Published in Graphics

Photoshop CS 4 uses OpenGL and Direct 3D

by on01 October 2008

ImageImage

Not CUDA


Photoshop CS4, a highly anticipated revolutionary application that can make you thin, handsome and beautiful, is not based on CUDA. It turns out that it uses OpenGL and Direct 3D and that it will work on ATI cards, as well. The original idea is that GPU can make some things such as image rotation and zooming much faster than a CPU.

Photoshop CS4 is not CUDA accelerated and Adobe’s Imaging Foundation (AIF), a cross platform that maintains compatibility between Macintosh and PC, is accessing GPU via OpenGL API. OpenGL 2.0 is a minimal required version.

Some Adobe plug-ins, such as RapiHD GPU accelerated encoder, available from Elemental Technologies, are created using Nvidia's CUDA technology; but you will need Quadro to make it work.

Nvidia is betting on the fact that its Geforce and Quadro GPU have the best OpenGL drives in the industry and that due to its leadership in workstations many professionals will be getting Quadro GPUs to get more out of Adobe applications.

ATI GPUs will do the job with Photoshop just fine, and we wonder if you will be able to get some acceleration in Premiere CS4 and After effects CS4 on ATI hardware. So, CUDA still has to prove itself worthy.
Last modified on 02 October 2008
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