Intel Decoding in Premiere Pro SLOWS DOWN Thumbnails generation TWICE

[AndrewTheGreat]

I don't know how it works and what it's connected with, but with the Intel Decoding ticked in Premiere Pro options thumbnail generation of the files imported into the project bin lasts twice as long as without Intel decode.

Just facts:

Premiere Pro 24.3.0 (build 59), Intel Core i7 14700K, 71 h264 files on an SSD or an HDD (tried both but for a clearer result will use the HDD), Intel decoding is switched on in Premiere Pro options:

In a newly opened project I hit Import, choose all the 71 video files I mentioned above and start the timer which includes both the import time and the thumbnail generation time. The whole time till all the thumbnails have been generated is 43 seconds.

Then.

I turn OFF the Intel Decode, restart Premiere Pro. Delete the Cache files in the Media Cache tab (tried without deleting those too - didn't change the result).

Hit Import, choose all the 71 video files and start the timer - the time amounts to 19 seconds.

Then I again turn on the Intel Decode in Premiere's options, restart Premiere Pro. Delete the Cache files in the Media Cache tab, hit Import, choose all the 71 video files and the time till all the 71 thumbnails have been generated amounts to 45 seconds.

Then I again turn OFF the Intel Decode in Premiere's options, restart Premiere Pro, delete the Cache files in the Media Cache tab, hit Import, choose all the 71 video files and the time till all the 71 thumbnails have been generated amounts to 24 seconds.

The most interesting thing is that during all the 4 imports and thumbnail generations my Intel iGPU is flat:

So I assume that it is not engaged in generating thumbnails but still somehow influences its speed.

PS: I tried different kinds of footage, both of different length and formats - same result. Files imported from an SSD (7000\6000 r\w speeds) give the same difference in thumbnail generation time but it's just much shorter.

[AndrewTheGreat]

Whilst neither  ADOBE nor the community experts react to this problem, my collegues and I have found a strange work around for how to still have the iGPU on and the thumbnails generating fast. You have to insert a dummy into the motherboard hdmi port, the dummy being an hdmi-monitor emulator KS-554, like this one:

The result - your monitor is plugged into the graphics card, and the dummy - into the motherborad. The system thinks there are 2 monitors and Premiere Pro magically starts generating thumbnails twice as fast. 

And I am rather surprised no one reacts to this... This is certainly quite a huge sowftware-to-hardware related problem which may stand behind all those "Why my Premiere Pro is so slow on a high-end PC for $4000" posts here in this community...

[AndrewTheGreat]

Adobe, any news on this?

[Alex367466572b5i]

ARM версию в декабре обещают 🙂

[AndrewTheGreat]

Since no one, not even Adobe, is reacting, I'll go on updating this thread.

A colleague of mine has discovered a cool workaround on how to make Premiere Pro generate previews lightning fast and on the whole make the software utilize the iGPU of your CPU even more.

The workaround is to connect your monitor to your integrated videocard while it's already been connected to your videocard. That's correct. So one hdmi cord goes to your monitor to the hdmi-1 outlet from the videocard, and the second hdmi crod goes from your motherboard's hdmi to the display's hdmi-2. So the monitor gets actually a doulbe connection.

Then I quote my colleague: "So I connected my motherboard to the second hdmi on my monitor without disconnecting the one from the videocard and now my Windows thinks I have two monitors though in fact there is one, and my RTX is the main connection. As a result Premiere Pro started to generate previews twice as fast, and even the Windows task manager (the Performance tab) shows that both the dGPU and the iGPU are being used more actively. Even the total time from the project start till the moment I can start working is now less. Premiere Pro itself has become more responsive."

[R Neil Haugen]

That sounds like an OS issue to me. Premiere has no way to control that iGPU. Other than whether to use code that uses the iGPU. 

[AndrewTheGreat]

Hi, Neil

Does Windows or Premiere Pro create previews in Premiere Pro?

[Averdahl]

I moved this to the Bug section of the forum, so hopefully someone from Adobe will chime in on this issue. 🙂

[R Neil Haugen]

Premiere, of course. But it does not have total control of your system.

And where I thought it might be a system issue is that thing of having the second connection directly from the computer to the monitor. So Windows now "sees" that iGPU as connected to something, where it didn't before.

There may be a setting somewhere in Windows about this usage, or in the BIOS, that could trigger the same work without needing the additional connection to the monitor.

[AndrewTheGreat]

@R Neil Haugen 

Three people with Win10, Win11 23h2 and Win11 24h4 are having the same problem. All of us have different Intel Cores with an iGPU (12700K, 13500K, 14700K). And all of us are having the same issue with the previews. I don't know how exactly is Windows related to it, but having an iGPU ON literally slows the preview generation twice. With it it's 43 seconds with 71 files, without it it's 19 seconds. These times differ from system to system but there is a certain pattern in all - the iGPU being ON slows the process down, but this double-hdmi-connection trick makes it all work as it should. It all looks like in Premiere Pro when the iGPU is used it is prioritized over the dGPU which IS faster (therefore these 19 seconds). The last thing - I checked it in DaVinchi and I do not see any difference in "with iGPU" and "without iGPU" - the previews are generated fast in both configurations (I even turned the iGPU off in BIOS) so again this leads us to Premiere Pro. 

I am not an IT specialist to decide whether it's Premiere Pro or Windows or any other cause, but as a Premiere Pro user I can clearly see that there's an issue when I work in Premiere Pro. Maybe Adobe should cooperate with Microsoft to beat it, I don't know.

[R Neil Haugen]

I think this is an issue where we are both having to guess from very partial, incomplete data.

And don't, perhaps, make any assumptions, yet. For one thing, my comment that this sounds like an issue in the OS does not in any way even imply that Adobe may or may not have a role in solving/changing it. It simply notes that it is perhaps within the Windows 'stuff' that the issue originates.

So could this be a Windows caused thing that Adobe could help fix, or change, within Premiere? Maybe, maybe if so, as you comment, they would need to work with Microsoft.

The point is, at this time, all "we" can do is gather data and post it. Which is always frustrating to me at least, because I naturally want to solve!!!!! anything and everything. But as part of the data gathering process, we can offer speculation. Just understand, it's all simply offered speculation at this time.

[AndrewTheGreat]

@R Neil Haugen I emailed Intel just in case. They - strangely - seem to be interested in investigating it. But Microsoft keep silent. So I have big hopes for Adobe to at least study this problem, since it may be the cause of some other problems Windows users have

[R Neil Haugen]

Ah, thank you for that! These issues that ... might ... be interactions between OS and software companies and hardware companies can be darn annoying and to on for some time before they finally seem to ... stop.

Very frustrating.