'm guessing the situation is the same. You use 3rd party plug-in's that use GPU (CUDA) instead of CPU.

Native OpenGL acceleration works well on both AMD and NV GPUs. Actually NV GPUs used to crash the app/OS before ForceWare 180 series was released. It now doesn't do that any more but until that point AMD cards were alot more stable.

 

[Tempered81]

Wonder if the 4890 remains on 2d desktop clockspeeds while you have cs4 open, while the 8800gt goes into 3d clocks.

this difference could be what is causing image panning to be choppy.

Check the clockspeeds of your 4890 while you're throwing images around.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: GearJunkie
Has anyone else noticed this? Is ATI's OpenGL performance substandard compared to Nvidia's? Or is this some sort of fluke?

Perhaps it is a result of Photoshop CS4 supporting CUDA? You know, that overhyped useless technology everyone mocks? 😛

Cuda significantly accelerates Photoshop CS4 and Premiere CS4

We?ve seen videos of Photoshop CS4 with and without GPU and the performance of real time image rotation, instant zooming and panning are notably faster with GPU.

Damn! Even the mods are spitting flame bait. We're doomed! Dooooooooooooomed!

 

[SickBeast]

How was that even flame bait? Just because Zap is correct it doesn't make it baiting.

I'm surprised that AMD aren't focusing on GPGPU stuff. NV have a huge lead on them at this point.

 

[GearJunkie]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: GearJunkie
Has anyone else noticed this? Is ATI's OpenGL performance substandard compared to Nvidia's? Or is this some sort of fluke?

Perhaps it is a result of Photoshop CS4 supporting CUDA? You know, that overhyped useless technology everyone mocks? 😛

Cuda significantly accelerates Photoshop CS4 and Premiere CS4

We?ve seen videos of Photoshop CS4 with and without GPU and the performance of real time image rotation, instant zooming and panning are notably faster with GPU.

Interesting info, thanks! This just may be the reason.

 

[GearJunkie]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
Wonder if the 4890 remains on 2d desktop clockspeeds while you have cs4 open, while the 8800gt goes into 3d clocks.

this difference could be what is causing image panning to be choppy.

Check the clockspeeds of your 4890 while you're throwing images around.

This is a good, idea. Unfortunately, I didn't think to check this. The 4890 did downclock to 240MHz in 2D mode... I should have checked this.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
How was that even flame bait? Just because Zap is correct it doesn't make it baiting.

I'm surprised that AMD aren't focusing on GPGPU stuff. NV have a huge lead on them at this point.

its flame bait when you skip the posts suggesting the contrary and thus not actually help resolve the situation and actually instead spread misinformation, even if if it is unintentional

 

[dguy6789]

When I throw an image around, GPUZ shows my GPU usage kicking up. Scrolling itself is very smooth and fluid looking.

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: GearJunkie
Has anyone else noticed this? Is ATI's OpenGL performance substandard compared to Nvidia's? Or is this some sort of fluke?

Perhaps it is a result of Photoshop CS4 supporting CUDA? You know, that overhyped useless technology everyone mocks? 😛

Cuda significantly accelerates Photoshop CS4 and Premiere CS4

We?ve seen videos of Photoshop CS4 with and without GPU and the performance of real time image rotation, instant zooming and panning are notably faster with GPU.

My impression when I went looking back at this issue of GPU accelerated Adobe products was that in things like Photoshop, it would use OpenGL (hardware agnostic so long as your hardware supports OpenGL 2.0) to accelerate some features such as panning and zooming to give you a smoother experience.

Likely as some speculated, Adobe might be using GPU profiles and newer video cards aren't being recognized as OpenGL 2.0 capable and thus no accelerated GPU features.

CUDA that "overhyped useless technology" isn't used unless you install a 3rd party plugin for apps like Premiere. The only plugin I know about is RapiHD (same company as Badaboom) and it's of limited use. Not flexible enough for true professional use. It also requires you to buy a Quaddro CX GPU before they sell you one.

I think GPU accelerated video encoding definitely has a bright future but as it stands, it's not ready for prime time. CUDA and nVidia's overall GPGPU efforts are definitely heads and tails above AMD's efforts at this time.