2019 Macbook Pro 16" delayed performance - Fix with OS Ventura or Sonoma?

[BuckEstes]

My 2019 Macbook Pro (2.4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9) is performing slower and slower using OS Monterey.

I tried using Ventura OS but it kept crashing on me, so I went back to Monterey.

Now it's become increasingly slower with Monterey.

Will installing Sonoma OS be any better or worse? 

Please help!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hey @BuckEstes,

Thanks for writing in. Sounds kinda crazy! I am on Ventura 13.4 and 24.0 and it is working great. Have you tried any other troubleshooting, such as, deleting media cache? What kind of media are you using? Have you tested with a brand new project? Let us know. Sorry for the hassle.

Thanks,
Kevin

[BuckEstes]

Hi Kevin. Thanks for the reply. 

Yes, I have used other troubleshooting including all that you are suggesting. I was on the phone with Adobe customer service last week for a couple of hours and they screenshared into my computer and saw what was going on and couldn't improve it. They said call Apple, so I did. Apple had me update to the last version of Monterey but no change. Then they said to talk to Adobe--which I already did.

So now I am asking Adobe Premiere users for help.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Again, what kind of media are you editing with?

Thanks,
Kevin

[BuckEstes]

1080p HD footage. 

[Kevin-Monahan]

Which camera shot it? Is it XAVC 4:2:2 10-bit? iPhone HEVC? Red RAW? Screencaptured footage from OBS? Need more info.

Thanks,
Kevin

[BuckEstes]

It's basic Pro Res 422. They are not from a camera. They are finished mp4 traing videos converted to Pro Res.

[BuckEstes]

This was my case number if you want to look it up...

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi @BuckEstes,

If you take the media offline, do you have the same problem? If not, is it possible to upload a sample clip? If so, can you provide a copy of the project file. Is this an updated project? If xo, have you tried the media in a new project? I hope we can help you because this should work.

Thanks,
Kevin

[BuckEstes]

What do you mean by take the media offline? Disconnect it from the project?

This slow performance is happening with every project. 

More details: I'm using an external drive for my source files and I have an external monitor plugged in to the Macbook as well.

[Warren Heaton]

@BuckEstes 

As I'm sure you're aware, 1080p ProRes 422 LT or 1080 ProRes 422 HQ should play fine assuming your storage media can maintain the sustained data transfer rate requierd of your source ProRes clips.

Under macOS Ventura if you go to About this Mac and click More Info... and then go to Storage, how much storage is available of how much total storage?  For example, 375.49GB of 2TB would be a sign that your drive is getting full, but you should still have room to work; however, if it indicates something like 48GB of 2TB, then you would want to use the Storage Settings... option to review what might be moved or deleted to free up space.

To check your external drive, download and run Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (free) from the Mac App Store.  Test both your internal Macintosh HD and your extenral hard drive.  The internal Flash storage is likely to check off "Will it work?" for all the ProRes 422 HQ options and it's the external storage that you want to place close attention to.
Blackmagic Speed Disk Test

Ideally, your external drive is Thunderbolt SSD, but USB-C SSD should perform well also.  If it's a standard drive connected via Thundebolt or standard drive connected via USB-C, it may work fine until the drive get to between 80% and 90% full (some drive manufaturers claim up to 95% capacity before losing bandwidth).

If you have not done so already are the drive health with Disk Utility and it would not hurt to run the Apple Diagnostics.

In Premiere Pro, double-check that your Sequence Preview settings are set to use QuickTime with the exact same version of ProRes being used for your source clips.  So, if your source clips are ProRes 422 LT then your Sequence Previews should be ProRes 422 LT.  With that matching, your source clips are their own preview files and there will be no yellow bar above your clips for playback.
Premiere Pro 2024 with Sequence Video Previews set to Quicktime Apple ProRes 422 LT

Under macOS Ventura 13.5.2 or macOS Monterey 12.7.1, Premiere Pro 2022 v22.6.4, Premiere Pro 2023 v23.6.2 and Premeire Pro 2024 v24.0.3 should run well.