Vegas Pro 8 and GPU

[SCDVD]

I realize that when encoding, the GPU plays no significant role. But is there any benefit to having a fast video card when previewing the timeline in Vegas Pro 8?

[Wile_E]

Vegas doesn't currently take advantage of GPU's. So it really doesn't matter what video card you have. I have a 9600GT, and Q6600(3.2GHZ O/C proc) and the Vegas 8 preview window still is slow, when you add effects to a track. The frame rate drops down a lot, depending on an effect. The only way I can get better frame rate in the preview window, is putting it in "draft" mode, or do a "dynamic ram preview" of the area. There was some talk on a Vegas forum, about adding GPU acceleration in the future.

[Dark Alpha]

with GPGPU now being norm, software devlopers can enable ultra fast video encoding as well as better realtime previewing. Also, on the plus side, GPUs are cheaper and more powerful than CPUs

[SCDVD]

Here is an interesting article on GPGPU. It looks like Intel and AMD are working on the hardware side of it but I suspect it will be quite a while before video editing software will take advantage of it.

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/04/03/gpgpu-vs-cpu-will-be-the-war-of-2008-9

[Dark Alpha]

It is already possible

ATI released its own converter for the HD4800 series, but its useless from what I've heard

PS: I think Adobe is now offering it too

[SCDVD]

Maybe this is a preview of one of the features that will be in Premiere CS4 and Vegas Pro 9 when they are released a year or two from now.