Premiere Pro 2020 - Laggy, Dropping Frames on all footage

[evan1992]

I am hoping someone can help me. I've been troubleshooting my editing laptop all day, but I can't seem to figure out what is slowing it down. I've dug through many forum posts, but none of the fixes solved the problem.

PROBLEM: All footage plays back slow and drops frames, even with no effects. Even after rendering footage, it still drops a lot frames. Proxies dropped the same or more frames than the original media, as well.

MY SYSTEM:

Premiere Pro 14.4 (I also have 13.1.5 and the same problem occurs)

Dell G3 3579 Laptop Computer x64-based

i7-8750H processor @2.20GHz (6 cores)

16 GB RAM

Intel UHD Graphics 630 card (27.20.100.8476)

NVidia GTX 1050 Ti - 4 GB (27.21.14.5638)

DRIVES - Internal SSD for Program files, External SSD connected via USB 3.1 for media files

STEPS I HAVE ALREADY TRIED:

- Clear cache (in program and manually)

- Create proxies (H.264, ProRes and Cineform - they were all slow)

- Transcode footage to ProRes for smart rendering

- Update drivers for both graphics cards and then roll them back and then update again

- Turn off CUDA acceleration, turn back on

- Disable Intel GPU, didnt do anything so I re-enabled it

- Reinstall Premiere Pro

- Reinstall Windows

- Tried putting the footage on different drives to no avail

- Adjust system clock settings

- Disable "Growing Files"

- Disable Audio Input

- Roll back Audio device drivers

- Tested hard drive connection speeds

- Lower playback resolution

- Optimize Rendering for "Performance"

- Disable Mercury Transit

- Turn off Video Effects

- Close Lumetri Scopes

None of these steps fixed my problems. I know my machine isn't quite up to the recommended specs, but it worked a lot better in the recent past. Also, I am not naive about h264 files and their issues. The laggy playback issues continued even after transcoding to ProRes and starting a new sequence with just those files. Also, proxy workflows haven't sped up the program at all. Actually, the proxy files drop MORE frames than the original media. I even started a new sequence and imported only the tiny cineform proxy clips, and they couldn't play back without dropping tons of frames either.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated! I hope I am just missing something small or overlooking an obvious issue.

Thank you!

Evan

[Dir.Andy]

Hey Evan.  Feel your pain!  You've done a great deal of testing! Well done.  Without giving you the actual answer...  Fom my experience of troubleshooting. Your computer seems fairly well spec'd which suggests the most likely issue is around your video card. Although it's a powerful video card, I can't see it listed as a supported card.   I found a part of Adobe forum chatting about your video card.  https://community.adobe.com/t5/video-hardware/gtx-1080-or-1080-ti-support/td-p/8999244?page=1   Hope that helps.  A

[evan1992]

Thanks for the help. Unfortunately, I have learned that I can't upgrade this GPU because it's integrated with the Intel GPU and is "discreet" (speaking above my level of computer knowledge there).

I'll let you know if I figure out the problem!

[D. Houdy]

I would love to have some feedback on this as well. I updated to PP 2020 about 4-5 months ago, have spent hours, days, weeks, with Adobe and have received no fix to my issue. I have a spec'd out iMac pro and before the update nothing stood in the way of my computer. I have started new projects from scratch, tried everything over the phone and via screenshare that Adobe support ran me though, and I even tried editing on my brand new spec'd out MacBook Pro that I also have for backups if needed and I got the same laggy issues on both. The pathetic thing is that I'm editing 4k footage on a 1080P timeline and while I typically am editing two camera angles, I have the same issues even with only one camera angle. Every time I call/contact Adobe they either do or undo something the prior support member has done and they're very quick to end the chat/call and also very quick to tell me to try the fix out for a couple of days and call back, but they immediately close the case out so I have to start all over again. It's very frustrating. I hope you find an answer soon so I can find an answer

[evan1992]

I solved the problem. Read my new reply below for details. Good luck man.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Evan,

Sounds quite strange. Sorry for the issue. Is this the U.S. English version of the program or some other language? Let me know. 

Thanks,
Kevin

[evan1992]

This is the US English version of the program. Thanks for the quick response!

[Kevin-Monahan]

No prob, Evan.

More things to try:

• With all projects closed, choose Preferences > Media Cache. In the dialog box, you can delete all media cache, including the current project's cache - which might contain anomalies. 
• Tried repairing folder permissions? https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/multi/preferences-folder-read-only-error.html Make sure all permissions are set to R/W to all enclosed folders.
• Trash preferences: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/faq-how-to-reset-trash-preferences-in-premiere-pro/td-p/...
• Try optimizing rendering for "Memory." Restart Premiere Pro.
• Use one of the stock layouts on your laptop. Don't span across 2 monitors as a test.

I'll see if I can think of anything else.

Cheers,
Kevin

[evan1992]

Thank you for all the tips! I solved my issue and I left a long comment below with details.

[evan1992 · Accepted solution]

UPDATE:

I FIXED IT!

I really appreciate all the replies. Some of them helped lead me to the real problem. I will detail how I fixed it here, in case anyone is reading this in the future.

______

After exhausting the long list of attempts that I detailed in the first post, and also trying out the suggestions that were given to me, I started to think that the problem was probably actually lying with my computer rather than Premiere.

I ran a test in a few other programs like Blender and After Effects with the SAME footage I was testing in Premiere. I noticed that they both had similar issues with a lot of dropped frames. Again, this happened on all types of video files - including ProRes transcodes and tiny cineform proxy files. This got me thinking that something must be going wrong with my computer. This may sound stupid, but I just pulled up the Microsoft stopwatch and watched it as I was trying to play back video in Premiere. When the frames would drop, the stopwatch would freeze and pause as well. So I knew something was likely messing with my CPU.

After some research, I decided that I needed more GB of RAM for each of the 6 cores in my CPU, and I had an empty slot inside. I upgraded my laptop from 16 GB to 32 GB. I don't think this was necessarily causing my issues, but I figured it would only help me in the long run, so I paid the $70 and upgraded. Also, I noticed that the thermal paste was very rough looking. I took the fan off, cleaned the old thermal paste off with some isopropyl alcohol, and applied some new stuff. Again, maybe this wasn't the issue but I read that Dell is infamous for this problem and it can cause heat issues. Unfortunately these changes did not completely solve my problem. There was still a lot of lag in Premiere.

After I did this, I backed up all the files on my computer to an external drive, and then did a FULL FACTORY RESET from the SupportAssist app.

After rebooting, and dealing with the usual Windows startup steps, I noticed that my keyboard wasn't working properly. I looked it up online, and this was a common BIOS issue with my computer. Before fixing that, I used a usb keyboard and installed Premiere and tested it out. It was working like new again! But obviously I still needed to fix the keyboard issue.

Also an important note here for users of the Dell G3 15, after a factory reset, you must UNINSTALL this stupid bloatware app called SmartByte and it's Driver program as well. If you don't, your WiFi speeds will be extremely slow.

So anyway, I searched the web and downloaded the driver updates from the Dell website. After installing the Bios update, I powered back on and found that now I was ONCE AGAIN experiencing a ton of lag and dropped frames in premiere! So then began a tug of war of rolling back drivers for the BIOS, my 1050 Ti GPU and also versions of Premiere. I needed to find a combo which allowed my keyboard to work, but also Premiere. And several times Premiere gave me an INCOMPATIBILITY notice. I'll spare you the three hours of pain there and just list the drivers that worked for me here:

BIOS: Dell Inc., 1.13.0 (7/3/2020)

GTX 1050 Ti: 27.21.14.5638 (9/14/2020)

Premiere: 14.3.2 

After I got that combination correct, I rebooted. I went to Display Settings > Graphics Settings, and made sure Premiere Pro ran on the High Permformance GPU.

I opened Premiere. I made sure CUDA was on. I saved the Project to a new folder on my Internal SSD (where my program is also installed). I set all the scratch options to a new folder on my External SSD which is connected by USB 3.1. I also put my footage on that external SSD.

After all that, Premiere is FAST. It drops no frames anymore. Even my 4K LONG GOP GH5 h264 files are editing easily. No lag whatsoever. I'm so happy that this process is over and my computer is saved!

[Janeth5D91]

Hi, I have slow rendering and exporting issues, I just upgraded to PP 2020 and used to have 2013.  

I have:

OS version 19042.804 Dell Precision 3630 Tower, Intel(R) Core(TM) i79700 CPU @3.00GHz 

Premiere version 2020

RAM 32.0 GB

64-bit opertating system x64-based processor

[Lucky4people]

Without project details it's hard to give any meaningful advice. Try these simple steps for starter:

1. go Preferences > Audio Hardware > Default Input => select "No Input"

2. Turn off hardware accelerated Decoding in Preferences > Media... (do app restart)

2. Turn off NVidia G-Sync in driver control panel