New Adobe Creative Cloud video editing applications now dramatically boosted by eGPU

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited April 2019
Sonnet and Adobe have announced that the new releases of Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Adobe Media Encoder -- all part of Adobe Creative Cloud -- now take advantage of Thunderbolt-connected eGPUs to enhance their performance.

Adobe NAB
Content-Aware Fill in Adobe After Effects.


The combination will be demonstrated at the NAB 2019 video-centric trade show. Previous versions of Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Adobe Media Encoder wouldn't use an eGPU very much -- if at all.

"The unique combination of Sonnet, Adobe, and AMD technologies enables content creators to effectively cut their ProRes 422 4K, H.264 export time by more than half," said Richard Callery, senior manager of developer relations, professional graphics for AMD. "This is incredibly important to creators who love to export their videos to YouTube. With a traditional setup, a 15-second clip can take about 70 seconds to export. But when creators use the Sonnet system powered by the AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100, normal ProRes 422 4K, H.264 export time is cut to about 29 seconds."

The combination demonstrated at NAB and referred to by Callery retails for over $1500, with the vast majority of it the WX 9100 GPU. However, Greg LaPorte, vice president of sales and marketing for Sonnet, has told AppleInsider that there is "meaningful" acceleration with the eGFX Breakaway Puck with the AMD RX570 chipset.





Adobe's demonstration video also briefly discusses Multi-GPU enhancements. During encoding in the video, both the Radeon Pro 560 and the WX 9100 are being utilized. Following a question posed by AppleInsider, Adobe has confirmed that the feature will boost the 2012 Mac Pro with dual GPUs, as well as a 5,1 Mac Pro with multiple PCI-E GPU cards installed.

Adobe unveiled the newest version of its video and audio editing software suite on Wednesday, adding significant new features added to Creative Cloud apps like Premiere Pro, After Effects and more.

Beyond the eGPU and multi-GPU enhancements, the latest feature additions focus on artificial intelligence-powered post-production editing tools driven by Adobe Sensei, workflow improvements, new text and graphics enhancements and performance buffs.

Adobe's Creative Cloud app updates are available today with plans starting at $20.99 per month for single apps like Premiere Pro, and access to all CC apps coming in at $52.99 per month.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member
    As a prosumer I can’t really find myself wanting to pay $20 a month for premiere vs using Resolve or FCPX.  For a pro, having premiere or Avid on your resume is required but for me, meh.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    DabblerDabbler Posts: 1member
    And still not NVIDIA? Come on Apple.
    elijahg
  • Reply 3 of 9
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,731member
    Dabbler said:
    And still not NVIDIA? Come on Apple.
    Your point is legitimate. But you do make us ask why someone would with "Posts: 1" would create an account and then make a short point that has been made dozens of times before here. I'm curious.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    Here’s hoping some of this GPU love makes it into the Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom & InDesign applications. 
  • Reply 5 of 9
    bsbeamerbsbeamer Posts: 77member
    ThereAppleInsider said:
    Adobe's demonstration video also briefly discusses Multi-GPU enhancements. During encoding in the video, both the Radeon Pro 560 and the WX 9100 are being utilized. Following a question posed by AppleInsider, Adobe has confirmed that the feature will boost the 2012 Mac Pro with dual GPUs, as well as a 5,1 Mac Pro with multiple PCI-E GPU cards installed.
    There are bugs with multi GPU setups on MP5,1 with Mojave right now that are especially present with RX580's.  If you can hack/modify the GPU to identify as ATY,Orinoco there are no issues.  Multiple GPUs that identify as ATY,AMD,RadeonFramebuffer cannot "work together" in a seamless manner and actually can create issues.  Complicating this further, the exact model on Apple's Mojave GPU list (Sapphire Pulse RX 580 8GB) identifies as ATY,AMD,RadeonFramebuffer (not ATY,Orinoco as the official eGPU counterparts did).  This is not Adobe's problem and something Apple can easily address with adding additional hardware ID's to the ATY,Orinoco list.  

    Let's see if they address it.  Several have been requesting on the official Apple feedback:
    https://www.apple.com/feedback/mac-pro.html
  • Reply 6 of 9
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,929administrator
    bsbeamer said:
    ThereAppleInsider said:
    Adobe's demonstration video also briefly discusses Multi-GPU enhancements. During encoding in the video, both the Radeon Pro 560 and the WX 9100 are being utilized. Following a question posed by AppleInsider, Adobe has confirmed that the feature will boost the 2012 Mac Pro with dual GPUs, as well as a 5,1 Mac Pro with multiple PCI-E GPU cards installed.
    There are bugs with multi GPU setups on MP5,1 with Mojave right now that are especially present with RX580's.  If you can hack/modify the GPU to identify as ATY,Orinoco there are no issues.  Multiple GPUs that identify as ATY,AMD,RadeonFramebuffer cannot "work together" in a seamless manner and actually can create issues.  Complicating this further, the exact model on Apple's Mojave GPU list (Sapphire Pulse RX 580 8GB) identifies as ATY,AMD,RadeonFramebuffer (not ATY,Orinoco as the official eGPU counterparts did).  This is not Adobe's problem and something Apple can easily address with adding additional hardware ID's to the ATY,Orinoco list.  

    Let's see if they address it.  Several have been requesting on the official Apple feedback:
    https://www.apple.com/feedback/mac-pro.html
    I'm not certain that Adobe is using them in a SLI-like configuration, in this case which would cause the bug to manifest. We'll see what the shipping software does. As much as I like the 5,1, eight years after the last one was shipped this is an incredibly niche situation, and I suspect Apple will do precisely zero about it.
    edited April 2019
  • Reply 7 of 9
    bsbeamerbsbeamer Posts: 77member
    Mike Wuerthele said:

    I'm not certain that Adobe is using them in a SLI-like configuration, in this case which would cause the bug to manifest. We'll see what the shipping software does. As much as I like the 5,1, eight years after the last one was shipped this is an incredibly niche situation, and I suspect Apple will do precisely zero about it.
    The "shipping software" is already out.  Adobe Premire Pro CC 2019 13.1.0 build 193 is version features were added in.

    Adobe is relying on macOS entirely for their multiple GPU support.  They are not doing anything special to manage on top of that.  You're never going to get SLI/Crossfire support without Apple directly enabling.  

    Apple added NVMe boot and 5GT/s PCIe with firmware updates to MP5,1 recently.  It's not out of the realm of possibility.  This ATY,Orinoco issue is simply a "bug" that can be "fixed" by adding IDs to an existing list in a file.  Basically adding 4-5 lines.  Almost exactly how you could "hack" Adobe After Effects to work with additional unsupported GPUs back in the day.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    Svolk Svolk Posts: 1unconfirmed, member
    The video says thunderbolt 3 but my 2012 Mac Pro does not have that, Will egpu performance enhancement be throttled if I have to use an adapter to downgrade the connection?

  • Reply 9 of 9
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,929administrator
    Svolk said:
    The video says thunderbolt 3 but my 2012 Mac Pro does not have that, Will egpu performance enhancement be throttled if I have to use an adapter to downgrade the connection?

    It doesn’t work on Thunderbolt 2 at all, officially. Egpu.io may have a workaround though, if you’re adventurous.
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