Topaz AI Clear and AI Gigapixel

[astroman27]

Have just purchased Clear and Gigapixel and am getting huge amount of artifacts , to the point that both products are useless. Have raised ticket with Topaz , who say that there is a problem but so far no solution. Has anybody else had a similar issue ?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Have just purchased Clear and Gigapixel and am getting huge amount of artifacts , to the point that both products are useless. Have raised ticket with Topaz , who say that there is a problem but so far no solution. Has anybody else had a similar issue ?

Hi,

Have you checked whether your hardware is supported?
https://help.topazlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012811791-A-I-Gigapixel-Minimum-Requirements-and-Recommended-Hardware

The artifacts look like memory issues, probably in hardware or a graphics diver.
Also, make sure your Graphics drivers are up-to-date.

Cheers,
Bart

[astroman27]

Hi: Have switched to CPU only processing and artifacts are not present, however the card I am using is not on the list of unsupported cards (Nvidia 1080 8GB flashed for Mac and running the latest driver, now processing images is very slow even on my 12 core MacPro. topaz studio does not offer choice of GPU or CPU processing , so not an option.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi: Have switched to CPU only processing and artifacts are not present, however the card I am using is not on the list of unsupported cards (Nvidia 1080 8GB flashed for Mac and running the latest driver, now processing images is very slow even on my 12 core MacPro. topaz studio does not offer choice of GPU or CPU processing , so not an option.

Okay, that points to the GPU. Good thing that A.I. Gigapixel allows to toggle it on or mostly off.

Assuming the folks at TopazLabs also have that info, they know what to focus on.

I'm not that intimately familiar with the inner workings of Macs, but I've heard that there can be several GPUs (not only on the Graphics card) and that it's possible to switch between them.

Cheers,
Bart

[PeterAit]

Hi: Have switched to CPU only processing and artifacts are not present, however the card I am using is not on the list of unsupported cards (Nvidia 1080 8GB flashed for Mac and running the latest driver, now processing images is very slow even on my 12 core MacPro. topaz studio does not offer choice of GPU or CPU processing , so not an option.

Gigapixel will use the GPU even when it's not a good idea. I assumed that if the GPU was unsupported  I'd get an error message, but I did not. The program cranked away - I did not get any artifacts but it was very slow. Switching to CPU only mode sped things up by 3x. I have ordered Topaz's recommended Nvidea card, available for ~$100 on Ebay.

[kirkt]

Hi: Have switched to CPU only processing and artifacts are not present, however the card I am using is not on the list of unsupported cards (Nvidia 1080 8GB flashed for Mac and running the latest driver, now processing images is very slow even on my 12 core MacPro. topaz studio does not offer choice of GPU or CPU processing , so not an option.

"flashed for Mac" - what does this mean?  This is not a standard MacPro video card, right? (not the D500 or D700 FirePro).   Sounds like your non-standard GPU configuration is not supported -  "Not on the list of unsupported cards" does not mean it is supported.

@Bart - Some Macs (laptops) have a video card set up that has dual video processing paths - an Intel graphics processor for simple video tasks (like web browsing and word processing) and a more powerful processor (AMD, etc.) for more graphics intensive tasks.  You can configure auto-switching between the two or to always use the more powerful card, permitting the user to balance performance with battery life.  The MacPro does not have this option on its spec'ed cards.

This is one reason why it is a good idea to use the trial version before purchase.

Kirk

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

"flashed for Mac" - what does this mean?  This is not a standard MacPro video card, right? (not the D500 or D700 FirePro).   Sounds like your non-standard GPU configuration is not supported -  "Not on the list of unsupported cards" does not mean it is supported.

@Bart - Some Macs (laptops) have a video card set up that has dual video processing paths - an Intel graphics processor for simple video tasks (like web browsing and word processing) and a more powerful processor (AMD, etc.) for more graphics intensive tasks.  You can configure auto-switching between the two or to always use the more powerful card, permitting the user to balance performance with battery life.  The MacPro does not have this option on its spec'ed cards.

Thanks for clarifying, Kirk.

This is one reason why it is a good idea to use the trial version before purchase.

Indeed, that's what it's intended for.

Cheers,
Bart

[zippski]

Yes, an Nvidia 1080 with 8 Gb of onboard RAM is a veritable rocketship of a card and assuming you have enough onboard machine RAM this card should make both Topaz products fly (well, uhm, "fly"... that's relative in the case of Topaz stuff...)

I agree that there is something in the non-standard configuration that is creating issues.


Leigh
zippski

[Zen8]

I can't use AI Clear. If I resize to 2000 on the long side I don't get the wormlike artifacts. Even happens on my laptop that meets specs.