Allen Bourgoyne, AMD graphics guru and SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization committee member will share his tips for getting higher performance from your SolidWorks application. He will cover how to analyze and tune your workstation, analyze and improve component performance, and identify software issues that can affect performance. I had wanted to hear this talk at the SolidWorks World 2009 Conference, but couldn’t shell out the $$ to attend - so nice to see it offered again and for free!
Date & Time:
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
10am PT, 1pm ET
StudioGPU announced that MachStudio Pro is now shipping for Windows XP and Vista. MSRP is $4,999 and that includes an AMD ATI FireGL V8650 3D workstation graphics accelerator card (2 GB framebuffer). Here’s the short take home summary: MachStudio Pro harnesses multi-threaded GPU computing so that lighitng and render times can be dramatically reduced from hours to minutes and minutes to seconds or sub-seconds. Comparable final scenes are consistently rendered with MachStudio Pro at rates of 500 to 900 times faster than traditional rendering packages.
I’ve written about MachStudio Pro previously because it really takes advantage of the the FireGL/FirePro GPUs for real-time, non-linear 3D workflows (AMD has a winner on their hands here). But now a few reviews have started to appear that corroborate my first impressions. This software is game changing. Here’s a few of the latest:
MachStudio Pro is a jewel in the GPGPU crown Bright Side of News
“3D artists prepare to be amazed - StudioGPU released MachStudio Pro. If you thought that Modo was pretty rad, you haven’ seen anything yet.”
MachStudio Pro democratizes content creation studiodaily blogs
“MachStudio Pro isn’t simply about a dramatic speed-up in rendering time: it’s about subverting the production-line assembly of CG images, in which each task–lighting, texturing, cameras–is an island. Instead, MachStudio Pro aims for a nonlinear pipeline in which any aspect of the image can be tweaked at any point in the creation process.”
StudioGPU replaces computer animation render farms with $5,000 PC VentureBeat
“I’ve seen the demo with my own unbelieving eyes. A single graphics accelerator card on a standard Intel-powered PC can now render in seconds what used to take a roomful of servers all day.”
SIGGRAPH 2009 is just around the corner (Aug 3-7). Last year we asked a bunch of students to roam the show floor and report back on what they thought was interesting. This year several of us will be at the 2009 show and we want to know if there is anything in particular you would like us to report back on or try to video. If you have any ideas please submit them as comments.:
If you use Twitter follow happenings from the show floor by signing up for the ATIFirePro Twitter Feed
Demos: In the AMD booth I only know of one confirmed demo so far: MachStudio Pro
If there are specific topics that you want to follow, let us know. This could be anything from stereo 3D, to the latest multi-core CPUs. Give us feedback so we know where to deploy!
The latest HP xw9400 Workstation can be customized with up to two six-core AMD Opteron CPUs (as in 12 cores) and a FirePro V7750. Not much more to say then that workstation should be able to kick some serious 3D butt.
As GPUs become more powerful, we see many new applications of how they can be used as general compute devices often rivaling and surpassing the CPU. But at the same time, modern GPUs are augmented with tools and features that assist general computation. These new features add high performance paths that enhance graphics rendering capabilities. One such addition is GPU tessellation.
Tessellation in its most pure definition is the tiling of a plane or surface by smaller sub surfaces. On the GPU this translates into breaking geometry into smaller, more detailed pieces. ATI has previously done this through TrueForm® with mixed success. A tessellation mechanism can also be implemented using the geometry shader. But the new tessellation engine in ATI Radeon HD Series and FirePro/FireGL V Series graphics hardware automates this process (currently not available for OpenGL on any nVidia hardware). Very little work is needed to get this running in any OpenGL app, just enable tessellation state in OpenGL and pick your tessellation factor based on how detailed you would like the geometry to be. The application vertex shaders can also be updated to correct texture coordinates based on the generated geometry.
This powerful rendering mechanism can both enhance geometry and increase performance. By using tessellation, the same level of detail can be rendered at 6-times the speed and save more than 50% of video memory, not to mention the bandwidth saved from uploading significantly less geometry. (840 original triangle model, rendered at LOD of 1,008038 triangles with and without the tessellation engine) Such a performance boost in addition to the visual enhancement can provide a significant advantage for any application that adopts tessellation.
The result of tessellation is deterministic, and therefore well adapted to many CAD situations. But the biggest gains can be seen in digital content creation. Digital content models are often large and can be difficult to render in real-time. With tessellation, significantly smaller model sizes can be used for similar levels of detail. Pre-visualization paths can also make use of tessellation to provide better looking images faster than was previously possible. The example below is a fly-by done with tessellation enabled, showing how tessellation can enhance a landscape in real-time.
AMD has also created a white paper detailing how to implement Catmull Clark subdivision using the tessellation engine. The demo and whitepaper can be found here. Or explore many of the other possibilities for using tessellation on OpenGL or DirectX.
I’ve written previously about my experiences using MachStudio Pro running on a FireGL v8650. MachStudio Pro uses the FireGL GPU to enable you to create and manipulate fully rendered film-quality 3D design and animation in real-time. AMD is a strategic partner in the development of the product, so I would expect to see a lot of synergy between MachStudio Pro and updates to AMD cards and drivers.
In any case, there are now several ‘how-to-use’ demos up on the MachStudio Pro YouTube channel. These new demos, all available in HD, cover the interface, ambient occlusion, and lighting. If you can’t see a demo in person, or get your hands on the product, then this is one way to at least get a flavor for the interface.
I was planning to post another side-by-side video comparing CATIA performance with and without VBO, but as I was watching one of the demos captured live at the COE 2009 conference I was struck by how impressive the FirePro VBO driver-accelerated demo really was. It stands on its own without the need for a comparison.
If you are a CATIA user and not using recent 3D acceleration hardware, then watch the video below to see what you are missing. This is a 5,000,000 polygon model (i.e. big) and it is being manipulated in real-time using a FirePro v5700. At less than $400 street price, this kind of performance enhancement makes the v5700 a great investment for 3D CAD users.
(If you are keen on the comparison statistics, this same model rotated programatically 100 times in CATIA on a FirePro v5700 was 2.7 times faster with VBO then without.)
At Computex 2009, AMD gave a series of demonstrations of a true DirectX 11 graphics processor at Computex. Featured were tessellation, support for Compute Shaders (similar to using OpenCL, targeting GPGPU computing), custom filter anti-aliasing and high-definition ambient occlusion shading. While the demos were targeted at the gaming audience, the implications for faster rendering with improved detail for the professional DCC and CAD using the FirePro line should be apparent.
This YouTube video shows off DirectX 11 tessellation on the GPU.
This video is from a May 7th live demo of MachStudio Pro running on a FireGL v8650 (2GB framebuffer). It’s a capture of a projector screen and is only 640X480 resolution, but nonetheless you can still see how everything in MachStudio Pro can be real-time. What you see in the viewport is exactly what you will render to the final HD or film resolution you choose. You can also render the character layers and FX passes as different channels if you prefer to composite in post. This particular segment of the capture shows projected lighting, gels/gobos, soft shadows, light sets, fragment lighting, specular lights, and shaders. I’ve written before in detail about my experience with the software. (also if you are interested in architectural visualization see 2D or Not 2D blog.)
Of note: The latest version of MachStudio Pro now includes a full material library, exporters for Maya 8.5, 2008, 2009 and 3ds Max 9 and 2009, animatable fog, and new shader controls (also unicode support for the burgeoning Asia visualization market).
Note: I’ve set the YouTube default to high-quality, but click on HQ just to be sure.
About a month ago I wrote about the AMD “Reset Your Preconceptions” program for SolidWorks. In a nutshell, prominent SolidWorks users are being sent a FirePro card to try out in their everyday working environment with the only condition being that they share their experience - be it good, bad, or indifferent. Anna’s SolidMuse blog is the third review to come out.
Summary from SolidMuse: “So what is the bottom line after spending a few weeks with the ATI FirePro’s? I liked the cards, they worked well with my system and are definitely on par with the offerings from Nvidia.”
Perhaps more relevant: “After returning the FirePro’s to ATI, I went out and purchased my own FirePro V8700 “.
Again I need to give an acknowledgement to the FirePro team for running this campaign. It is real world testing with real world users all without any marketing spin control. It is an unusual level of transparency for a hardware company.
FireUser.com is a community resource for visualization, 3D, video and engineering professionals to learn about the latest acceleration and display technologies, discuss support issues, as well as influence the features and direction of the FireGL and FirePro accelerator line.
Allen Bourgoyne, AMD graphics guru and SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization committee member will share his tips for getting higher performance from your SolidWorks application. He will cover how to analyze and tune your workstation, analyze and improve component performance, and identify software issues that can affect performance. I had wanted to hear this talk at the SolidWorks World 2009 Conference, but couldn’t shell out the $$ to attend - so nice to see it offered again and for free!
I’ve written previously about 
