Premiere Pro Performance Issues

[stellarb56130772]

Hello,

Recently, performance within premiere slows down for me dramatically. Playback playing/pausing is delayed by up to seconds sometimes. Input within menus and on timelines is delayed. Footage remains "pending" even after all footage references have been loaded. I have already cleared/updated cache files, uninstalled/reinstalled Premiere, and updated graphics drivers. THIS IS ONLY AN ISSUE IN PREMIERE. After Effects still works great, which leads me to believe this is software related.

I'm running the latest version of 2018 CC, and my editing machine has an i7-7700HQ Quad-Core processor with 16gb RAM and a 4gb NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card. Cache, media, and program files are stored on a 256gb solid state drive with the raw footage referenced from either an external USB3.0 harddrive or my internal SATA connected expansion harddrive. The internal expansion drive is a hybrid drive with a solid state cache, but I still see this response issue whether or not the footage is referenced from there or the external drive (which does not have the solid state cache).

Hardware diagnostics shows no issues. Viewing task manager does not show a correlation to system usage and my issues with premiere.

Is this a known issue with Premiere, or is there something I'm missing?

[R Neil Haugen]

What's the media you're using? If a form of long-GOP H.264, whether mov or mp4, this would not be unusual with that gear in 2018.

PrPro 2018 takes more horse to run correct on many rigs than 2017, Especially with long-GOP media. And that slower 4-core CPU with only 16GB of RAM would be really challenged with the massive CPU work to display bits & pieces of mov/mp4 from drones, dslr/mirror-less, and "devices".

Another thing that might help is going from spinner discs ... especially external spinning discs! ... to internal SSDs for media also, as you would get a major enough upgrade in sustained read/write to notice.

And finally ... go to proxies. With that slow CPU with only four cores, and small amount of RAM, for much media you will need to use the built-in proxy process. Which involves having the app make proxies on ingestion via the Media Browser (or after the fact by right-clicking media in the Project panel) and using please one of the included Cineform presets. PrPro then brings up Me to make them.

Select a proxy preset by aspect ratio ... same as your original media, and a smaller frame-size is fine. In the Program monitor, click the + icon far right, hover to find the Toggle Proxies icon, drag it to your control block.

Clicked (toggled) to blue, you're seeing proxies, clicked to gray, original media.

Neil

[oakleafmedia]

Hey Neil-

Same problem here, but I'm running on Intel Core i9-7940x with 14 cores, 64GB Ram, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, a separate internal SSD for cache, separate SSD for program files, and editing Panasonic EVA1 4K footage off of an internal 1TB SSD.  As far as I can remember this project was not shot LongGOP ALL-I, but I think EVA 1 is still h.264.

The program is being incredibly buggy- it will boot up fine and give me no problems for about ten minutes, then the lag will start.  It starts as an annoyance but progresses to un-workable.  I've tried everything in this forum :

Premiere Pro CC 2017 lag

I tried proxying one DJI drone file to see if that helped me (I haven't had the time to wait for the MC to create all of the proxies), that proxy file had the same issues...although I know that probably doesn't tell us much if the whole program is having the issue. 

This comes after a long string of events for us-we had a similar issue on an iMac a few weeks ago that brought us to the point of not being able to edit.  We invested in a beast of a machine, tried rebuilding our projects from scratch, tried different drives at different speeds....nothing but issues! Please help!

[dukeeastwood]

I have copied your post and would like to cite it on these forums from here on out! I have the same problems and am fed up with the ACPs pretending the problems have nothing to do with Premiere and everything to do with system specs.

It's obviously Premiere... I'm reinstalling CC2017 next week when my two projects I have to finish this week are done.

[stellarb56130772]

Thanks Neil,

I've used proxies before with 4K heavy projects.

The thing is, I'm experiencing these issues with 1080 60p footage. Most if not all of the footage in question is coming off of a Sony FS5 in an .MXF wrapper. On regular playback, my CPU is pulling an average of 60% (Maxed if rendering of course, but that's nothing new as 2017 did the same). RAM usage averages somewhere between 45-80% depending on the project. GPU usage is nominal too.

Even so, I still am experiencing these performance issues within the software itself. I don't know if using proxies (esp on 1080 footage) will fix this when my system is well within its operational limits.

[R Neil Haugen]

Might help, I'd sure try it. Yea, frustrating that newer builds at times jump the horsepower needs. Or work better on different setups than before.

Neil

[stellarb56130772]

Still doing it with proxies. Again, my performance numbers displayed in the task manager are all nominal. I really don't think this is a hardware issue...

[R Neil Haugen]

Which proxy preset?

Painful, I know.

Neil

[stellarb56130772]

1280x720 h.264

[R Neil Haugen]

I wouldn't expect better performance with an H.264 proxy. Use the Cineform ones ... the proxy files are larger but the work on the CPU is drastically lessened by having every frame a complete one. You don't waste cycles of the CPU/RAM having to swap the same image in/out 15 times to make the in-between images from data-sets plus complete frames.

Neil

[stellarb56130772 · Accepted solution]

Cineform did help with playback, but I was still getting input lag on my timeline and in menus. I ended up importing the entire project into a new project, and that solved all the issues.

[R Neil Haugen]

It is possible to get glitches in project files, and what you did fixes that most often.

Neil

[oakleafmedia]

I agree-  By the numbers our machine should be able to tear through this 4k footage...in a brand new project I can color grade 4k footage at full res while playing back in real time using lumetri!  However, a larger project with more footage and my playbar takes 2 seconds to move and stop...destroying my productivity!

[R Neil Haugen]

That's a right ripper. Ouch.

(And when using proxies go for the Cineform presets,  just to avoid H.264.)

That rig should go, really. I'd suggest asking on the Hardware forum listed on the right side of the overview page. See if some of the gear brains have ideas. I do know a couple guys with major machines having issues reformatted the OS drive, reinstalling OS and loading PrPro as the first app installed. After finishing all the apps installation they were pleased at how well PrPro was running.

A pisser to have to do all that to get it working right but ... it was working at speed.

Neil

[dukeeastwood]

but if it doesn't work correctly on that machine what hope is there for anyone else?

Adobe needs to fix Premiere, end of conversation.

[R Neil Haugen]

End of conversation?

I've a rig a lot less than yours without nearly the troubles. Should I say end of conversation?

The app has a huge base. Most are running adequately to very good, period.

In your case and some others, it's a dog. Acting like an old tired dog. And SHOULD be doing much better.

As an ACP with years of helping here, there are some typical things people do that can kill performance and we naturally hit those first. Trouble shooting 101.

Which doesn't mean anything about denying that some do have bad issues. For those, "we" send people over to the UserVoice system to get the information on the serious issues right to the team. And I do mean right to the team. The new system runs right into the QC engineers system.

[dukeeastwood]

why are there threads similar to this one going all the way back to January if you're sending people over to the UserVoice system? Or, why did the QC engineers allow the new update in the first place?  No matter what Adobe is failing; if they aren't fixing this issue now they software they are failing, if they are trying to fix the software they are failing.... when did this update that wrecked the program come out, June? or was it May? Do they have any clue what they are doing? Or are they just not that concerned?

re-read this:

"Same problem here, but I'm running on Intel Core i9-7940x with 14 cores, 64GB Ram, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, a separate internal SSD for cache, separate SSD for program files, and editing Panasonic EVA1 4K footage off of an internal 1TB SSD.  As far as I can remember this project was not shot LongGOP ALL-I, but I think EVA 1 is still h.264.

The program is being incredibly buggy- it will boot up fine and give me no problems for about ten minutes, then the lag will start.  It starts as an annoyance but progresses to un-workable.  I've tried everything in this forum :

Premiere Pro CC 2017 lag

I tried proxying one DJI drone file to see if that helped me (I haven't had the time to wait for the MC to create all of the proxies), that proxy file had the same issues...although I know that probably doesn't tell us much if the whole program is having the issue. 

This comes after a long string of events for us-we had a similar issue on an iMac a few weeks ago that brought us to the point of not being able to edit.  We invested in a beast of a machine, tried rebuilding our projects from scratch, tried different drives at different speeds....nothing but issues! Please help!"

Same problems a ton of people are having.. it's always the same problems no matter the system, and it being on a system such as one described above says it all. Premiere is in such a high state of disrepair it barely works... the PROGRAM ITSELF! Do you think it's normal to not be able to work because an update has shattered the functionality of a program that used to work with only a fraction of the problems? what is there to argue with? Anyone who uses Premiere and says it's working fine isn't working in it on a daily basis.

[R Neil Haugen]

I understand the frustration. I'm a user like yourself and have needed to stay on an earlier build for several months til a fix came out myself.

But your last statement is rather illogical. There are thousands of users working daily across the world in PrPro. If everyone who did much had the same issue there'd be a ton more threads and posts.

I've been around this forum when it was a LOT livelier than this.

So the clear fact is the vast majority are doing ok.

Just as clear a fact is there are some like you that are getting hammered who shouldn't be. Who have powerful systems and decent workflows and are still not getting adequate results.

One of the big aisle talk discussions at NAB that I heard several times was that all the other major NLEs limit things, like the main codecs and such, and that maybe Adobe's management should consider abandoning the work all media thing and pick a few widely used format/codec options that are suggested for rock solid workflows and make sure those are nailed to the wall for performance and reliability.

May be. But having a crapshoot where most clients work ok, but a revolving subgroup are hammered ... isn't a good long term thing.

So ... please keep pushing on this. One other thing ... the UserVoice system activity list does go to upper management, the suits who decide budgets and tell the teams what their staffing levels and priorities are.

The more posts over there, the better data for getting more budget. You may not like the system but that's what it is.

Hammer that system. And get all your buds to file there whether they're running clean or not.

Neil

[rolandm2000]

Having even more extreme issues on Premiere 2020. Up to 15 seconds of lag until playback starts. The software is virtually unusable and this is editing audio for a 5.1 surround mix. all video previews are turned off.  I've seen many people complaining about this issue with no resolution from Adobe.

[R Neil Haugen]

Roland,

Your gear, media, plugins & workflow are crucial to know before giving any assistance whatever.

As to having seen a lot of posts ... remember there's thousands of people in Premiere daily. Something hitting 1% of the user base having an issue would still be a lot of people ... but in toto, very few users would be affected.

For most users, 2020 is an improvement over 2019. For some, it clearly isn't. And for some, their gear just isn't up to what 2020 needs, as the hardware requirement for 2020 is higher. There are a couple fomat/codec combos that have some noted issues also.

Neil