PPro CS5 GUI on mac really jerky

[yuki.P]

Moving clips around on the timeline of CS5 on the mac is like playing Russian roullette; you never know where the clip is actually going to fall. It's like the interface has a refresh rate of 5fps or something. It seems to take forever for clips to snap against each other, and this lag causes the user to think something is wrong and then move the clips around more than necessary.

Please please tell me that this will be addressed in a point release. I don't want to have to pay to upgrade for a solution to a problem that should never have made it to a full release.

[Powered_by_Design]

buraihan ?

did you ever try what I said and create a new sequence without any video on it ?

Just create some bars and tones and see if you still get lag.

This way we know if you still have lag then its not your video making it and it is a hardware issue.

Take another sceen cast so we can compare and see also if you can.

Thanks: GLenn

[Guest]

Maybe try uninstalling the Wacom driver ???

Keep us informed .. I would like to know too ..

[yuki.P]

I did some more testing. Wacom doesnt seem to have any effect, one way or the other.

I also tried the following comparison.

Open a DV based sequence on CS3 on Windows. Select multiple clips and move them around on the timeline. When I picked up the selection of clips to start moving them around the cursor was hovering over the first clip in the slection. No matter how fast I move the clips around on the timeline the clips keep up with the cursor. So the position between the cursor and the clips doesnt change and they all move at exactly the same speed (making the cursor appear frozen over the top of the first clip). This is all good and anticipated behaviour.

Tried the same thing in CS5 on a mac. Grab some clips on a hdslr sequence and start moving them around. The cursor races out ahead of the clips and then a few milliseconds later the clips catch up and fall under the cursor again. The faster you move the mouse the bigger the effect. It's like elastic. The effect on the user is that even though we move the cursor to the right place, in the milliseconds it takes for the clips to catch up we see that the clips are somewhere else and then move the cursor to adjust. This cascades as the cursor is now not where you originally meant to put it, and the fact that the clips snap as you move the cursor a few pixels left or right just makes the whole experience feel a bit chaotic.

The source video is totally irrelevant. It can be color bars, cineform files on a cineform sequence, or hdslr files on a hdslr preset. Also, as part of my test I made sure that when dragging the clips around that the playhead was way out of sight, so as I drag things around there are no changes happening on the program monitor. The problem appears to be wholly related to the gui of the timeline.

[Guest]

Well .. On my Mac Pro 12 Core Dual 2.9 GHZ OS X 10.6.7  between the Wacom "Bamboo" tablet driver and my Graphire Bluetooth cause the effect you mention .. not all the time .. and it seems to be system wide .. not just while using Adobe apps .. but it always causes the effect you mention while repositioning a frame clip within the Motion effects window .. whereas a USB mouse does not create the problems you mention.

[needles27-Sm3DjP]

Here is an updated clip - things have improved quite a bit from my previous post and youtube example, but i want to check with other mac users to see if what I am experiencing now is just how it is or if there is still a performace lag compared to your systems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3XMT2YuccY

Thanks for any comparisons you can offer (screen captures would be very useful!)

[Flexy]

That is quite an improvement. What did you do to your setup?

[needles27-Sm3DjP]

Flexy - I'm not completely sure.  A few things changed, and I don't know what made such an improvement.  The biggest change was moving from the stock ATI card (I believe it is the HD4850) to the GTX285.  I don't remember if I saw the improvement right after this new card was installed.  I am curious, though - does this look like the normal dragging behavior, or does it still look a little laggy?  Not the biggest deal in the world, but still not as fluid as FCP was for me.

Thanks for any input.

[Guest]

Did you try a standard wired USB mouse?

[needles27-Sm3DjP]

I did just use a wired USB mouse, and completely removed my Wacom tablet and other USB peripherals.  Maybe I should try disabling the bluetooth Magic Trackpad.  I'd like to hear if - after watching the quick clip I posted - does this look worse/more laggy than what you experience, or is it the same?  I still don't have confirmation from other MacPro users if this is as good as it gets, or if I need to troubleshoot further to increase the fluidity.  Please compare my situation to yours.  Thank you for your help.

[Guest]

Start from scratch with just a wired USB mouse .. disable the Bluetooth Magic Pad ... and try different settings for the "Tracking Speed" in the System Preferences for the mouse ..

I'm not sure if it is the quality of the Bluetooth or the Wacom Drivers ... but my USB Mouse is all I can use without it driving me nuts ..

There is definitely driver problems too with Wacom and Adobe .. cause some double-clicks and click-hold-drags don't work .. whereas the USB mouse is fine.

[Guest]

I have the 285 GTX too .. and yes there was a change.

I'm not sure if the 10.6.8 Mac OS X update is a good thing yet .. but look in the System Control Panel for "Cuda" and check for updates there...

[AtonMusic]

The latest CUDA update is Version 4.x

Not 3...

[Guest]

Oops .. wrong computer ..

Sorry ..

[Paul_Joy__UK_]

I don't the the mouse connection method (USB / Bluetooth / Wacom etc) has anything to do with it because the cursor moves as expected, it's just the clips that lag behind. Having a laggy wireless mouse is a different problem.

[Guest]

Again .. In my case .. the USB wired mouse solved the problem.

I have no lag.

If I use the Wacom wireless tablet there is a lag.

Same as in the posted video.

[Paul_Joy__UK_]

I've started a post on my blog to try and help us get to the bottom of why this is happening on some macs and not others and also added a video showing how my 12 mac pro performs when dragging a simple black video clip.

http://www.pauljoy.com/2011/07/laggy-timeline-in-adobe-premiere-pro/

Regards

Paul.

[SAVP Edit 1]

Hi everyone, thought I'd chime in.

I am having the exact same problem on my Mac Pro. Dragging clips around the timeline is very laggy, akin to this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3XMT2YuccY

but probably a bit worse. Initially I thought it was something to do with the AJA card and the Adobe utilities but now I do not think that it is. They compound the problem somewhat but with them uninstalled it is almost, but not quite, as bad.

Could it be something to do with caches, ie the media cache or other ones located somewhere on the MacPro??

I would dearly love to get to the bottom of this as this has been a problem for me since going over to the Mac. FCP was excellent, really responsive and no probs at all, but now due to the FCP X debacle we are switching back to PPro. We do not want to have to buy new PC boxes so this is a major sticking point at the moment for using PPro on the Mac.

Can we all put our heads together and try and get this sorted somehow??

Thanks,

Alex

My system specs:

MacPro 4,1 2.66Ghz Dual Quad Core Intel Xeon

16GB DDR3 ECC 1066MHz RAM

NVidia GTX 285

AJA Kona LHi

[SAVP Edit 1]

BTW I just went over to my old HP XW9300 workstation with 2GB of RAM on it with Windows XP. Opened up PPro CS4 imported a few various clips, ProRes, H264 and XDcam MXF files, dragged them around the timeline and it FLEW!! I couldn't believe it!! I had totally forgotten what I had been missing and what I had gotten myself used to on the Mac. The difference was unbelievable!!

Mmmmm what next?

[Paul_Joy__UK_]

I submitted a bug report with a link to this thread but had no response from Adobe, I'm not really sure how to get their attention. Maybe everyone should do the same...

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

[jasonvp]

Paul Joy (UK) wrote:

I submitted a bug report with a link to this thread but had no response from Adobe, I'm not really sure how to get their attention. Maybe everyone should do the same...

I have explanation for this issue, but am curious from a "computer geek" perspective.  We can try to troubleshoot a bit.  Do you, by chance, keep your Activitiy Monitor up while editing?  What I usually do is keep AM running but hidden (CMD-H).  From the dock, right click on the AM icon, follow the menu choices:

Monitors -> Floating CPU Window -> Horizontal (or Vertical).  That'll pop a little bar graph up on your screen that looks like what's in the upper right side of this picture:

Each bar is the overall load on each core.  As you can see from this picture, the Media Convertor is pinning my 8 cores to nearly 100%.

Now, while you have that graph running, perform one of your drag tests again.  Do any of the cores pop to 100% at all?  If so, there probably isn't much was can do about it; it's something Adobe will have to address.  If not, then there are other issues possibly, and we'll need to dig into your system a little more.

jas (computer geek :-))

[jeremy d.]

I submitted a bug report with a link to this thread but had no response from Adobe, I'm not really sure how to get their attention. Maybe everyone should do the same...

This thread already has our attention.

[Paul_Joy__UK_]

Thanks Jeremy.

A few people with the issue are posting specs on my blog if it helps. http://www.pauljoy.com/2011/07/laggy-timeline-in-adobe-premiere-pro/

Jason, to answer your question I've just uploaded another screencast showing the activity monitor open during timeline usage. I also experimented with zooming the timeline, it makes no diffrerence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1YtSRqlSLI

Regards

Paul.

[jasonvp]

Paul -

Paul Joy (UK) wrote:

Jason, to answer your question I've just uploaded another screencast showing the activity monitor open during timeline usage. I also experimented with zooming the timeline, it makes no diffrerence.

In watching your CPU monitor, I actually do see sudden spikes every so often while you move the clip back and forth along the timeline.  But the spikes don't stay, nor are they consistent.  That would encourage me to start watching other bits of the Activity Monitor.  Specifically the Disk Activity tab, to see if your machine is thrashing one of the disks while you're moving the clip.  Your Disk Activity tab will always show little spikes as you read and write data to/from the drive.  But if it ever flatlines across the top of the graph, then you have a good indications that the disk (or one of the disks) is the bottleneck.

Another bit you can do is watch the system logs to see if the OS bitches about anything while you're performing your clip experiment.

1. CMD-SPACE to call up Spotlight, and type in 'console' to call up the Console app.
2. Click on the "Show Log List" in the upper left part of the icon bar.
3. Under "DATABASE SEARCHES" click on "All Messages"
4. Click on "Clear Display" in the icon bar.
5. Start your experiment and watch that window.  See if any interesting messages pop up.

Note: I'm just going through troubleshooting steps here and am not in any way implying your hardware *is* at fault.  Given the number of complaints, I'm guessing there is probably some interesting interaction with PPro and one of the OS X video libraries.

jas

[Paul_Joy__UK_]

Hi Jason, I don't think this issue has anything to do with the system resources, it's certainly not hard drive access based and there's nothing in the console thats relative to premiere.

Paul

[SAVP Edit 1]

So no one thinks it's a caching issue at all?