Recently I’ve been getting a lot of performance questions from Mac users
about using Premiere Pro editing systems with ATI/AMD graphics cards.
No question this has been “sparked” by Apple’s recent series of MacBook
Pro Laptops featuring Thunderbolt and a 1GB AMD Radeon 6750 graphics
card. Below is a link (Click picture) to show the Mercury Playback
Engine running on the new Apple MacBook Pro 17” Thunderbolt laptop in 64 bit CPU mode or what’s also known as Mercury Software mode.
In software mode, Premiere Pro will use its 64 bit playback engine
along with OpenGL to give you a great playback & rendering
experience. Apple is now finally shipping a fast processor with 8GB of
system RAM and 1GB of GPU RAM on a laptop.As you’ll see in the 9 minute video, for many workflows with 2 or 3 layers of video , Mercury Software playback will fit their needs perfectly. With newer Intel processers and fast hard drives, Mercury software playback can render Titles, transitions, PSDs, and effects like Ultra Keying, and Color correction (Fast Color Corrector) in real-time. As you’ll see in the video, playback is very smooth.
Remember that the Red Line above the Sequence means that you are using the CPU to process data. It does not mean you can’t play in real-time. Frankly, we need more colors to show what’s actually happening during playback of the Sequence – I’ve already added it to the Premiere Pro wish list. read more...