Not excusing your video issue, but Apple REALLY needs to refresh their Mac Pro line. I suspect they are waiting for Intel to FINALLY release a dual socket chipset with native Thunderbolt. I finally built a new workstation (PC, Windows 8) on an single Xeon CPU (Ivy Bridge) with an nVidia GeForce 4GB 680, two 256GB Samsung 840 Pro SSDs striped, and maxed it out with 32GB ECC RAM on a C216 chipset. I got tired of waiting around for the dual socket world to get a refresh. AutoPano absolutely FLIES on it compared to my previous workstation, rendering an HDR gigapixel panorama in 32 minutes when my previous machine would finally choke and reboot after 96hrs. I think the SSDs made the biggest difference, and the memory increase secondarily. I wish it would use some of the CUDA cores for rendering on the video card. Maybe sometime in the future... This video card is overkill for a lot of what I do, except for Sorenson Squeeze with video encoding.

In spite of all that, PTGui Pro is still far faster than AutoPano for me. However, it does not do as good a job with HDR blending or color/brightness consistency across an image when the light is changing (sunsets for example). I keep going back and forth between both programs.

aaronpriest wrote:

Not excusing your video issue, but Apple REALLY needs to refresh their Mac Pro line.

Right - i know They say it will be summer or fall.

But this machine does everything i need - even with absolute highend apps like Nuke, DaVinci, MediaComposer and some. They all run very well - of course can be faster with filters and effects . . but:
I can use it! I can do work with it! I have no problem when a filter or an effect takes 20sec longer or i can´t do an editing in real-time . . . AS LONG AS I CAN DO IT AT ALL!

I deactivate "GPU" in APG 3.0.5 - then i can work with it. But then i have no visual control wnen i move images manually a bit. I just can see the image-number moving - not the image.
In the settings the "graphic card" render-test ist very fast and signals no problem. It´s rendered in a fraction of a second.
I guess it´s not reliable at all - because it was it would show an issue rendering the test.

So i´m forced to switch to the PC when i need to use APG 3.0.5 and have full control about what i edit . . .

best, Klaus

Hi Klaus
This GPU is from January 2006. Have you a up to date and compatible GPU-driver for your current OS-version ?
Kolor is using actual graphic features for the preview (eg. open GL), which don't exist (in this version) in the 2006.

Difficult to use a non-Apple approved video card in a Mac, and they have not been supportive of newer cards in a Mac Pro. It's a shame to have such a high end machine crippled by an obsolete video card. Apple never supported high-end enough video cards in any of their computers until the Retina-display Mac Book Pro in my opinion. The higher pixel density of Retina finally forced them to get serious with video acceleration.

Can you edit on your MacBook Pro for faster previews and then do your final render on the big beast? Or is moving the data back and forth too cumbersome?

I have triple 24" IPS displays on my main workstation. I just can't be as efficient or do anything as well on my laptop or older desktops. Gotta have those screens! So I know what you mean by the Wacom tablet and sort of being in the zone with a particular hardware arrangement.

lumelix wrote:

Hi Klaus
Your ATI runs OpenGL 2.1 with shader modell 1.2
Since early 2010 we have OpenGL 4.0, actual 4.3.
OpenCL is integrated now.
It's clear that a developer have to use the new possibility to bring it's software forward.
Something like live preview of a giga panorama isn't possible without this new skills.
I couldn't find some informations on the kolor homepage about what is the GPU requirement.
But it's clear in this business, that even my GPU from 2009 (using OpenGL 3.3) is an "old" GPU.

If the rest of your Mac Pro is ok and fast enough why not upgrade the GPU, eg. with a ATI Radeon HD5870 (~400€, ~200€ used) ?
See more informations here: http://guides.macrumors.com/Video_Card_ … or_Mac_Pro
If it's true, Apple will no more sell Mac Pro's in europe since 1.3.2013.

Hi  Martin!

Thx!
Apple stopped selling Mac Pros because they soon will launch the next generation.
I´ll have a look whether i can use the Quadro card from the PC in my the Mac with somew hacking . .

best, Klaus

lumelix wrote:

Hi Klaus
Which Quadro do you have, the FX4500 ?
Afaik there could be two authoritative problems:
1) Quadros for PC are different to them for Mac. Because of the different boot routine, GPU for MAC need more Flash ROM on the GPU.
2) Im not shure but 1.1 use only PCI-E x16. Most of the Quadros need PCI-E 2.0
see:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/m … yport.html
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/m … specs.html

You need a stable working system so hacking may be isn't the best solution, but I hope it works !

I have a Quadro 600. Bought it for the use with 3D apps - and here it does very fine. Does also fine in some video-editors by accellerating filters.
I bought this small Quadro for testing whether it makes sense at all to enter the Quadro-range. It does make sense - but on Macs
it´s making sense only on newer machines and here the Quadro 4000 and 5000 is said to be the way to go. Starting at 800.-€ up to

But i guess to better wait what the new MacPro-line looks like . . .

best and thanks, Klaus

PS - my point is: i don´t have any problem running any actual application on this machine. ONLY APG 3.0.x makes problems in simply not being usable.
And i´m definitely pissed being forced to buy a new card for at least 800.-€ ONLY for bing able to use APG 3.0.x´s editor visually moving images around.
The very same function works fine in 2.6.4 and earlier versions with the very same machine!

Of course i understand adapting the app to actual GPUs for being faster - no question. But THIS behavior of APG 3.0.x in my eyes is an error.

I guess nobody at Kolor has had a closer look on how it works MacPros before launching 3.0.x . . . so i wonder if this behavior can be fixed.

Last edited by klausesser (2013-03-21 13:06:20)

AlexandreJ wrote:

Note 2 : when gpu is off, in autopano v3, you can do everything even move the panorama globally. This feature was not available in v2.6 in cpu mode. Now it is. Nevertheless, it is slow and not responsive on old configuration. With standard 8 cores, it works quite well. Tip of the day to accelerate, have a smaller editor windows. Instead of full screen, half screen, it should work 2x faster.

Hi Alexandre!

Thanks for your reply first.

I have no problem with the speed when i switch off GPU-mode . . It´s still fast without GPU on my machine. But when i grab a picture-number in the editor and want to move it for fitting it into another position for some pixels, i can move the number - but i can´t see WHAT i move. So it´s impossible to position the image correctly. In 2.6.4 i can see the whole image moving and it´s easy to place it exactly where i need it.

This procedure isn´t needed much - but it can happen. And then i can´t edit the position of a single image having visual control of what i do - whereas in earlier versions of APG it was there on the same machine!

best to you, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser (2013-03-21 13:32:38)

mediavets wrote:

I think you may be referring to the yellow outline displayed at the margins of the selected image - as in screenshot below - is that correct?

Right! But we not only had the yellow outlines but could see their content, the image, moving. So it was easy to place the image precisely by hand-moving.

best, Klaus