Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I'm having some severe performance issues with Premiere Pro CC on my new Dell XPS 9560 (7th gen i7, 32Gb ram, GTX 1050). I've been using it for just two days and PP lags so badly after a few minutes use that it grinds the computer to a halt and I have to reboot. It does this consistently. My questions are:
1) Are there known issues between the XPS 15 4K 9560 and PP?
2) Is there a chance my install of PP is corrupt?
The second question has only just occurred to me. I'm on a phone connection (no wired connections on the island) and I seem to remember the PP download taking a while and then jumping very quickly from around 50% download to 100%. If this is the case, then how come PP works ok for the first few minutes ok? If the file were corrupt then wouldn't it just not work?
FTR, I have been on the phone to Dell support. We've run diagnostic tests and the hardware appears to be ok and drivers up to date. They want me to reinstall Windows 10, which means reinstalling PP. I am right in the middle of a project that was supposed to be completed an hour ago.
Any insight appreciated.
Thanks.
No, it's not that, it's the computer itself. It took me a while to work it out but the Dell is not designed to get hot. When it does, it slows down and performs like a dog. Unfortunately I am based in the tropics and the laptop gets hot frequently so this is something I've just had to live with. I would not recommend the Dell XPS to anyone unless they're using it in a cold room.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
OK, tried reinstalling PP and it makes no difference.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
A corrupted download would not even install, so that cannot be the cause. Rather your system is unable to cope with the demand on it. If it is software or hardware issues who can tell. Could it be heat?
When editing PP takes a fair chunk of CPU and disk IO only when you scrub. If your program runs extremely slow even while you're just moving the mouse and clicking menus, then it is something rather than this. Do you run with any third party virus scanners?
Have you tried to reencode video files as proxies? They take up more space but demands less of CPU than editing MP4 files like compressed .MOVs or .MTS files from AVCHD cameras.
Switched to "normal" res? Like 1080p instead of 4K
Did you try to export a project to Media Encoder right after you startup and see if it encodes at the predicted time? If it slows down drastically during export, then you might have a cooling issue. That is, unless you have some kind of software problem.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
unknownsailor wrote
I'm having some severe performance issues with Premiere Pro CC on my new Dell XPS 9560 (7th gen i7, 32Gb ram, GTX 1050).
...
I have the same laptop and Premiere Pro generally sails quite well on it. I've worked on projects with >10 hours of mixed source footage. I say "generally" because there is a slow down I experience when jumping between After Effects and Premiere which doesn't seem so much hardware related as much as something relating to IPC between the apps and perhaps using Cineform footage... I haven't looked further but it happens but passes.
What is your internal SSD size and available space? I have a 1TB SSD averaging anywhere from 400GB to 100GB free... when it hits 100GB or lower I know it's time to get back some space.
When I first got my XPS 15, there were a number of quirky things all fixed by updating my BIOS, drivers, etc. I also manually checked updates on the support site using the service tag... do not rely on the updater app to pull down everything... check version numbers and download/install anything that seems dated. I also used NVIDIA's driver directly first... if that's problematic, I'll get the NVIDIA driver graced by Dell (via the XPS 15 9560 download site).
This probably doesn't apply to you, but when I got the system, I had to update the Intel Graphics driver using an update from Intel directly... and I had to get the ZIP and extract and update it via device manager. The Dell Reddit group for XPS 15 had this info as well as the Dell forums and their FAQs I believe mentioned this too at some point. I'm assuming that issue is long taken care of with newly shipped units but FYI. The direct EXE Intel installer display some error message which is why you use the ZIP download with Update in device manager.
I've been hugely satisfied with the laptop... it has quirks but all systems do ... and I haven't experienced what you mention so I surmise you have a config issue or driver/system update issue or some such.
Recommendations...
If your project is huge with lots of footage/sequences (skip this if it is not), you might try a reduced project to work on your sequence of current focus. For example (general steps)...
The above helped me work more easily with AE/Pr for an image-heavy section of my larger project... for whatever reason, the very large main project was slowing down my work... and saving large projects takes longer... so when auto-save hits me with the reduced project, it's lightening fast.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Hi guys and thanks for the replies. I spent quite a while talking to Dell and, although it took some convincing, they persuaded me to reinstall Windows and PP. Despite resisting for a bit and not thinking this would help, I got desperate and did it. I'm happy to report that, so far, PP is now performing (almost) as expected. My CPU previously was topping out at just 25%. Now it's hitting 60% when I'm editing, which is more like it. Who knows?
Not entirely convinced I've made the right purchase with the Dell TBH. It's ok but it's not steaming through the warp stabilising or the quick render tests I've done. It's faster than my old machine of course so it's an improvement but I'm not sure it's worth the Ā£2100 I spent on it. Maybe I'm just coming down from the adrenaline rush and frustration and need to settle in a bit.
Anyway, thanks for the help. I have another question about displaying 10 bit files which I'll post now...
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Well it seems like I spoke too soon. The problems have started again.
I'm currently editing 10 bit clips from the GH5 (1080 30fps). I was editing in 1/4 res. The problem with this is that it crops the clip when playing so the only way to see what's going on is to play it at full res. That's when the problems start. Suddenly the computer slows down and starts displaying all the issues described above.
The memory is somewhere near 46% with PP hogging 8GB (I have a 32GB RAM). Once it does this I have to exit and reboot the machine.
Any pointers?
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
When I hit issues like this, I'll render those sections to play them back at full without issue. I'm wondering if proxies or transcoding to a lighter format might help. You can replace footage, do your edits (assuming this lightens the load) and replace footage again back to the original clip when you're ready to export.
I experienced some issue like this recently but rebooting, while I had tried, didn't solve the issue... it was a perf issue relating to what i was doing... with an image-heavy section of the sequence, and another case where footage transcoded to Cineform were involved... but these are abstract pieces of info... it was a pain when things slowed down but it eventually got better, and I also played with quality... I was fine with reduced quality, and when not I rendered those sections or used submasters (exported sequences) to view the results of work. But I didn't see rebooting as solve things, and never saw things grind to a halt such that I was forced to reboot... I was just rebooting to see if it affected things.
Can you try a small test by transcoding the footage you work on where the symptoms arise to a different format like DNxHD, then replace footage to that new DNxHD footage, try editing to see what happens... regardless of outcome you can always replace footage back the orig when you are done with the test.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
With GH5 10-bit media you need to have the Program monitor "Playback" set to "High Quality", which should take care of the partial frame showing.
The GH5, most DSLR's and other mirror-less, and drones tend to create really long-GOP media, which is great in-camera as it takes less space ... but it's horrid for playback/editing in a computer. Hence Ashley's comment about transcoding.
There are some users who automatically transcode any such media to Cineform YUV or DNxHD/R on ingestion expecting to dump that media when they archive the project, as it can be re-created at need later from the smaller original files. But it will edit much better. As both of those create full intraframe media ... every frame is a complete "real" frame, not simply a data-set of changes from other frames ... they are larger but again, far less work for the CPU.
Others don't transcode, however ... they make proxies on ingestion via the Media browser, using the built-in Cineform proxy preset, to get better playback during proxy use. Which you can switch on/off at a click or keyboard shortcut. (Do NOT use the H.264 proxy preset ... don't know why it's even there!)
Neil
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Hi again,
I'm just rendering a 22 min clip via AME and it's chugging away. What I'm noticing is that typing this response is taking a while as the text on the screen takes a second to appear.
I used to use proxies with my old laptop and it coped well with 8 bit 60fps 4K so I thought I'd create proxies for the 10 bit stuff. I saw no difference in performance. It still lags. I did just use the only preset that came with PP but that was before I read your reply. As an aside I'd be interested to know why you recommend not using it.
Within the same project I completed the main part which was all 10 bit and went on to work on my introduction, which is just 8 bit. I'm not sure how having the 10 bit sequence open would affect the intro sequence but it was still lagging, even though I was only editing 8 bit files.
What I find odd is that simple tasks like trimming a clip by dragging the end just don't work well, even if it's just an image. This never happened with my old computer. Interested to know how much just having those 10 bit clips open, as proxies (which I assume are just 8 bit), can affect other tasks.
The next test is to transcode, as suggested. Can anyone recommend a decent program for that? Is AME ok or are there better ones?
After that I'm going to test a new project with just 8 bit footage and see how it copes.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
As suggested elsewhere, use Premiere Pro to transcode when you ingest clips - it will automatically hand it off to AME. Make sure to use the proper codec, CineForm, else you just end up with new compressed footage that will also tax your hardware when scrubbing.
You need to use the built-in Media Browser to make this work. There are well made tutorials on how to work with these proxies and ingest them on Adobes site. I followed them when I began using proxies and it works well once you get your head around how clips are stored.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Hi unknownsailor... I'm seeking clarification on something...
From initial post...
unknownsailor wrote
This never happened with my old computer. Interested to know how much just having those 10 bit clips open, as proxies (which I assume are just 8 bit), can affect other tasks.
From most recent post...
unknownsailor wrote
...I used to use proxies with my old laptop and it coped well with 8 bit 60fps 4K so I thought I'd create proxies for the 10 bit stuff. I saw no difference in performance. It still lags. ...
Just for clarity, when you reference your "old laptop" in the most recent post, is this true: it's only in regard to the fact that old laptop worked well with 8 bit 60fps 4K ... as a way of saying that you figure if the old laptop worked well with 8 bit 60fps 4K footage, so should the new one... but that such is not the case?
If "yes," my understanding is correct, were you using an different version of Premiere with the older laptop?
unknownsailor wrote
... I'm not sure how having the 10 bit sequence open would affect the intro sequence but it was still lagging, even though I was only editing 8 bit files. ... Interested to know how much just having those 10 bit clips open, as proxies (which I assume are just 8 bit), can affect other tasks.
In my earlier post #6 above, I mention that I experienced an issue with significant lag when I was using Cineform 12bit footage (created with AME from sequences) in use or open in the project. At the time, I was so focused on reaching my goals with my project, I didn't let that obstacle get in my way... that's when I created a separate project to work on a photo montage more nimbly. Generally, I both lived with the points of lag and created separate projects to work on sections which, when open, those reduced projects worked without huge lag... but in one case I think the lag appeared when Cineform 12bit and/or DNxHD made its way into the smaller project... but I can't remember for certain.
In another instance of extreme lag, I thought I had noticed it in some connection between opening and playing Cineform 12bit footage (again created with the AME standard preset as part of transcoding or created submasters... exported sequences).
I ran into this while focused on editing something so couldn't stop to fully troubleshoot... not even enough to gain any clear patterns... the Cineform 12bit thing could be a red herring but was consistently among the variables. After AfterFx was opened up even though no Comp was being processed... at least not in my editing efforts. Was AE being used to produce previews of AE comps while I edited elsewhere (my project does have AE comps but they were not being edited at the time of lag)? I don't know.
In my quick dip into looking at open processes, I noticed AfterFX was getting started by Premiere ... it made me wonder if Premiere uses IPC with AE to achieve something in using Cineform footage, or at least my use of that footage (i.e., perhaps with certain effects). I forget why I wondered this but I think it was some Cineform thing in the AE call stack... but not sure.
As mentioned, though, I was not editing AE compositions at the time... so it seemed to me that Premiere can use AE for other purposes disconnected with my current efforts in Premiere but I wasn't 100% certain. But that's where i left it... in at least some (if not all cases), it seemed like I had opened or done something with Cineform 12bit when I noticed big unbearable lag... it truly halted fluid work... but it seemed my solution was just to wait a bit and/or to avoid opening Cineform 12bit or DNxHD or to use reduced projects... the lag was affecting me when doing editing tasks on other parts of the project using 8bit footage just as you mention. They were not as much a blocker for me though... I found ways to get work done. Rebooting offered no real help even though I tried a few times... things are always good after reboot but as soon as I'd start working, the lag would appear.
Oddly, lately, I haven't seen the lag *at all* ... in connection with that, in the last week, I used Project Manager to Collect the initial rough cut project into a highly reduced 'rev' project... I'm wondering if my project hosted footage or something that Premiere had to process in a manner disrupting my work... note, it was not Conforming or anything as i saw no status bar indication of such... and the project had been left open overnight so any conforming would have completed... also conforming never causes this sort of lag in my experience. It's almost like I had an AE comp or Cineform 12bit footage or DNxHD footage or something in the project and that it being there, or my touching some project item would cause Premiere to launch AE to achieve something unrelated to my immediate efforts and then lag would occur. There's a lot of assumption in here that's meant more to convey symptoms which I might convey in a bug report. This is my layperson/editor's surface experience. I can't say if 12bit Cineform was affecting anything.
I wonder if there's any sort of conforming or pre-processing (like of render files) for Cineform or some such that induces this lag while one is editing on other areas... when that's done, perhaps it reduces. Have you seen the lag eventually go away or are you hit hard by it constantly without change?
I had been planning to do performance monitoring to try to get more info but I simply didn't want to deal with that at the time. I may try... but i need to get a repro of the issue first... without it happening there's nothing to monitor.
All to say, I sense a rough match in the experiences... perhaps it's worth it for us to both file a bug report on the symptoms we see. The more reports on a similar issue, the more chance I assume of Adobe seeing something on their likely very full radar.
Also, there's nothing to say it's a not a quirk with a driver we both have in common (we have the same laptop).
To reiterate, keep in mind my description above is very abstract... I was doing a lot of stuff and occasionally touching upon DNxHD, Cineform, and 8bit footage... for the 8bit footage there could be Lumetri and Warp Stabilizer in some cases... those are parts usually have some perf hit but not like the lag mentioned above. The lag mentioned above I've not seen before in prior uses of Premiere... not in that way.
The new variables with this project was not only its size (the amount of items in the project itself), and use of intermediate codecs Cineform 12bit and DNxHD. There were a lot of AE comps but I use those all the time. Another thing which was new with this project is the version of Premiere I'm using CC2017.1.2 (it wasn't at that version in prior projects). That's why I'm curious if this is your first round with this particular version of Premiere.
If I have time, I'll try to reproduce the issue... funny though I'm not seeing it now. Granted, I've been working on the reduced 'rev' Collected project... but it has Cineform and DNxHD footage and the AE comps... the only clear difference to me is that the reduced project has far fewer project items. Most everything else seems the same... I was even editing during AME exporting and it was working well. So lately it's been great.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
As sBirch said, using the H.264 proxy is just using a nasty compression media for the proxy ... which is backwards. The whole point of using proxies is to get away from long-GOP media into full intraframe, so the CPU can relax about the de-encoding part of the process.
Cineform and DNxHD/R are both full intraframe ... ever single frame is a complete frame, just compressed more or less depending upon the 'grade' of the codec you choose. That's a vastly simpler de-encoding pipeline. PrPro should offer (in the Create Proxies dialog) both Cineform and H.264.
And also as noted by sBirch, you can set PrPro to created transcodes on ingestion, which like the Create Proxies option, invokes AME to do the work. It can run a bit, so take lunch. Or do it at close of day for larger projects, it will run just fine overnight. Then you can (if needed) select the transcodes in the Project panel, right-click and "Create Proxies". Again, if needed.
Neil
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Hi,
So let me get this right: I can either transcode or I create proxies or I do both. I created proxies for the 10 bit clips using h264 and it didn't help much, so I could either create a different proxy ingest preset using DNxHD/R or I could create a transcode preset using DNxHD/R. Or I could do both which, after doing the encoding, would speed things up even more?
Proxies work by creating a low res version of the file so in the past I have created a 720 version. Transcode is different. Am I right in saying that the transcoded file is used when exporting? In which case I need to match my transcoding preset settings with the original clip? So if I am transcoding a 60fps 4K file I need to make sure I set a transcode preset DNxHD/R at 4K 60fps?
When creating a transcode preset in AME am I selecting an encoding preset or an ingest preset?
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Are you sure that premiere is using your gbu instead of intel graphics? PP wouldn't even start up for me when i used the intel graphics
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
It's not the hardware but the software. I have a beast system. (Tech mentioned in the end) but PP sucks in terms of realtime playback. I have tried every possible way to solve realtime play in 4k but frames do drop! The best version was 2015.3 so far.
i7 6900k
64 gigs Corsair Ram
1 tb SSD 850 pro (450-550 Mbps)
7 tb Raid 0 (400 Mbps)
Quadro p4000
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Curious what that rig would score on the PPBM8 tests by Bill Gehrke ... it's a short PrPro project file/assets along with a couple sys-monitor apps you download as a zip file. Extract, install the couple sys-mon's, open the project and "export" it. The project is designed to get hard numbers on how everything is working ... from CPU, RAM, disc-in/out, GPU, the whole shebang. Upload the log file, and get good hard stats back on the performance ... where it's good, bad, or indifferent.
Neil
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Ah, just found this video which pretty much explains the whole set-up of encode/ingest presets. Really useful:
How to: Create Encode and Ingest Presets in Adobe Media Encoder for Proxy Workflow - YouTube
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
The reason the H.264 proxies didn't help much is because they're still long-GOP media. Requiring a ton of CPU work compared to Cineform, DNxHD/R and ProRes, which are all intraframe. Every frame is a complete frame, not just a data-set of changed pixels from some "complete" and very heavily compressed frame several frames away.
Which is why I would never suggest using H.264 for a proxy codec.
Transcoding to Cineform, DNxDH/R, or ProRes can have a couple benefits ... first, it will play back much better than your original media during editing ... and second, in my experience, exports from an intraframe codec go a bit better than from H.264.
You'd need to test that, to see if an export from the original or frame an intraframe transcode differ in times in your setup though.
If you make full-size low-compression transcodes, to get better editing performance, and then create low-compression proxies of much smaller size, you get better editing and especially better performance when the proxies are in use.
Neil
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
OK, so here's something I'm doing that I'd like some feedback on because my machine is grinding to a halt once more and I'd be interested to know if you get the same:
I recorded a 12:45 min clip in 8 bit 60fps 4K in v-log. The file size is 13GB. I've imported it to PP and it could just about handle it without doing anything other than setting the playback to 1/2 (I'm in a 1080 timeline with the clip reduced to 50%). It lagged a bit, enough to be annoying, but was just about workable.
I then sent a proxy job on that clip using the QuickTime GoPro Cineform built-in preset to 720p.
AME opens and estimates over an hour to do the proxy job. It's using 7.5% of CPU and 5GB of RAM.
Meanwhile PP becomes completely unusable with all the lagging I described in my OP. So I close PP, but there is no difference in the performance of AME and other operations become laggy (like typing this text in a form on a browser).
If I try and open PP whilst that job is running it comes with with an error and cannot open. One of the errors is telling me to update my display drivers but I don't remember what the other one was.
My question is: is it unreasonable to expect to be able to continue to edit in PP whilst AME runs that proxy job? Does the hour estimate sound about right for my laptop's configuration and the job in hand? And why is the machine not throwing more CPU at it? Surely that would speed up the job.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
unknownsailor wrote
OK, so here's something I'm doing that I'd like some feedback on because my machine is grinding to a halt once more ... is it unreasonable to expect to be able to continue to edit in PP whilst AME runs that proxy job?
Technically PP should be somewhat usable while AME is working... in actual practice I try to avoid using both at the same time. There are times I do, but it's usually when I'm doing lightweight editing/tweaks and don't care about impeded workflow due to brief lags here/there. Another reason is that there are cases where working in Premiere to edit a project causes AME to enter a paused state. I saw this happen once and I personally didn't want the AME render to be held back so I stopped editing. It's doable, to use AME and PP at the same time, but I tend to avoid it if possible.
unknownsailor wrote
...Does the hour estimate sound about right for my laptop's configuration and the job in hand? And why is the machine not throwing more CPU at it? Surely that would speed up the job.
Re these other questions on expected times... I don't process 4k footage at alll... let me try to find a ~12:45 1080p 60fps clip or perhaps try to create a test one to see what general timing I get for the same. I don't believe (but am not 100% certain as I don't use the proxy system) there should be any difference when using AME for proxies versus anything else. So I think what you're essentially reporting is not something about the proxy capabilities but rather the performance of transcoding your 4k log to the 720p Cineform... my hunch is that you directly queue up such an AME transcode you'll see the same perf results. (but that's a guess on my part... I don't create proxies as you're doing.)
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Ashley7 wrote
...Another reason is that there are cases where working in Premiere to edit a project causes AME to enter a paused state. I saw this happen once and I personally didn't want the AME render to be held back so I stopped editing. ...
unknownsailorā, for clarity, by "paused" I mean there's a functionality in the AME/Pr relationship where, when doing certain things in Premiere, AME will be paused. I believe Pr editing is prioritized and there are certain operations that cannot be done at the same time as AME working, so I believe AME is paused at those times... Pr finishes whatever edit operation caused the pause, then AME resumes. I don't see this every time I edit in Pr while AME is busy, but I recently saw it for the first time... small yellow or red text appears in AME that says "Paused" or some such. One thing I'm wondering, if someone is editing in Pr, are there little pauses of AME that perhaps don't cause that text, but may induce lag... I can't say. I've seen a hard pause with text like that twice... and it was a few weeks ago.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
unknownsailorā so it appears that AME's log will have indication of at least some of the pause requests made of it... I have a bunch of the following throughout my log... perhaps you can check your log when you were using Pr/AME and see if pausing was going on...
08/08/2017 08:11:58 AM : Queue Paused
08/08/2017 08:11:58 AM : Queue Started
08/08/2017 08:12:00 AM : Queue Paused
08/08/2017 08:12:00 AM : Queue Started
08/08/2017 08:12:06 AM : Queue Paused
08/08/2017 08:12:07 AM : Queue Started
08/08/2017 08:12:18 AM : Queue Paused
The above was certainly not my pausing... I do not pause/resume my exports in AME that way. So perhaps a good thing might be to see if we observe a correlation between extreme lag and lots of AME pause/resumes. Just a thought.
I'm currently creating fake 4K footage to match your 13GB file to try to convert that to Cineform 720p while using Pr to see if I can observe what you mentioned and to gauge timing.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Sorry, in response to your last message, I am doing the following - does this sound right?
In Project Manager I am transcoding my GH5 file having created an encoding preset in AME. Format is DNxHR (I set the resolution to 1080 HQ 8 bit to help reduce the file size).
When I've done that, how do I know the clip in my sequence is now the transcoded version? Does it automatically use the transcoded version?
After that I then run a proxy on that new encoded clip, this time DNxHR at 720p.
When I come to export I'm guessing it will export based on the transcoded footage, is that correct?
[Edit] I realise this is starting to get off-topic now so perhaps I'll start another thread on workflow.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Hi Neil,
Thank You. I am checking it up. Will keep you posted via message.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I can't believe that this is a software issue. I was running PP on my old ThinkPad and was not experiencing the same degree of lag.