GPU support | CS4Products affected
What's covered
Many Adobe Creative Suite 4 applications have enhanced features designed to take advantage of a video card's graphics processing unit (GPU) to accelerate performance. The GPU is a dedicated chip that is on the computer motherboard or video card and is efficient at manipulating and outputting computer graphics. The extra processing power of the GPU makes some effects and accelerated rendering possible that would otherwise require extraordinary CPU speeds and large amounts of RAM. If a supported GPU is detected during launch, the application takes advantage of this added processing power.
Creative Suite 4 applications with GPU support
The following CS4 applications take advantage of the advanced processing capabilities of the GPU:
- Acrobat 9
- After Effects CS4
- Bridge CS4
- Flash Player 10
- Photoshop CS4
- Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
Note: For details regarding GPU support of individual Adobe products, visit that product's system requirements page on the Adobe website.
Supported video cards
Adobe recommends DirectX 9.0 or later (on Windows) and Shader Model 3.0.* Display cards with 512 MB or better of VRAM and support for OpenGL 2.0.
If your video display card is not detected as a supported card, GPU effects and preferences aren't visible within the application. It is also recommended that you download and install the most recent drivers available from your video card manufacturer.
*Note: Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Adobe Bridge CS4 use OpenGL 2.0, rather than DirectX. For Photoshop-specific GPU documentation, see the "GPU acceleration in Adobe Photoshop CS4" section of this document.
Tested compatible video cards
Note: The graphics chipsets below are tested to function with Creative Suite 4. Individual applications can have a much larger list of cards that they have tested with.
Windows
NVIDIA |
GeForce 6 Series |
6800 Ultra |
|
|
GeForce 7 Series |
7800 GTX |
|
|
GeForce 8 Series |
8800 GT |
|
|
GeForce 9 Series |
9600GT, 9800 (single GPU variant one) |
|
|
Quadro FX Series |
1700 |
Midrange |
|
Quadro FX Series |
4600 |
High |
|
Quadro FX Series |
5600 |
Ultra high-end |
AMD/ATI |
Radeon X1000 Series |
1900 |
|
|
Radeon HD2000 Series |
HD2900 XT |
|
|
Radeon HD3000 Series |
HD3870 X2 |
|
|
FireGL V-Avivo Series |
V5600 |
Midrange |
|
FireGL V-Avivo Series |
V7600 |
High |
|
FireGL V-Avivo Series |
V8650 |
Ultra high-end |
Mac OS
Mac Pro |
First Generation |
AMD/ATI |
Radeon X1900 |
|
Second Generation |
NVIDIA |
GeForce 8800 GT |
iMac |
|
NVIDIA |
GeForce 8800 GS |
MacBook Pro |
|
NVIDIA |
GeForce 8800M GT |
Product-specific GPU information
Adobe Acrobat
- GPU acceleration support in Acrobat and Adobe Reader 8.x (333447)
- System restarts or blue screen occurs when opening PDF files (Acrobat 8, Adobe Reader 8, on Windows XP) (324073)
- 2D graphics acceleration (GPU support) in Acrobat and Adobe Reader (9.0 on Windows) (kb405218)
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Photoshop CS4
- GPU and OpenGL support | Photoshop CS4, CS5 (kb404898)
- GPU and OpenGL features and preferences | Photoshop and Bridge CS5, CS4 (kb405745)
- Tested video cards | Photoshop CS4 (kb405711)
Adobe Premiere Pro
Keywords: OpenGL; graphics card; chipset; 3D; hardware acceleration
Doc ID
(kb405445)
Last updated
2011-08-20
