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new mac pro and adobe software

User uploaded fileHey guys, thinking of getting this mac pro. Just a couple quick questions. Would this system with these specs be good if i am doing a lot of work with adobe after effects and premier pro please? Any users out there with a similar system and experience using this software please?

Many thanks.

Macbook Pro

Posted on Apr 26, 2016 9:28 AM

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7 replies

Apr 29, 2016 5:57 AM in response to Bad Monk

I have done quite a bit of work with Premiere Pro CC using a late 2013 Mac Pro with the exact specifications that you posted. I have never had a problem. However, there is a long thread on the Adobe Forums (dating back to about May of 2014) of people who have reported artifacts (colored lines, etc.) in their renders using the Late 2013 Mac Pro with Adobe's Media Encoder, PP, and AE. However, both Adobe and Apple appear to have addressed the issue sucessfully as I have not seen any recent postings complaining of this issue.


Tom

Apr 29, 2016 5:56 AM in response to Bad Monk

Historically Adobe software works best with Nvidia cards and Apple software works best with AMD cards. This is partly down to Adobe software being designed to benefit from CUDA as provided only on Nvidia cards.


For Nvidia cards Nvidia provide drivers themselves and you have to use their drivers to also use CUDA. Apple are the only source for Mac AMD drivers but also provide Nvidia drivers but not CUDA drivers. Sadly Apple have a history of producing mediocre at best drivers. I see they are currently advertising for video card driver engineers but I do not expect this to result in a sudden improvement.


There are two main competing GPU processing standards CUDA as mentioned which is only for Nvidia cards and OpenCL which is in theory usable on both but historically has been better on AMD cards and in anywise is not what Adobe aim for. However Apple did recently port their 'Metal' standard from iOS to Macs and this works on AMD, Nvidia and even some Intel GPU chips. Metal does appear to deliver massive performance improvements.


Unfortunately even though initially an Adobe representative not only demonstrated using After Effects modified to use Metal, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp1aPgLx4RQ Adobe since then have completely backtracked on the idea of using Metal even though it clearly delivers massive improvements and they themselves have shown it is practical to use.


Many Mac users are livid over this. See http://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/05/adobe-backpedals-metal-after-effects/


So right now it can potentially be possible to upgrade an old classic Mac Pro with a new Nvidia card or cards and make a much more powerful system for running Adobe software.

new mac pro and adobe software

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