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jamie_mac
Inspiring
November 25, 2024

Inconsistent export times (Mercury Playback CUDA slower than Software Only)

  • November 25, 2024
  • 11 replies
  • 3677 views

UPDATE - This thread was originally posted in the discussions section and then merged with a newer bug report post on the 14th of February 2025.

 

 

OVERVIEW (14th Feb '25)

I’m having an issue with very inconsistent export times, particularly when the Mercury Playback Engine is set to CUDA.

 

What's interesting is that when the Mercury Playback Engine is set to Software Only, my test timeline takes around 3:45-4:30 minutes to export. However, when CUDA is selected, the export can take up to 19 minutes.  That said, it can also take 7 minutes (typically right after I restart Premiere).

 

MORE INFO/ TROUBLESHOOTING STEPS IN THREAD BELOW....

 

 

 

Original post (25th Nov '24)
I’m hoping someone can clear up a bit of confusion I’ve been having around using CUDA vs Software Encoding in Premiere Pro/Media Encoder.

Everything I’ve read says that if you’re on Windows and have an Nvidia GPU, you should always select CUDA under the Render Engine for better performance. But after noticing some surprisingly long export times, I decided to do a bit of testing, and the results have been completely the opposite.

 

In my tests, using Software Only for encoding was literally 10x faster than CUDA. I tested this on the same sequence, exporting both through Premiere Pro directly and through Media Encoder. When set to Software Only, the export would finish in about 1 minute. With CUDA, the same sequence would take over 10 minutes. This pattern held across multiple tests, including longer sequences, as well as sequences with a mix of codecs, effects, After Effects comps etc...

 

No matter the sequence, Software Encoding is consistently coming out way faster than CUDA.

I tested this behavior in both Premiere/Media Encoder 24 and the 25 Beta. Still, the results stayed the same.

It's also worth noting, that when I'm set to Software Only, during the export my CPU is seeing 100% utilisation, but my GPU is also getting 20-45% utilisation.

 

So, is there a bug with CUDA or hardware acceleration I might have missed?  Have things progressed to a point where Software Encoding is now the better option? If the answer is that Software Encoding is the better option now, that's fine.  But, given how consistently CUDA is still recommended, I'm just a bit confused.

If anyone can shed some light on this, I’d really appreciate it!

Cheers!

 

For reference, my specs are:

 

  • Adobe Premiere Pro version number: v24.6.3 / v.25.2.0
  • Operating system - Windows 11 Pro [23H2]
  • System Info: CPU, GPU, RAM, HD:

    • CPU - i9-13900K

    • GPU - Nvidia 3070Ti

    • GPU driver (PC) - Studio (32.0.15.6590)

    • RAM - 96 GB (48GB x2 - Corsair Vengeance DDR5 5600MHz CL40)

    • Hard Drives

      • C:Drive = Sabrent NVMe Gen4 SSD (2TB)

      • Media Cache = Crucial P3 Plus Gen4 NVME SSD (500GB)
      • Proxy = Samsung 990 Pro NVMe SSD (2TB)
      • Media = SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD - USB-C (2TB)
  • Video format:
    • Mixed, based on different projects.  Normally I'll be editing using transcodes of the rushes, either DNxHD36 or ProRes422 Proxy.  However, I will frequently have projects where I pull in h.264 assets.Rushes themselves are typically XAVC based, ProRes, or H.264

 

    11 replies

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    mattchristensen
    mattchristensen
    Legend
    November 25, 2024

    @jamie_mac That is interesting to hear, it's not what I'd expect. That said, there are a number of factors that could be at play here and it will help to understand more about your setup. 

    1. Do you use any first-party or third-party effects in these sequences, if so, which ones? The concern here is if any of them are CPU-only effects, that could cause extra steps in the GPU acceleration pipeline, that Software only wouldn't have
    2. What are you Hardware decoding settings at? Is it on, and set to both Intel and NVIDIA or only one of them, or neither? You can find this in Preferences > Media.
    3. What format are you exporting to, and is that using Hardware Accelerated encoding?
      J
      jamie_macAuthor
      Inspiring
      November 25, 2024

      @mattchristensen Thanks for getting back to me.

      1. No effects in this test sequence (except Timecode overlay)

      2. Hardware decoding settings are set to both Intel and NVIDIA 

      3. Exporting to H.264 (with Hardware Acceleration enabled)

       

      Although, (should have thought to try this earlier) exporting to ProRes 422 filps the results.  So CUDA exports in about 1 min, while Software only exports in 4 min.

       

      So is this the answer then?  That you should change your render engine based on your export codec?

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