GPU Use
Main computer for photography has a quadro M2000 4Gb graphics card. When performing AI nonoise/tak sharp the rendering is a little slow. In addition once this process it performed any subsequent return to the image is slow to render. I decided to try to determine if a GTX 660 would give better performance. The GTX is in a different pc but both run on windows 10. The GTX pc turned out to be infinitely slower. On investigation I discovered that the GTX machine was using the cpu and not the gpu to render although the system preferences were identical. Both systems were using about 1Gb of gpu ram. I tried to force the GTX pc to use the gpu by changing the preference from auto to the GTX graphics card but it made no difference the system used 60% cpu and 2% graphics. The quadro uses 100% gpu and 2% cpu.
Has anyone a solution for the GTX gpu not being used?
In addition what graphics card would be a better fit as the quadro is bottlenecking the rendering?
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I don't think the comparison is that straight forward. I don't have specs for either of those cards, but I'm thinking if the GTX is significantly faster than the M2000, then it may not need to hit 100% to do the same job.
Note that rendering is sometimes a bit slow no matter what card you have. On1 has a lot of background work to do so there is more than just rendering going on.
The only suggestion I have is to make sure the drivers are up to date per this article.
If you're looking for a new card, I'd say any newer card with at least 8gig vram will do. I recently upgraded to a Geforce RTX 3060 with 12gig vram and I'm very happy with it.
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Thanks for the suggestions Rick. I updated to the latest driver, reinstalled On1 and modified the Nvidia 3D in line with the article. Unfortunately it made no difference, the software makes use of the vram on the GTX 660 but will not use the gpu.
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Just my $0.02 and I may be wrong.
Both of those cards look like their kind of old in relation to today's GPUs. The Quadro looks to be a 4 Gb card and the GTX looks to be a 2 Gb card. From what I can see with my video card which is a RX 580 with 8 Gb, which is also old, RAW 2023 uses the GPU sparingly at times. I have also noticed the more memory the card has the better it utilizes the program. Also, the settings in RAW matter as well. When I had the GPU usage set to 50% it was way slower then when it was set to 80%, so 4 Gb to 6Gb.
One of the things I have noticed with RAW over the years, as they improve it and add features to it our Windows machines seem to start slowing down, I can't speak of Apple. Will a new GPU help, maybe but that opens up a different can of worms with the power supply. If you're cards are low memory that may be the reason RAW isn't utilizing them or performance is suffering, again I may be totally wrong on this.
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David, if the VRAM on the video card is being used, the GPU is being used. CPUs cannot make use of VRAM, only normal RAM. All they can do is load the VRAM with the data to be processed then turn it over to the GPU to do the processing and return the results.
The GTX 660M was released over 10 years ago. The same for the Quadro. They were both released in 2010. You'll do much better with a newer video card.
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Back again.
When using the quadro M2000, windows task manager whilst rendering an image indicates about 1-1.2 gb of vram is being used and the gpu is at 100% most of the time. The cpu is about 3%
When performing the same rendering on the same file with the GTX660 task manager indicates the same vram usage but the gpu is now languishing at 3% whilst the cpu is working at 60%. The result is a very slow render.
Thus it appears as though the gpu on the GTX660 is not being used.
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The two GPUs may not perform equally. One can be more efficient than the other so it would be used for less time. It is also possible that the program assigns work to them differently based on their specs and abilities.
Those are things you'll have to ask tech support about. I doubt they will know off the top of their heads and will have to ask the engineers who may not want to say too much about it.
The bottom line is you are asking 13 year old hardware to perform at today's levels and that isn't going to happen.
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What Brian is saying is true. If your computer is as old as the GPUs you may have an issue there as well. I had a perfectly fine computer for all the other tasks I was doing but it just couldn't run RAW quick enough two years ago. Today's GPUs are much more powerful, my son has a 12 Gb GPU, and run things quicker. As I said my RX 580 was the GPU to get back when it was new but it is old.
Assuming you have a newer computer but older GPUs the answer may be to get a new GPU with at least 8 Gb, personally I would opt for 12 or 16 Gb. But if you decide to upgrade there are power considerations to consider; new GPUs need more power than they did. If you have a store bought or older self build you may not have a power supply large enough or with the correct power cables to put a GPU in. It is possible that you may need both and now you are getting close to a new pre built computer cost.
If you have an older computer I wouldn't waste money on a GPU and/or power supply. The problem becomes the system is just not meant to do what is being thrown at it. It may function great for everything else just like my last computer but what RAW needs it to do it just can't handle well. I have said it here in the past (and I am guilty of this) do we buy a $1000 computer for a $79 program? The answer may be yes or no. With the system I have I will say that I may not be upgrading software too much longer. I upgraded to 2023 because of AI, my system is working fine but will it for 2024, 2025 or future RAW upgrades.
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Thanks again for all your input. The fact that the quadro M2000 utilization is at 100% during rendering suggests I would gain by having a faster graphics card.Before purchasing a new card I decided to ascertain how the GTX 660 I own would perform. The latter as far as I can tell meets the criteria required by the software but On1 appears for some unknown reason not to want to use the gpu. One therefore wonders if the software is 'picky' as to the graphics card in which case there is no certainty that any new purchase will play nicely with it. I have sent a request to ON1 support . If I receive a solution I will post.
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Received a response from on1 to the effect 'buy a new graphics card'. The trouble is that there are a multitude of cards on the market at various price points with no information as to how well they will interact with on1.
At present the quadro m2000 takes about 30s to load an image that has previously been developed using ai nonoise and sharpening. As indicated previously the gpu is functioning at 100% to achieve this figure.
Could members provide times they achieve for loading an image with previously applied ai nonoise and sharpening together with the graphics card used. This would then give me a reference point regarding speed and cost.
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David,
That's kind of a moot point. There are other factors involved in computers. I have an RX 580 with 8 GB of memory and it is fairly quick. It also requires a certain size power supply to run and I think but know 100% it gets all its power from the mother board but it may need additional power supply cables going to it. Most newer more powerful graphics cards need additional power supply cables.
The computer itself may also be a limiting factor as an older computer has a different instruction set in its bios than a newer computer.
In the past there gave been people with similar computers that had good and bad experiences, I have had mostly good. My suggestion is go to a place that the item can be returned without a restocking fee, try it and see how it meets your expectations. How something works on my computer may not be the same on yours.
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David,
What do you mean by "Could members provide times they achieve for loading an image with previously applied ai nonoise and sharpening together with the graphics card used" .
If I select "both" (tack sharp and nonoise) and apply then click done, then click on the image again in the browser to edit it takes like about 1 second and I have a very old Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 6GB card.
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Thanks Martin. If you immediately click on the image again after adjustment I suspect that the modifications for that image are still in the cache hence the quick response. What value do you get if you close the program down after applying the edits then reopen and select the same image. On1 I believe then has to fetch the modifications presumably from a sidecar file and apply them to the image. In this scenario it takes my M2000 quadro which is operating at 100% according to task manager about 25-30s to render the file as it is having to apply nonoise and tack sharp from scratch.
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If I close the program and restart it then double click on the image to edit it, it takes 17s.
Haven't really noticed as I don't really use nonoise or tack sharp as I've failed to get any decent results from either.0 -
Once again Martin thank you for your assistance. It gives me some idea as to what I might achieve by comparing the specs of the M2000 with that of the GTX 1060 and translating this to other graphics cards. Not perfect but the more information the better.
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Just an update which might be of value to other members.
I purchased a used nvidia rtx 3070. The loading time for the same photo is now 4-5 seconds compared with the 25-30 seconds with the M2000.
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