Running Premiere With A Lower End Machine

[John237926183rr8]

I've been tasked with using school machines to run Premiere Pro. They're relatively good, however they only have 8 GB of ram. I was curious if there are any ways I can optimize it to run better on these machines.

The biggest issue I've been having is that every 2-8 minutes, everything except the timeline freezes. The only things I can do at that point is save and edit the timeline. I can't even close the app without using alt-f4.

Any tips would be much appreciated!

[John Waller]

They're relatively good

Can you elaborate and give us the specs (hardware and operating system) so we know what you are working with?

That said, you're always going to struggle with only 8GB RAM. I'm surprised the software even launches.

Which version of Premiere Pro are you trying to run?

[John237926183rr8]

I'm running Premiere 2021, and my PC Specs are the following:

GPU: Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics

CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz 1.38 GHz

RAM: 8.00 GB (7.75 GB usable)

[John237926183rr8]

Oh, and I'm on Windows 10

[Andy 1968]

The Iris GPU is not as good as an Nvidia GPU. Your specs might work OK for editing 1920 X 1080 video files but 4K will be a struggle for an i5 with a low clock speed.  Make sure Quick Sync is enabled if you edit H.264. 

[Peru Bob]

It's time to convince those who make the decisions that the hardware needs to be upgraded to continue teaching video editing.

[Conrad C]

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@John237926183rr8 wrote:

The biggest issue I've been having is that every 2-8 minutes, everything except the timeline freezes. The only things I can do at that point is save and edit the timeline. I can't even close the app without using alt-f4.

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How much free space is on the storage drives in these computers?

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@John237926183rr8 wrote:

I was curious if there are any ways I can optimize it to run better on these machines.

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Performance of video editing software (from Adobe or from other compannies) depends on a good balance between CPU cores, GPU power, memory, and the speed and available space of storage. What I mean by “balance” is that if you are able to boost one spec but not the others, benefits will be limited by the weakest spec.

[John237926183rr8]

I have 155 free GB currently. 

[Conrad C]

If the internal storage stays over 100GB free during editing, that should be OK. And if the internal storage is an SSD, then that’s OK for performance, especially if it’s NVMe.

@John237926183rr8 wrote:

GPU: Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics

CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz 1.38 GHz

RAM: 8.00 GB (7.75 GB usable)

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The CPU and GPU are relatively recent, though a Core i5 is middle of the line. It goes from Core i3 to Core i9; serious video editors always get the Core i9.

The GPU is built into the CPU (integrated graphics). That is traditionally not ideal for video editing. The point in your favor is that Xe graphics are recent, much better than older integrated graphics, but still not as powerful as discrete graphics hardware,which is fully separate from the CPU. Again, serious video editors always get discrete graphics.

A possible problem with integrated graphics on your computer is that it needs memory for graphics, and it takes it from your system memory, and there is only 8GB of that. So Windows, Premiere Pro, and Xe integrated graphics are all trying to take their chunk of the 8GB and it is probably not quite enough. (Discrete graphics has its own memory, so it does not take from system memory.)

A possible short-term fix is to upgrade the RAM in the laptop, if possible. 16GB is OK if your budget is limited, but if you’d like to run more programs at the same time, 32GB would be better if the laptop can take it.

[John237926183rr8]

Unfortunately, since its a school computer, I'm not allowed to upgrade it, however, thanks for the tip!

[Andy 1968]

Premiere Pro can work with some mediocre computers as seen in the video link below. We would neeed to know your computer spces to see if adding more RAM to you computer would be worth while. 

[Michael Grenadier]

are you running any other programs at the same time?  If so, don't.    If you're working with anything with a higher resolution than 1080, create lower resolution proxies...  and tell us what kind of drive the media is stored on and how it's connected to the computer.  usb2 just won't cut it...

[John237926183rr8]

I'm not running any other programs, no. And my drive is the built in drive on the computer, which has 155 free GB

[chrisw44157881]

maybe possible, but you might have to work with proxies in reduced resolution.

[Michael Grenadier]

the accepted wisdom is that you should not be storing media on your startup drive...  that said, many people do, but on a marginal system might be better to avoid it.  If the computer only has usb2, then you might be better off keeping the media on the startup drive...  I don't think you say how large the startup drive is.  Again, the accepted wisdom is that you should keep at least 10% of all drive space empty and 20% free on your startup drive...    Are these machines laptops or desktop computers.  If they're desktop, you may be able to add ram which is relatively cheap nowadays...

[Eko Wardoyo]

As general, your PC should work well with premiere pro. But, there must be something that sould be fix on you PC. Just go to PC tecnician, reinstall the os, then install premiere pro. That should be work well.

[Joost van der Hoeven]

My advice would to use an external SSD over USB3 for the media and transcode all media do ProResLT. H.264/.mp4 footage will cosume to much horsepower. Also make alle footage HD-ready: 1280x720. I teach video editing and all muy footage this. The files are bigger but low end computers can work great with 720 ProResLT footage.

[Christian.Z]

the best route is to rely on low bit-rate proxies, otherwise you need to upgrade