Top-tier New Computer and Premiere is still running slow

[bhreynolds7700]

So I just bought a new PC with a 4090 GPU, i9 14900K CPU, and 64GB of RAM. I figured I would never have a Premiere Pro performance issue again, but that has been far from the case. I am cutting up footage with a facecam that was recorded 1080p 60fps, and then gameplay footage that was also recorded in 1080p 60fps. I am doing pretty basic cuts and graphics here and there, and my timeline is extremely laggy. The playback is of course delayed a bit too, but especially when I'm applying timeline edits it's very slow, like dragging out graphics it takes 3 whole seconds to catchup when extending a sequence.

This all seems super abnormal. I've tried changing some preference settings per the advice of a few people on this form, but I'm pretty stumped and frustrated otherwise. I have the GPU accelerator setting on in display settings and all of that, but otherwise I literally have no idea what to do. My next course of action is to use proxies, which is fine, but that really shouldn't be necessary. I have friends who make the same videos as I do, some doing even more intense editing, and their PC is not really near the same tier as mine, yet I'm having all these problems. 

Would really appreciate some help on this, as I rely on this as my work and it's really slowing me down. Thank you!

Specs below...

[Warren Heaton]

Try transcoding to a Smart Rendering format.  That is to say, a format that is known to perform well.

This FAQ provides helpful information, but based on what you described as your source footage then I'd go with ProRes 422 LT or ProRes 422 Proxy.  

If you need to finish with the source footage instead of transcodes, you should also get a performance gain by going with a Proxy workflow.  When you create proxies, choose  Half, ProRes QuickTime Proxy, None, Next to Original Media, in Proxy Folder then click OK.  Try editing a little bit with Proxy enabled.  Important note:  Use the original files with the Proxy enabled.  Do not use the resulting mov files instead as it’s a smaller frame size.

[bhreynolds7700]

Thanks Warren, this is definitely what I'll try next, but still it's crazy how bad my Premiere is performing as is. 

[PaulMurphy]

A couple of questions to help diagnose the issue:

1. How long is your sequence?
2. Where is your media stored?

Two common causes for laggy timelines are long sequences (20+ minutes) and bottlenecks caused by data storage (e.g., media stored on an external hard drive with a USB 3.0 connection).

Also, if you go to Settings > Memory, how much memory is reserved for other apps?

Cheers,
Paul

[bhreynolds7700]

The sequence was 3 hours uncut, now it's about 40min. The footage itself is on an SSD that my OS isn't on. And I've had 12/64 GB reserved for other apps.

Thanks.

[R Neil Haugen]

What are the media specific details? I'm thinking there may be long-GOP here. And is some VFR?

[bhreynolds7700]

Everything is 1920x1080p 60fps. There is gameplay and a facecam. And excuse my ignorance, but I wasn't sure what VFR was, now I see it's variable frame rate, but what do you mean by that?

Thank you, Neil.

[R Neil Haugen]

VFR means the audio is constant but the actual number of frames per second always varies. Premiere is not built to work well with that, as sequences are set to very specific numbers of frames per second. This isn't a "simple playback" thing.

So that is likely part of the problem. And as it's also probably long-GOP H.264 media, the nastiest editing codec ever conceived, that is another potential issue.

Long-GOP means only 1 frame in every 9-60 frames is actually a real, complete image. All the in-between "frames" are data sets of 1) the pixels that have changed since the last complete "iframe", 2) the pixels that will change from the next iframe, or 3) BOTH.

So to show the next frame, Premiere may need to decompress and decode 60 or more frames to RAM or cache files, then recall them as part of the playback, while applying any other effect you may have added.

[bhreynolds7700]

Okay, just checked my OBS. Yes, the video encoder was H.264. What encoder should I use instead for both video and audio? Also, what do I need to do to ensure that my recordings aren't VFR if that's an issue? I really appreciate all the help.

[bhreynolds7700]

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/broadcasting-guide/

I just found this, and so when I record tomorrow or the next day, I'm going to use these settings to record. Hopefully this helps with all the lag, but please let me know if you think using these settings will help with the flow of things. The major change is using AV1 as the encoder instead of H.264. I really appreciate you calling that out. Also, H.264 is usually the preset I export with within Premiere. What would be better? Also AV1?

[bhreynolds7700]

Another update, so if I use AV1 to encode, I can't get the file into Premiere and have to use another encoder just to get it back to H.264/.mp4, so what's the point? Is there some other encoder I should be using?

[R Neil Haugen]

I record from OBS also, but you can set the codec and all the encoding paramaters there so you can create an actually usable clip for editing. I'll grab the settings I use and post them when I get to the shop later.

[R Neil Haugen]

I have it set to Quicktime/mov ... I've also used mp4 with hardware Nvenc, but prefer the mov.

[Warren Heaton]

While Premiere Pro lets us import and drop just any footage into a Timeline (and that's certainly worth trying), there are video settings that are good for editing like a low compression ratio that's all i-frame (or inter-frame) with a constant frame rate instead of those that are good for delivery like a high compression ratio with a GOP (group of pictures) structure and variable bit rate.

A few other things to look at are making sure the Audio Input is set correctly (or to "None") in tbe Preferences and things like Show Duplicate Frame Markers in the Timeline panel is dieaable while editing.

[bhreynolds7700]

Ok, thank you Warren, much appreciated.

[Chrisanthi Pel]

I am so sorry to hear that. Just to know, a lot of us that bought i9 14900K CPU, have problems with premiere. Serius problems. Give a quick search on forum for i9 14900K CPU and see. 

[bhreynolds7700]

Hey Chrisanthi, thanks for replying. That's super interesting. Everything I'm seeing online says the i9 14900K CPU could lead premiere pro to crash, but that's all I see. I definitely haven't been having any crashing issues, so that's intersting. I'm going to look into this further, though, so thank you.

[MyerPj]

You can use the free MediaInfo program to get info on your clips. Get the program from the link below and using the 'Tree' view post a screenshot of your clip info: https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download