Upon opening, intermittent timeline red bar for projects/sequences resulting in poor performance

Also, until the last upgrade, I had no issues.  So, it's kind of suspicious to me... Things usually don't just happen. The big thing that HAS changed isn't my hardware or how I am using my software or the type of media I have, but the version of PP.

I hear you and understand how complicated it all can be under the hood. Remember that I was seeing this variance (RED or YELLOW) in the same session minutes apart and nothing was changing except that I was opening and closing projects to try generate YELLOW. 

So, I am not giving up on the idea that there is a bug here, but what upgrade are you suggesting would be most impactful. GPU or CPU?.

I  look forward to your suggestions.

The 24.x version can be significantly faster on well ... "modern" hardware. Though not all even modern hardware.

And the intermittent nature is totally dependent on what system resources are committe to use at the time of playback, which does vary constantly. So not at all unusual, especially when your kit is on the edge of adequate to maybe slightly above adequate. Been there done that.

Yes 4GB of RAM on the graphics card. I appreciate that my setup hasn't been cutting edge for awhile, if it ever was, but what continues to strike me is the intermittent nature of this performance issue... Because when things are fine (YELLOW), it is lickity split fast, no slow-downs, no dropped frames. It's fantastic, really, so clearly the resources are capable of fast editing.

Adding to my suspicions is that fact that the performance of the previous version of PP was REALLY slow. The next version (my current version, I believe) was touted as being 5-times faster, so clearly they had some performance issues. It seems reasonable that they may still have something going on that might confuse PP into not taking advantage of available resources, leaving me with an intermittent RED indicator.

If this is happening to me, it may be happening to many others and the solution may not necessarily require more resources.

I look forward to your suggestions.

That GTX 1650, what, 4GB of vRAM? That is light by "modern" standards, especially for UHD timelines.

So that's a 6 core CPU, also ... adequate. But not ideal. I've got a 3960x Ryzen with 24 cores, 128GB of RAM, and a 2080Ti that's a later generation from yours,  and has 11BG of vRAM. And I'm looking at replacing that this spring.

As I don't do a lot of H.264 and am willing to proxy or t-code, I've gotten by decently without an Nvidia CPU with QuickSync. But in Resolve  ....I would definitely appreciate more vRAM. But getting significantly more than the 11GB I've got would be a chunk of change.

I'm not sure what would ve a cost-effective replacement though. There's always something else to think about.

Sorry for the incomplete information. I have a GEFORCE GTX 1650, drivers are upto date. I mainly use 4k video (3840x2160(1.0), 48000hz 24 bit 8 channelo, 29.97 fps .mxf files generated by a sony fx6). To narrow the issues, I created a new project/sequence with a clip with no fx at all; it was yellow until I added one position keyframe and one scale keyframe... then it went RED. Then I copied in the clip from the original project/sequence (it had Lumetri color and several position and opacity keyframes, so nothing too taxing) and it was RED immediately. Cache is pointed to C:. I changed it to all other drives and tested each without effect.

If there are other details that would be helpful, please let me know.

I look forward to your suggestions.

If this is the free/old impact roll it is not gpu acc.

You can check in the Effects Panel.

OK, but I don't see 'no red at all' as a proper goal. Or to start looking for GPU problems if a patch of red exists.

Here's a sequence I was just looking thru for another post, it only has one video layer and three audio layers, plus a transition.

After analyzing/stabilizing its red?

(mind you, we are diverting from the original issue).

Drop in an h264 UHD clip and add Warp? I get red every time. And for sure a functioning RTX 4070. I think it's easy to see red even with a well functioning GPU and CPU.