Inspiring

Answered

Extremely underwhelming Performance on Mac Pro 2019

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 2, 2020
6 replies
10695 views

Hey guys,

so I got my new 16 Core, Vega II Mac Pro and was super excited for the huge performance gains that I was expecting to see for my daily work with Premiere... until I did some tests to see the actual speed and to compare it with Apple Compressor.

To call the results underwhelming is even some sort of understatement.

I took four different kinds of footage and just wanted to see how quickly media encoder could transcode them to ProRes 422 HQ.

ProRes 422 4k Clip: Media Encoder: 14:03 min /// Compressor: 01:15 min

ProRes 422 2k Clip: Media Encoder: 00:08 min /// Compressor: 00:25 min

Sony 4k MXF Clip: Media Encoder: 05:06 min /// Compressor: 00:57 min

GoPro 4k Clip: Media Encoder: 08:58 min /// Compressor: 01:32 min

Seriously how is this even possible? I was monitoring the CPU usage and Media encoder used maybe 30% of the power available, while Compressor maxed it out completely, as it should be!

Maybe it's because the Adobe suite isn't optimized yet, but given my past experience, I have very little hope for that to change, EVER.

Besides these actual speed comparisons, don't even get me started about the laggy UI within Premiere's timeline in comparison the FCP X.

I was hoping this problem would go away with the 32gb VRAM, but no, it just got a littttttle bit better, but is still pretty darn annoying.

I'm using a Dell 5k Display.

Performance

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer MyerPj

I suggest going over to UserVoice and upvoting some of the performance based messages. The Adobe engineers keep a record of those postings. Here's one with the most votes already, you can also use the search button bottom right to find other useful topics to upvote:

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/33849256-making-better-use-of-the-hardware-gpu-for-playbac

If you find a good thread, or of last choice you create a new one (consider just replying to an existing one with votes). Do post a link in threads like this one so we can go upvote.

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benwinter

Inspiring

This entire thread is so depressing. I'm in the same boat and have been so unhappy with the minor performance boost from such an expensive new machine. The thought of having to switch to Resolve is not a fun one. But it seems it's necessary. Adobe isn't looking out for its customers. Ciao indeed.

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

Hi Ben,

Sorry. You say your issue is related to slower performance on a 2019 MacPro. What kind of footage are you editing? These Mac Pros do have an Achilles heel when it comes to handling popular footage types. The 2019 Mac Pros with Xeon processors may be at the heart of the matter. Xeon CPUs do not do well with H.264 footage, especially 4K or larger. These Mac Pros are more suited for a ProRes workflow like transcoding or using ProRes proxies.

You need Mac with an Intel processor with an iGPU to have a CPU that uses "Quick Sync," which tears through H.264 and HEVC footage much more effectively. You can also look into the newer Macs and how they work with those formats.

My Xeon CPU workflow advice is to transcode or create proxies. You might also consider getting different hardware if you wish to natively cut H.264 and HEVC.

Thanks,.
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio

MyerPj

Correct answer

Community Expert

I suggest going over to UserVoice and upvoting some of the performance based messages. The Adobe engineers keep a record of those postings. Here's one with the most votes already, you can also use the search button bottom right to find other useful topics to upvote:

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/33849256-making-better-use-of-the-hardware-gpu-for-playbac

If you find a good thread, or of last choice you create a new one (consider just replying to an existing one with votes). Do post a link in threads like this one so we can go upvote.

A

allen24

Known Participant

What I don't understand: Apple said back in 2018 that they were working with adobe on the new Mac Pro.

We just got the unofficial 2020

NAB release today and there doesn't seem to be any major performance enhancements with metal (according to reports from others, I can't confirm this), and issues like red footage are still unaddressed. This is 2 years after that statement, and 4 months after Mac Pro released.

And also radio silence on after burner card.

Do they WANT us to switch to Resolve ? Black magic is hungry and I'm not seeing the same hunger from Adobe, like they had in 2011.

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chfilmAuthor

Inspiring

Really?

REALLY? Still no improvements?
I honestly start believing we will never see any improvements made with the current version of Premiere, it’s practically dying right now in front of our eyes. They just CANT improve it because the code at its core is so rotten and old. They would have to do a complete rewrite which might end in a FCPX fiasco for them, or at least that’s probably what they’re afraid of.
The most annoying thing is that you can’t even say „heck, I’ll just switch to Resolve and quit my CC subscription because they don’t offer a version where you get After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator but NO Premiere and NO Lightroom etc… :((

Kevin-Monahan

Community Manager

chfilm,

I'm guessing that Compressor might be doing some transcoding on ingest to smart rendering codecs as a background process. You can engage that for Premiere Pro, as well. Do that in the Media Browser. If you do, then you'll see blazing fast export times.

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio

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chfilmAuthor

Inspiring

Thx for chiming in Kevin, but this is not about proxy generation, compressor, or also Davinci Resolve or Final Cut itselve just BLAZE through all sorts of footage, from Red (with the new Metal Support), over Prores, over H264 containers so much faster than Premiere right now, it's really putting Adobe to shame.

Premiere feels like a useless piece of junk that was nice to use 2 years ago, but not on this machine. The same project stutters and creeps along in Premiere the exact same way as it did on my old 2013 mac pro, but when I send it over through XML to Resolve, it just plays like butter, and also exports in a fraction of the time to h264.

Both GPU and CPU usage in Premiere are laughably low. I understand a thing or two about the ancient architecture that you guys are running this monster on, and get that for compatibilities sake, you dont want to update it, but it is absolutely neccessary to give the entire engine a MAJOR refresh. Hell we're not even talking render times or smooth playback or scrubbing, the entire UI is laggy on a 5k Display.

J

Jim Curtis

Inspiring

I have another post on this forum along similar lines about my new Mac Pro. My experience is like yours - better playback of highly compressed codecs, like with GoPro and DJI footage. Overall disappointing though, and the suspect I've deduced is that AMD and Metal are far behind where CUDA was on my 2012 Mac Pro, as so much computation has been moved to the GPU. Apple is selling these AMDs as the hottest cards ever. If true, that throws some shade on OSX, Adobe. and plug-in developers for poor utilization. Ae, which uses the CPUs more than Pr is noticiably much faster.

BTW, on certain effects, like Colorista IV (sold as GPU accellerated), I get better GUI and playback performance when the renderer is OpenCL.

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crazycowproductions

Participating Frequently

Same issues. Very underwheling performance from a 15K machine I just bought. Technical support offers no relevent support. Is this just that adobe is still writing code to properly use the new hardware? Im in catalina and running in adobe 2019/

K

kstebbs71

Participating Frequently

How is playback and general editing with 4k+? I am still cutting on a base model of the 2013 Mac Pro (trashcan). I was hoping to pick up a new Mac Pro with Vega II in a month or two... but based on this review, I'm not sure if it's worth the cash. I would think that I'd see an improvement, though, given what I'm upgrading from... right?

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chfilmAuthor

Inspiring

Well in general it's better of course. It all depends on if you're having HD or 1440p monitors or something higher res. My biggest annoyance with premiere on this new machine is the fact how unbelievably laggy the UI behaves on my 5K display. Timeline scrubbing and scrolling is just... LAGGY. Absolutely not what you'd expect from a machine like this.

but then you realize that it's not the computer when you open final cut or resolve, it's premiere's old engine, that has trouble rendering just a simple UI on a hidpi display.

video playback is also not nearly as optimized as in the aforementioned tools. It's ok, I can playback some Avchd 4k Multicam without Proxies and grading applied fine, but when you scroll through you can tell the difference between prores footage and h264 or red even. While Resolve and FCP make MUCH better use of the given rescources.

Id say get the new machine, if you're on a 1440 display it's gonna run well. In any case when you get it, compare the performance to those other softwares and maybe you'll end up like me and a lot of other editors- I find myself every day now watching Resolve tutorials.

i want to GET OFF this Adobe Platform!

I'm so mad about this poor performance in a tool that I have to rely on to earn money and the total lack of support with these performance issues.. it's been slow and sluggish since years but I always blamed my trashcan. How wrong I was...

and it's not just Premiere, Lightroom is even worse, not to start about after effects!

J

John V Knowles

Community Expert

Curious: did you get the Afterburner card as well? I know it's supposed to improve read speed on ProRes files, though I'm not sure if it helps with encoding. Though I don't think it's supported in Premiere yet either...

JVK

-------------------------------------------------------------------------JVK | Editor/Designer/Software Instructor. Pr, Ae, Ch, Ps, Ai, Id

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chfilmAuthor

Inspiring

No, I didnt get the Afterburner YET, because I don't understand if it can also help with encoding, as you said yourself, it's a bit mysterious as of now.

I have an appointment at the local Apple Store tomorrow though where they will let me test out the Afterburner card. Their machine is identical to mine, but with the afterburner and the Vega II DUO instead of my single.

Here are my results so far. Absolutely depressing about Adobe's performance. I don't know how it's possible. So far I always thought that media encoder was actually doing an OK job, but I haven't played with compressor in ages.