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Question

Premiere agonisingly slow despite brand new specced out MacBook

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
August 11, 2020
3 replies
1179 views

Hi guys,

I've reached that point I'm sure you all have at some point if you're an editor for a living - where you just want to break down and cry because there's an impending deadline and Premiere is doing everything it can to be difficult.

Long story short, I bought a brand new specced out MacBook Pro 3 weeks ago because I took on my biggest freelance job to date, in terms of size of project and audience. And my old MacBook from 2014 was struggling, which I didn't have time to allow for.

The first couple of weeks Premiere was smooth as a baby's behind, but now the last 2 days have seen it come to a grinding halt. I can't play back mp4 videos of 100Mb sizes even at quarter resolution without it being juttery and freezing. I can't playback my timeline without it freezing or displaying at one frame every 2 seconds. Just pressing play and stop on the preview window takes ages to take action. I simply can't edit whilst it's like this.

Today I haven't been able to edit because of these issues and it's sending me to a near panic attack as the deadlines are in a few days time and I still have an entire episode to edit.

I've followed all the steps online about how to speed up Premiere, and nothing has worked. And as a final resort I'm here hoping someone might be able to have a solution.

My MacBook has

- 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 processor

- 64GB RAM

- AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB Intel UHD Graphics

I'm editing from a 4TB LaCie hard drive too.

My MacBook has nothing else installed on it except Premiere and AE, and has almost an empty 1TB hard drive.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
CM

This topic has been closed for replies.

M

Meg The Dog

Inspiring

In addition to Kevin and Steve's advice, have you checked that your computer is running the latest version of Catalina? Is should be 10.15.6. Sometimes computers get shipped with older versions of the OS.

MtD

S

Steve Griffiths

Inspiring

Don't know what you issue might be, though would be following Kevin's suggestion to the letter.

I also have a 4 week old MBP 16 with almost same specs to yours and so far, under heavy use, has not exhibited any issues to date.

That it was fine for you and now it is not suggests the hardware was (and likely still is) just fine.

Have you tried switching to 'software only' renderer? Or even try the OpenCL renderer just in case.

Couple of things I would try. Assuming you are running Premiere Pro 14.3.1 try installing one of the earlier 14 versions. You could also try the current beta build of Premiere Pro. I think this is available to everyone in the CC app under 'Beta apps'.

Sorry don't have any more to offer and know this is a very stressful situation.

Good luck.

R

RjL190365

Legend

Here is the problem:

Currently, Premiere Pro does not fully support any of the newest AMD RDNA-architecture mobile CPUs. In fact, with the so far lackadaisical support for AMD GPUs in general, it is not surprising that even the most powerful AMD desktop GPU, the RX 5700 XT, performs no better than a much cheaper Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super. Unfortunately, the newest versions of the Apple macOS now no longer support any third-party-sourced Nvidia GPUs at all - only those Nvidia GPUs that had already been installed as original equipment on Apple Macs sold during the mid-2010's.

A

alconcalAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for your reply, albeit I'm a little alarmed.

Essentially what you're saying is I've just paid almost £4,000 for a new machine solely for editing smoothly, and it won't be able to do that?

Will Premiere never support AMD stuff? Have I just wasted a huge amount of money?

R

RjL190365

Legend

The problem is not Adobe's per se (although I would have to admit that Adobe currently only half-heartedly supports AMD GPUs in all currently available versions of Premiere Pro). Apple is partly to blame, as well. In 2015 it decided to ditch Nvidia in favor of going back to the former ATi (now AMD's Radeon Technologies unit).

Secondly, you bought a new Mac very near the end of Apple's relationship with Intel. You see, Apple announced that it will ditch Intel in favor of its own proprietary ARM CPU platform and architecture by year's end (although the PowerPC platform that preceded the x86-64 platform for Macs was actually licensed from IBM despite being reputed as "proprietary"). That means that there will be no more new distinct Intel-powered Mac models ever, while minor refreshes to the existing (currently available) line may continue for another year or so.

And the new ARM-powered Macs coincide with the official release of a new macOS, macOS 11 (aka Big Sur), which will be the first macOS version to support both the new ARM and the outgoing x86-64 platforms (as will the next couple of major versions of macOS). Apple has officially ditched the OSX branding in favor of a modified version of its pre-OSX branding, macOS (it was styled as Mac OS before the OSX branding change that took place shortly after Apple shipped its first Intel-powered Macs in 2006).

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