Adobe why Premiere use onlu iGPU!?

[Ivan Stojanovic]

I want to ask the Adobe team what we did wrong so their software has not used GPUs for decades. Isn't it a shame that Premiere uses integrated graphics for rendering and our GPUs collect dust and cost $ 500-1000 / euro? Why only deal with Intel?

Also why playback only uses a processor, again our expensive GPUs go unused.

Why Adobe does this to us, why !?

If we need to raise money for developers to finally do this after 20 years, let's do it. Just let someone tell us, should we write a petition?

[Warren Heaton]

You have the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, correct?

It is supported.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/system-requirements.html#gpu-acceleration

Is your request that 100% of Premiere Pro be GPU accelerated?

[Ivan Stojanovic]

No it's RTX 2070 Super. Cuda is selected.

"Is your request that 100% of Premiere Pro be GPU accelerated?"
Of course, why doesn't Premiere use what we have on the computer but use a weak iGpu?

[Warren Heaton]

It would be nice to see the GPU acceleration icon next to every effect.  I would guess that if all of the Premiere Pro team's efforts went to just that that we would not see improvements in other areas.  I'm sure that supporting the now legacy QuickTime codecs took up a good amount of time.

QuickSync isn't Adobe's technology, but I am very happy to have acces to the faster encode Times nonetheless.  

[R Neil Haugen]

CPU and GPU math and programming are completely different beasts. That's the first part of the issue. They're not a straight-across swap of code or effort.

Second ... CPUs have cores and threads, built differently than GPUs. It's complicated enough to rethread code for many complicated equations across multiple cores ... that's a job right there. And one they're working on, trying to recode this so things work without breaking using say 16 cores simultaneously.

Third ... some things are rather ungainly when done in GPU math, some things when done in CPU math, so both items have different best uses. And yes, this means some things are slower processed by one type of processor than by the other.

When you take those three givens, and start designing programs to run across all sorts of unknown gear ... one has to make selections and choices. How much of the code are you going to completely re-build depending on whether or not the user has X GPU or ... not?

Designing any app so that all steps of all process go across the CPU no matter how many cores to thread ... and then add a decision-tree for GPU use for every possible user action or effect used, based on some sort of internal decision process ... adds immense complexity to the "base" application code.

This is not even talking about the fact that iGPUs and discrete GPUs aren't even equivalent ... at all. Why?

iGPUs, built into either the CPU or as a hardware item on the motherboard ... are by design used for all sorts of things by the CPU. For many CPUs, the iGPU is seen by the people designing it as simply an extension of the CPU capabilities. So the iGPU is going to be doing things at times that that particular CPU would never send to a discrete GPU.

So the iGPU/GPU discussion is limited by the nature of the differences inherent in computer design.

As a user, I use a ton of Lumetri, and some other effects. I teach pro colorists how to work color correction/grading in Premiere. Do I want more stuff put onto the GPU Accelerated Effects list?

Of course! Like, duh!

Would I suggest they take the massive time to put everything on the GPU potentially? Oh ... what a waste of resources. It wouldn't help nearly as much as 1) fixing a bunch of stuff along with 2) adding a few more things to the GPU accelerated list.

Neil

[Ivan Stojanovic]

I do not think you are answering the substance of the question posed here regarding hardware CUDA  acceleration when encoding.

Why does Premiere use hardware acceleration with Intel iGPU hardware when encoding rather than offering the same option with CUDA  hardware? That is the key question.

And another part of the question would be why when using video in timeline playback Premiere does not use GPU hardware for video decoding acceleration, but only CPU?

[jasonvp]

There's some confusion in terminology here and that may be part of the issue.

Rendering is not encoding.  As it turns out, the Intel iGPU has QuickSync available, and last I knew, Premiere will use QuickSync to encode and decode h.264 files.  I'm not on my Windows rig at the moment, but if I'm not mistaken, there is a way to disable that.  I think it's "on" by default though.

I strongly suspect that if you have the hardware encode/decode option checked, then Premiere will just use the iGPU and not the discrete GPU you have installed.  Someone from Adobe might need to correct me on that one.  If that's the case, it's why your discrete GPU isn't doing much.

Also of note: Neither NVidia GPUs nor AMD ones are used for encoding or decoding.  At all.  They are used for rendering, if and only if you're using accelerated effects; that's what Neil was trying to tell you.  But for encode/decode, that's all either CPU based, or Intel iGPU based depending on your project settings.

[R Neil Haugen]

Why does Premiere use hardware acceleration with Intel iGPU hardware when encoding rather than offering the same option with CUDA hardware? That is the key question.

That was why I wrote the post I did. Which actually directly answers this question and in some detail. So I'll try again.

In short ... many users conflate CPU and GPU operations, which is completely incorrect. Different mathematical processes and "architecture" are involved.

Second, many users don't understand the basic CPU use of onboard or iGPU chip as essentially a part of the CPU. For that use, the GPU wouldn't be involved anyway.

Finally, engineers make choices how to best utilize the wide array of gear out there while also minimizing and streamlining code for both best operation across gear and stability. All engineering teams will make different choices.

If you have effects from the GPU accelerated list such as Warp Stabilizer or Lumetri color, your GPU may well get pegged doing those things ... many Premiere projects will include one or more of the GPU effects and therefore will fully utilize both CPU and GPU simultaneously.

Basic encoding is actually more suited for CPU math. As noted, wiring everything to use both equally would be complex and ... perhaps not the best use of engineering time across the needs of all users.

Neil

[Ivan Stojanovic]

So if I understand correctly about Premiere, it's much more important to have a fast processor than a faster GPU if you want your playback to be smooth and rendering fast with hardware acceleration. 

P.S. For Warp Stabilizer Premiere uses a processor and only a processor, I checked it 100% because it's so terribly slow compared to stabilizing in Final Cut

[jasonvp]

Premiere Pro currently utilizes the discrete GPUs for the list of accelerated effects that Neil posted.  Further, it'll use the GPU to scale a video up or down during export; GPUs are quite good at doing that.  Everything else is handled by the CPU including importing, decoding, rendering, and encoding during the export.

There are aftermarket, non-supported plugins that will allow you to use the NVENC encoder on your discrete GPU to export a video much faster than your CPU can do it.  But, you're on your own (as far as Adobe is concerned) if you install it.  Fortunately, the developer of the plugin is awesome, and he has his own forum for support, suggestions, etc.  Check it out here:  https://www.voukoder.org/

If your source footage is h.264 or h.265, or some other long-GOP format, then without the help if your iGPU, it's all CPU-bound.  So the faster the CPU you have, the smoother the playback.  However, as I suggested earlier, take a look through your settings and see if the hardware options is enabled or disabled.  I don't remember where it is, exactly.  I think it's in the Project settings, not the General ones.

[R Neil Haugen]

Thanks, Jason ... that was a very useful bit of information to add in!

A lot of users also seem to mis-apprehend the difference between encoding and displaying video data.

Encoding is taking a set of instructions from an NLE like Premiere and computing the file data to display that set of instructions as simple matrix sets of RGB pixel values. It uses very specifically structured mathematical processes.

Displaying video media means taking the video data from a file ... and turning that into viewable pixels on X screen at so many frames per second. This is a very different mathematical process.

Encoding is something that CPUs do very well, it's within their normal mathematical design.

Displaying video media is what GPUs are designed for. Computing what to send to a screen depending on any file data and (with NLEs) any additional instruction sets that are to be applied. And remember, GPUs are far more specialized than CPUs. GPUs are designed for a relatively small area of computer mathematical computations.

Some parts of the GPUs typical use can be applied and used during encoding. But due to the nature of the design, no GPU is ever a substitute for a CPU.

And ... if you throw in the Intel "QuickSync" hardware and naming conventions, yea, it's even murkier. Which is where Jason's comments help so much. QuickSync ... an Intel-only, CPU-only process, is also only available with H.264 encoding processes. And that's a whole different kettle of fish.

Neil

[jasonvp]

Let's make the waters murkier still, Neil:

All modern-day NVidia and AMD discrete GPUs have hardware encoders and decoders built into them for h.264 and h.265.  Unfortunately, at the present time, Premiere Pro won't use any of them.  They would help the application significantly insofar as handling of the long-GOP formats by:

• Speeding up the importing and decoding of them (NVDEC for NVidia, and AMD's VCE)
• Speeding up the exporting of them (NVENC for NVidia, and AMD's VCE)

These pieces of "extra" hardware, if you will, have absolutely no effect on the GPU's performance when it comes to other tasks like displaying data, or even CUDA computing.  They're extra pieces of silicon sitting on/in each GPU that are basically: idle.  It just takes an API call from the running application to activate and access them.

When it comes to encoding with them, there are trade-offs.  They're able to achieve their hitless encoding of h.264 and h.265 (highly compressed files) by: stupidly compressing.  They don't have the intelligence to properly compress the data, so they just: remove detail.  Dumbly.  That means that the results, for instance, of a 10Mbit/sec NVENC h.264 will look like trash compared to a 10Mbit/sec CPU-encoded h.264 file.  Answer: crank the bitrate up.  Disk space is free, right?  Once you do that, you end up with a much larger file, but the creating of said is literally a snap of a finger.

Yeah.  The hardware encoders on the GPUs today are incredible.  So are their hardware decoders.  And I think that's what our OP sort of wants with Premiere.  Unfortunately, he's not going to get it right now.  At least, not with NVidia or AMD.

[R Neil Haugen]

Great clarification, Jason ... thanks!

Neil

[R Neil Haugen]

Ah, got a couple discretely different topics there.

First ... yea, the CPU is the heart of any computer. You want the most CPU you can afford, with plenty of in/out for drives and a mobo with well-laid-out lanes on it for any additional items you add like GPUs. It will always ... in any application ... be the heart of the processing. And in all applications, it will use a GPU as an assistant ... when it chooses or needs to. But really, everything in a computer is an assistant for the CPU.

How many things the GPU is encoded for working with within any application is always a wondrous rabbit hole to dive into. There's been some massive arguments among AfterEffects users I know over whether X, Y, and Z should be added to that app's GPU acceleration items ... as they think that doing so would actually slow down their use of different things on that app. And ... they have a point, after you understand all the technical details involved. (I can follow these discussions and actually recall the main points for a few hours. Past that ... it's dense mush.)

Second, as to "hardware encoding" ... that's Intel-speak for a specific process on their CPUs ... or rather, on some of their CPUs ... for specifically encoding H.264 codecs. If you think about it, H.264 was created when they built specialized chips for the camera bodies to encode H.264 files. So ... Intel has designed the same type of operation for using in computers.

And like on the cameras, the H.264 encoding chip is a separate item from the rest of the CPU, designed only for doing H.264 encoding.

So 'hardware encoding' by its very nature is a specialized process in specialized purpose-built chips designed to encode H.264 only ... just like in a camera. It doesn't have anything to do with GPU use by Premiere.

Premiere will call on that GPU of yours ... when there's an effect that is GPU-Accelerated in Premiere ... and as the CPU gets to the part it wants the GPU to perform. Including, yes ... if you have any Mercury Acceleration option set in your Project settings dialog (other than software only) ... Premiere will use the GPU for Warp Stabilizer as that is a rather heavy use of frame-resizing. Which within Premiere is a GPU thing.

Neil

[Bozza]

@R_Neil_Haugen
The statement "QuickSync ... an Intel-only, CPU-only process..." is wrong! QSV is part of Multi Format Codec Engine as a part of GPU. 

@jasonvp

Thank you for detail explanation of MCE role and how it is function on AMD and Nvidia. But at the end, it is the same or very similar dedicated part of GPU, even on Intel graphics. Is it possible that Intel MCE is much, much beter in H.264  encoding than MCE on the latest Nividia and AMD GPUs? And if so, why is that?

[jasonvp]

Actually, NVidia's encoder is the champ.  Far and away; signficantly better quality (and faster) than Intel's or AMD's.  They've been doing it much longer than either of the other two companies and have vastly more experience with it.

The issue is that Pr isn't using it or the one on the AMD GPU.  That's an Adobe decision.

[Bozza]

Thank you!

[Ivan Stojanovic]

We have come to the essence. Adobe uses Intel's solution at the expense of the user. I guess Intel paid to use their solution and not nVidia or AMD. It's a scandal!

[Warren Heaton]

Being able to access the faster encode times via QuickSync is to the benefit of the user.

[Ivan Stojanovic]

I understand everything you want to say. But this is just a theory that doesn't serve us editors. I'm not interested in such things, I want Premiere to work quickly and well to use what I have in my computer from the components the right way. GPU used for effects, so please, this is ridiculous. Editing uses effects very little if done seriously. Adobe should use GPUs for essential acceleration, not effects.

I urge that the Adobe Team stop using Intel technology and start using real GPUs rather than stupid iGPU.

[Warren Heaton]

Are you using a mezzanine CODEC that takes advantage of Smart Rendering in Premiere Pro?

[johnpooley3]

This is often a result of the BIOS, and is likely not Premiere's fault. 

If you can't get it to use the discrete GPU by updating BIOS and changing settings, just disable the iGPU and move on. 

QuickSync decoding isn't that helpful anyway and the encoding looks meh. 

Furthermore, I highly suspect that Adobe will begin supporting Nvenc and Nvdec soon enough.