Why Doesn't Premiere Pro Max Out My GPU/CPU?

[tictag]

I'm just doing some basic output rendering using Premiere Pro and Media Encoder 2020 (Novermber 2019 release) and nothing is being maxed out - PP is pulling its punches! (meaning that rendering times are longer than they should otherwise be). I have a Dell XPS15 (2in1): Intel HD Graphics 630 with Radeon RX Vega GL combo, Intel Core i7-8705G 8th Gen CPU, 16GB RAM, Samsung PM981 2TB SSD.

During rendering my CPU is sat chillaxing at 23%, GPU1 at 28%, GPU2 at 18% and drive access is basically 0% - 1% - see screenshot. I've got memory allocation set to max for Adobe applications.

Take it easy, Premiere Pro...

Have I downloaded the 'lazy b&$£&%£d' version of Premiere Pro by mistake?

[Ann Bens]

Why are you using H.264 for proxies?

Best is to use Cineform or Prores much less taxing on the system.

On a side note I would disable the Intel gpu in the bios.

[tictag]

Why are you using H.264 for proxies?

No specific reason, just seemed logical to use the same format as the source. I'll give Cineform and Prores a go! Tbh, I don't really tax my system during editting, my CPU barely goes above 10% using 720p proxies, even in H.264 format.

On a side note I would disable the Intel gpu in the bios.

Hmmm, I quite like having the two GPU combo. The Intel GPU looks after everyday stuff with the Radeon kicking in when needed e.g. flight sims, rendering etc to help out.

[RjL190365]

Actually, you didn't install the lazy version. In fact, H.264 editing takes a LOT of both CPU processing power and a lot of RAM just to even handle. Plus, Premiere Pro 2020 is MUCH more hardware-intensive than previous versions.

With that said, look at the maxed-out RAM usage and the very low CPU usage. These are giveaways that your 2-in-1 simply isn't equipped with enough RAM to handle this video editing task. And you cannot add more RAM at all to that system as the RAM is permanently soldered onto the motherboard, which offers no DIMM slots at all for expansion.

[tictag]

Hey RjL,

Thanks for the response. So H.264 is more resource intensive? Wish it would use more of my resources then - hate seeing underutilised CPU/GPU when I'm waiting for something to happen! That's the point of this post, actually.

Regarding the RAM, sorry, should have explained this further. Whilst testing I noticed that my RAM was being underutilised, having about 5GB spare whilst it was rendering. I figured that maybe the RAM under-utilisation was causing the CPU/GPU under-utilisation so I changed the setting in PP to make maximum use of RAM. I am pleased to see that now PP is using more RAM than before.

In other words, I can happily confirm that RAM is not the cause of CPU/GPU underutilisation.

[RjL190365]

If that were the case, and the pagefile isn't used much, then it could be that your system isn't properly tuned: You might have way too many background processes going on in your system. A normal system should have no more than around 200 background processes. If you have a lot more than that, then there's your problem.

[tictag]

Hey RjL,

I'm not sure why having too many background processes would cause low CPU usage.

[R Neil Haugen]

H.264 is "long-GOP"  which means that only every 9-15 or more "frames" is actually a complete actual frame of media simply compressed. Well ... that was the idea. Now many cameras, GoPro, drones and such record 30 or more frames between complete or "i-frames" at times.

In-between, the only thing that exists per "frame" of time is a data-set of

• pixels that have changed since the last i-frame
• pixels that will change before the next i-frame
• BOTH: pixels that have changed since last i-frame AND pixels that will change before next i-frame.

A year back, one of the more tech-savvy users here noted that some H.264 he was getting from drones had partial i-frames. The longest stretch he found was 120 "frames" between actual complete frames of media.

The CPU must decompress an i-frame, store it to RAM, call up the next 'frame' data-set, recall the previous frame from RAM, compute the differences, store THAT image to RAM, call up the next data-set ... oh ... this has pixel data from the NEXT i-frame, so first it has to call up that frame what ... 27 frames down the line, decompress, and then compute from that and maybe the previous i-frame and the data-set what "this" frame is supposed to be. Store it to RAM, rinse and repeat.

It is incredibly demanding of RAM and "transit" ability on the mobo between the CPU and the RAM, and of course the disc some also. Yes, long-GOP media is by its nature far smaller on disc. However ... also by its nature, it is far more demanding on the CPU/RAM and subsytems than an intraframe codec like Cineform, DNxHD/R, or ProRes, where every frame is complete in and of itself, only compressed some.

So many people I know, especially colorists, tend to transcode all H,264 media before working with it. Or use a full proxy workflow so they do not edit or color while running the H.264 on the timeline.

The best recommendations I've seen for if you have much H.264 material to work, and cannot or will not t-code or proxy ... is 8 or more cores as close to or above 4Ghz as possible, with as close to 10GB of RAM per core as possible.

Neil

[tictag]

Hey, Neil,

Thank you for the detailed reply.

I've got a funny feeling here that my topic title is being misinterpreted. The problem I am having is that my CPU/GPU is being UNDER-utilised, that is, I want to drive both harder. My CPU is sat at a breezy 23%, GPU 28% and 18%, and I originally had 5GB of available RAM all DURING a H.264 render. I could easily halve the performance of my computer and still not max any resources out.

Or am I missing something fundamental here?

[R Neil Haugen]

I was going directly from your informative screen-grab up top. Your rig is running at 90% of system RAM in use, is what is showing. With that situation, there's not that much more your CPU can be doing. It's having to wait for RAM to process stuff.

The basic encoding and decoding process in Premiere is built around the CPU/RAM primarily. The GPU is used for those things on the GPU Accelerated Effects List ... think Warp Stabilizer, color corrections, major resizing, that sort of thing. So if not much of anything is being processed on the accelerated list, the GPU isn't heavily involved. Hit a resized clip, a clip with Warp, or a ton of color corrections ... and your GPU may well spike to the max suddenly.

They've added some things to the GPU processing list over time, and will probably add some more things at some point. It's something where if more were processed through the GPU it might shave some time on "basic" rendering or encoding where there's no current GPU-Aceelerated stuff in use. But of course,  the sections of a timeline where heavy GPU effects are in use would process the same speed as it does now.

You might find that an intraframe codec such as Cineform, ProRes, or DNxHD/R might be processed more quickly on your system. And especially in proxies during playback.

Neil

[tictag]

Neil,

Thanks, Neil, but as I mentioned above, I had to make some settings changes to force PP to use more RAM, the first time I tried I had about 5GB available during the render and I thought this might be causing the CPU/GPU underutilisation. After changing the RAM allocation I got it up to where you see it now, but even now there's still almost 2GB free.

Understood about the GPU Accelerated Effects List, good to know, but that doesn't explain the underutilised CPU.

Is there some kind of setting that says 'Don't use more than x CPU'? I just don't understand why all my resources are being underutilised. I need to 'crack the whip'! 😉

Understood about Cineform, Prores etc. I'll give them a try but at the moment, my problem is underutilisation  - it's really non-intuitive.

[R Neil Haugen]

So what's the utilization of the RAM currently? If it's 80% or better, you can't get much more use of the CPU as it's dependent on what it's getting from the RAM.

Neil

[tictag]

Originally (i.e. with default settings), I was up to about 11GB during the render, so 5GB sat there doing nothing out of the 16GB installed. I thought this might be the cause of the under-performing CPU/GPU so increased the RAM available to Adobe applications to maximum in settings, now it reaches about 14GB during the render, with 2GB sat around doing nothing. That's what you see in the screenshot.

[R Neil Haugen]

That's what, 87% of your RAM being used by Premiere? As you need some for system work, that's about the max you'll normally see it use.

So ... at that point, the clear bottleneck in your system is the low amount of RAM. 16GB is relatively a small amount of RAM for much work in Premiere. With 8GB, you can barely open the program. 32GB (as I've got) gets more performance out, but still is a limiting factor. My next rig will be 64GB if not more. Just ... because it's needed badly to get performance.

Neil

[tictag]

So I was kinda thinking that because I gave it permission to use as much RAM as it needed, and there was still 2GB spare during a render that RAM was not a bottleneck but you're saying that it still could be, it's just leaving at least some left for other applications.

Well, if that's the case then there is nothing more I can do; as has already been mentioned, I can't upgrade the RAM in my system. Seems like most people suffer from CPU and GPUs being maxed out using Premiere Pro, I appear to have the opposite problem.

Many thanks for your help.

[R Neil Haugen]

Getting the right balance of hardware for Premiere is something that say boutique builders Puget Systems and Safeharbor computing study all the time. And of course as a new series of builds comes out, like the 2020/14.x we're now into, then things change a bit.

It can be frustrating trying to get the best rig for the buck. Most certainly.

And how to build for Premiere isn't obvious unless you ask a ton of questions of those what do build and test a lot of rigs. Um ... not so much even then.

As to yours, if it's running using 87% of the RAM, and the CPU is running along at around 20%, then ... even if it took every last bit of RAM, the CPU would go up to what ... 21.5% or so?

Yea ... not so fun to figure this stuff out.

Neil

[aimialio78871379]

i think this has something to do with how premiere pro processes the data. my guesses are :

1. any program in pc doesn't let u utilise all the available ram or else there wll not be enough ram for the windows to operate properly while u are rendering your video. u can adjust the memory usage under edit>preference> memory. here u can adjust how many memory from ur ram to be used for premiere pro. same goes to media encoder. 

2. regarding to the cpu utilisation, maybe the project doesn't need the full processing power of the cpu while editing proxy files or 720p files. i noticed when im editing 4k videos directly my cpu tends to go max out. 

3. Premiere pro/ media encoder doesn't split our projects n render them simultanously . it only render our project frame by frame. 

4. As mentioned in point 2 & 3, that's why some project doesn't necessarily max out our gpu or cpu. unless adobe implement technology such as triple buffer as nvidia uses in gaming, we're stuck at frame by frame rendering. at least for the time being. 

that's my 2 cent. 

[Andy 1968]

Using Intel's GPU for H.264 is OK since it will make use of Intel's Quick Sync. That being said with your system the Intel GPU is probably using system RAM that you cannot afford to loose. It would not hurt to test out your system with and without the Intel GPU enabled.

https://youtu.be/pE6t1ryanO4

[aimialio78871379]

This ia gonna be fun. I remember back fhen i was using 2 gpus in the same pc. What gave me headaches was pr had difficulty to recognise which gpu i want to use for the editing as my first gpu was vega 8, it's integrated with the cpu. Apu what we call them. N the better gpu that was in the system was rx580. I knew back then that having 2 fifferent gpus in the same pc probably wouldn't make it faster but it was fun to test them in real world application. 

I ended up switching to ryzen 7 2700x which has no gpu in it n switch my gpu to gtx 1080. What i can say is, the performance was noticeable better n i don't know whether if it's just me, but the color accuracy of nvidia cards are better then radeon. When i switched t gtx 1080 from rx580, i didn't have to have to calibrate my monitor as much as before. Just select the srgb color profile from windows n the color  looked a lot better than when i was using rx 580. Although this is kinda ou of topic but i still think it's one of the good thing happened when i made switch. Apart from the performance difference, like i mentioned before 😊