Features support levels, Feature support levels – Adobe After Effects User Manual
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Note:
Note:
When working with ray-traced 3D compositions, it is important to have the proper hardware installed in your computer to work smoothly. An
NVIDIA video display card that has on-board CUDA technology is required for working with ray-traced 3D compositions with GPU acceleration.
Requirements for GPU/OpenGL features (ray-traced 3D and Fast Draft)
The following GPU and OpenGL-based features in After Effects require that features be categorized based on the capabilities of your GPU:
Ray-traced 3D renderer
Rendering on the GPU
Fast Draft previews mode
Faster blitting to the screen (OpenGL SwapBuffer)
Cartoon effect's "Use OpenGL When Available"
Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layer, and Footage Panels" preference
Feature support levels
There are three tiers or levels, from lowest to highest requirements, of support:
Level 1: For OpenGL SwapBuffer:
This level simply requires a GPU that can do OpenGL 1.5, or greater, with Shader Model 3.0, or greater. Most ATI and NVIDIA cards, and the Intel
HD Graphics 3000 chipset (available in the MacBook Air, Mac Mini, various Windows machines, etc.) and 4000 (Windows only at this time) are
supported. If your GPU does not support these requirements, software OS blitting like CS5.5 occurs, and there are improvements for software
blitting in After Effects, as well.
Level 2: For Fast Draft previews, Hardware BlitPipe, and Cartoon GPU acceleration:
Includes Level 1 features. This level requires OpenGL 2.0, or greater (with Shader Model 4.0, or greater, on Windows), and 256 MB, or greater, of
texture memory. Most ATI and NVIDIA cards released in the past five years, plus the Intel HD Graphics 3000/4000, support this level.
If your GPU does not support these requirements, these features will be disabled:
Fast Draft mode
The "Hardware Accelerate Composition, Layer, and Footage Panels" preference.
The Cartoon effect's "Use OpenGL When Available" option (the Cartoon effect then runs on the CPU).
Level 3: For Ray-traced 3D rendering on the GPU:
Includes Level 1 & 2 features (for machines with attached monitors). This level requires a supported NVIDIA GPU and 512 MB, or greater, of
texture memory. For a current list of supported GPUs,
.
Install GPU drivers
Before working with After Effects and CUDA features, install the latest video driver for your NVIDIA GPU:
Windows: Install the latest WHQL-certified driver for your GPU:
Mac OS: Install the NVIDIA CUDA driver (v4.0.50 or later):
You can update the CUDA driver via the CUDA panel in System Preferences or by going to the
If your GPU is not supported or you have an old driver, ray-traced 3D compositions render on the CPU using all physical cores. If you have
a GPU-supported configuration in a headless environment (for example, a render farm), you can force ray-traced 3D compositions to render on
the CPU by setting the Ray-tracer option in the GPU Information dialog box (available from Previews preferences). Renders done on the CPU
match renders done on the GPU.
Mac 10.6.8 only: If you use a Quadro 4000 GPU, install the Quadro 4000 driver for Mac. For more information, see this
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