CUDA-Enabled Apps: Measuring Mainstream GPU Performance

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Let’s Get Visual

Remember in Minority Report how Tom Cruise does his computing by gesturing on a transparent display? The UI concept is so captivating that it’s since been copied in a host of other venues, including TV commercials. Well, imagine a conventional video editor meeting a Minority Report UI then getting filtered through a Nintendo 64. That’s Super LoiLoScope, and “MARS” is the code-name for its new, CUDA-enabled version. No, MARS (as I’ll refer to it for brevity) isn’t Adobe Premiere. It’s not even Premiere Elements. Heck, it’s not even PowerDirector 7. But it is wickedly simple to use once you wrap your head around its hypergraphical, drag-and-drop-o-rama design. Better yet, it makes use of CUDA in H.264 encoding, decoding, and playback, making this one of the most thorough CUDA implementations seen yet.

Nvidia and LoiLo (the name of the company behing SuperLoiLoScope) set expectations very high with this application. The companies point out that while a quad-core CPU can compute at 100 GFLOPS, a 240-core GPU like the GTX 280 can nail 900 GFLOPS. As such, we should expect to see a significant encoding performance improvement with a GTX 280. Obviously, our results should be lower with the 9600 GT and 9800 GTX, but on a percentage improvement basis, we could reasonably expect to leave TMPGEnc in the dust thanks to the broader CUDA implementation.

William Van Winkle
56 Comments Comment from the forums
  • SpadeM
    The 8800GS or with the new name 9600GSO goes for 60$ and delivers 96 stream processors. Would it be correct to assume that it would perform betwen the 9600 GT and 9800 GTX you reviewed?

    Other then that great article, been waiting for it since we got a sneak preview from Chris last week.
    Reply
  • curnel_D
    And I'll never take Nvidia marketing seriously until they either stop singing about CUDA being the holy grail of computing, or this changes: "Aside from Folding@home and SETI@home, every single application on Nvidia’s consumer CUDA list involves video editing and/or transcoding."
    Reply
  • As more software will use CUDA, we will not only see a great boost in performance for e.g. video performance, but for parallel programing in general. This sky rocket this business into a new age!
    Reply
  • curnel_D
    l0bd0nAs more software will use CUDA, we will not only see a great boost in performance for e.g. video performance, but for parallel programing in general. This sky rocket this business into a new age!Honestly, I dont think a proprietary language will do this. If anything, it's likely to be GPGPU's in general, run by Open Computing Language.(OpenCL)
    Reply
  • one-shot
    Are we both thinking about the same "Pirates 2"? Or am I missing something...
    Reply
  • IzzyCraft
    Who knows it's just a clip he used he could be naming it anything for the hell of it.

    CUDA transcoding is very nice to someone that does H.264 transcoding at a high profile and lacks a 300+ dollar cpu who would spend hours transcoding a dvd on high profile settings.

    Else from that CUDA acceleration has just been more of a feature nothing like a main event. Although can easly be the main attraction to someone that does a good flow of H.264 trasncoding/encoding.

    Encoding/transcoding in h.264 high profile can easily make someone who is very content with their cpu and it's power become sad very quickly when they see the est time for their 30 min clip or something.
    Reply
  • I'm using CoreAVC since support was added for CUDA h264 decoding. I kinda feel stupid for buying a high end CPU (at the time) since playing all videos, no matter the resolution or bit-rate, leaves the CPU at near-idle usage.
    Vid card: 8600GTS
    CPU: E6700
    Reply
  • IzzyCraft
    Well you lucked in considering not all of the geforce 8 series supports H.264 decoding etc.
    Reply
  • ohim
    they should remove Adobe CS4 suite from there since Cuda transcoding is only posible with nvidia CX videocards not with normal gaming cards wich supports cuda.
    Reply
  • adbat
    CUDA means Miracle in my language :-) I it will do those
    The sad thing is that ATI does not truly compete in CUDA department and there is not standard for it.
    Reply