Adobe CS4 To Be Accelerated By NVIDIA GPUs
Over the past few months, we have seen previews of some GPU-accelerated Adobe effects at events being held by both NVIDIA and AMD / ATI. Today, however, NVIDIA launched a website showcasing many more of the GPU-accelerated aspects of Adobe's upcoming Creative Suite 4, due out some time in October.
According to NVIDIA, "Adobe is the latest in a trend of visual computing companies grabbing on to the massively parallel processing power of NVIDIA GPUs for more than just rendering pixels to the screen. Adobe Creative Suite 4 is the most important addition to this trend because of its market position as the leading artistic tool suite.
With NVIDIA GPU acceleration, Adobe Creative Suite 4 enables a faster, more natural way of working with images, while improving quality and productivity. A GPU will allow users to interact with their images and videos in a way that is not possible without a GPU."
The effects on the workspace in the various Adobe applications that are accelerated by the GPU are subtle, becuase the workspace looks similar enough, yet dramatic due to the fluid movements when in use. Whereas some of the features produce choppy movements and jumpy zooms when processed on the CPU, they are fluid and smooth on the GPU. We have a few short videos posted to show you what we mean...
Adobe Photoshop CS4:
Adobe Photoshop CS4 uses NVIDIA Quadro or GeForce GPUs to create a digital canvas that is interactive in ways that are simply not possible without a GPU. NVIDIA GPUs enable real-time image rotation, zooming, and panning, and make changes to the view instantaneous and smooth. Adobe Photoshop CS4 also taps the GPU for 2D and 3D compositing and high-quality antialiasing, making jagged edges of text and objects a thing of the past. Brush resizing and brushstroke preview, 3D movement, high-dynamic-range tone mapping, and color conversion are also accelerated by the GPU.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4:
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 can use the NVIDIA Quadro GPU to accelerate high-quality video effects such as motion, opacity, color, and image distortion. Quadro-based graphics solutions enable faster editing of multiple high-definition video streams and graphic overlays and provide a variety of video output choices for high-quality preview, including display port, component TV, or uncompressed 10 or 12-bit SDI.
Adobe After Effects CS4:
Adobe After Effects CS4 features a variety of creative visual effects that are accelerated by NVIDIA Quadro GPUs, making it easier than ever to add graphics and visual effects to a video, speeding the work flow, and quickly moving from concept to final product. Effects accelerated by the NVIDIA GPU include depth of field, bilateral blur effects, turbulent noise such as flowing water or waving flags, and cartoon effects.
For anyone that has worked with Adobe CS3, the affect the GPU has on the workspace is immediately apparent. We're hoping to have a copy of CS4 in house in the not too distant future, and will give you all a firsthand account of Adobe's new GPU-accelerated apps as soon as we can.
We also contacted AMD to see if they were working with Adobe to accelerate the same features mentioned here on ATI GPUs and were told, "that AMD has a strong relationship with Adobe and that we’re working very closely with them for future products. It’s a little bit early to go into anything right now." Considering the information in this release regarding Adobe's support of the ATI FireGL though, and the demos we have already seen, we suspect support will be coming to ATI GPUs as well at some point. The acceleration is handled through OpenGL though, so supporting ATI GPUs should be relatively easy.
According to NVIDIA, "Adobe is the latest in a trend of visual computing companies grabbing on to the massively parallel processing power of NVIDIA GPUs for more than just rendering pixels to the screen. Adobe Creative Suite 4 is the most important addition to this trend because of its market position as the leading artistic tool suite.
With NVIDIA GPU acceleration, Adobe Creative Suite 4 enables a faster, more natural way of working with images, while improving quality and productivity. A GPU will allow users to interact with their images and videos in a way that is not possible without a GPU."
The effects on the workspace in the various Adobe applications that are accelerated by the GPU are subtle, becuase the workspace looks similar enough, yet dramatic due to the fluid movements when in use. Whereas some of the features produce choppy movements and jumpy zooms when processed on the CPU, they are fluid and smooth on the GPU. We have a few short videos posted to show you what we mean...
Adobe Photoshop CS4:
Adobe Photoshop CS4 uses NVIDIA Quadro or GeForce GPUs to create a digital canvas that is interactive in ways that are simply not possible without a GPU. NVIDIA GPUs enable real-time image rotation, zooming, and panning, and make changes to the view instantaneous and smooth. Adobe Photoshop CS4 also taps the GPU for 2D and 3D compositing and high-quality antialiasing, making jagged edges of text and objects a thing of the past. Brush resizing and brushstroke preview, 3D movement, high-dynamic-range tone mapping, and color conversion are also accelerated by the GPU.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4:
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 can use the NVIDIA Quadro GPU to accelerate high-quality video effects such as motion, opacity, color, and image distortion. Quadro-based graphics solutions enable faster editing of multiple high-definition video streams and graphic overlays and provide a variety of video output choices for high-quality preview, including display port, component TV, or uncompressed 10 or 12-bit SDI.
Adobe After Effects CS4:
Adobe After Effects CS4 features a variety of creative visual effects that are accelerated by NVIDIA Quadro GPUs, making it easier than ever to add graphics and visual effects to a video, speeding the work flow, and quickly moving from concept to final product. Effects accelerated by the NVIDIA GPU include depth of field, bilateral blur effects, turbulent noise such as flowing water or waving flags, and cartoon effects.
For anyone that has worked with Adobe CS3, the affect the GPU has on the workspace is immediately apparent. We're hoping to have a copy of CS4 in house in the not too distant future, and will give you all a firsthand account of Adobe's new GPU-accelerated apps as soon as we can.
We also contacted AMD to see if they were working with Adobe to accelerate the same features mentioned here on ATI GPUs and were told, "that AMD has a strong relationship with Adobe and that we’re working very closely with them for future products. It’s a little bit early to go into anything right now." Considering the information in this release regarding Adobe's support of the ATI FireGL though, and the demos we have already seen, we suspect support will be coming to ATI GPUs as well at some point. The acceleration is handled through OpenGL though, so supporting ATI GPUs should be relatively easy.
