Problems getting GPU Acceleration to function correctly

[DRGWC16]

I have a not so powerful CPU (an Intel Core i5 660) in my Windows 10 64 bit machine, and editing videos in Premiere can be troublesome but has been possible until recently when I looked into getting Premiere to recognize my NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. I have tried a few different methods of getting premiere to recognize my GPU and all my attempts have resulted in nothing except the program running significantly slower. In the project settings of my current project I have set the renderer to "Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA)" and have created a "cuda_supported_cards.txt" containing the name/model of my GPU in the Premiere Program File folder. After restarting Premiere and going back into my project the timeline playback hadn't improved at all and seemed to take a longer time to play a clip decently after having to render it and replay the clip multiple times. I then decided to open Task Manager and take a look at the performance of my CPU and GPU. While playing a clip in Premiere my CPU's utilization was maxing out 100% as my GPU only had 4% utilization under the category of "3D" and 0% utilization for all other categories. There was a checkbox in preferences under "Media" with the label of "Enable hardware-accelerated encoding and decoding" which was already enabled, and I cannot find any other setting in preferences related to GPU Acceleration. I'm really frustrated about the performance of my playback now and going back to software rendering doesn't restore the performance previously. I had restarted the program and my PC multiple times when changing these settings and don't know what to do next. Any help would be appreciated.

[Peru Bob]

The GPU is not used for everything. 

What version of Premiere Pro?

[RjL190365]

It's your CPU. That dual-core CPU from 2010 is way too weak for that GTX 1660 Ti of yours to begin with. Worse, not only is the CPU bottlenecking the GTX 1660 Ti, but also your system's ancient PCI-E 2.0 bus. Put all of those together, and it is no surprise that your system performed as sluggishly as it did. In fact, I saw a recent result in the Puget System's benchmark results list with publicly submitted data, where even a Core i7-2600K severely bottlenecked an RTX 2080 Ti to the point where it barely performed half as well overall as my 2017-vintage i7-7700 CPU with only a GTX 1650 SUPER.

I am sorry to say this, but that GTX 1660 Ti really needs a very modern CPU with 4 to 6 cores and 8 to 12 threads (for example, a recently introduced 6-core/12-thread Intel i5-10400) in order for that GPU to run properly.

And even if your CPU was actually an i5-6600 (6th-Generation Skylake, with four cores but only four threads) instead of that first-generation dual-core Clarkdale CPU, the GTX 1660 Ti would still be overqualified for the CPU.

Remember, your system is only as good as its weakest link (in this case, the CPU). Or put it another way, the weakest component of your PC will dictate how the rest of your PC will perform.

In other words, you're just putting lipstick on a pig when you bought that GTX 1660 Ti for that i5-660.

[R Neil Haugen]

The GPU is not always involved in basic playback. Premiere is based on the CPU running the show with assistance from the GPU, they aren't "separate but equal partners".

Premiere hasn't used an internal list for recognizing GPUs since CS6, what ... seven years ago? That's useless.

That's a 2 core CPU ... built long before Intel added QuickSync to some of their CPUs to handle H.264 encoding. And it's so weak I doubt it could ever be processing enough data to send a significant workload to that 1660Ti.

Essentially, you've got a decent GPU that will never be fully used by an old and antiquated CPU.

Sorry, but that's just ancient gear in computer-land.

Neil

[DRGWC16]

Alright, thanks for the info. I had a feeling some of my PC's hardware was somewhat old but not by this far. I'll look into buying a new CPU and will probably have to buy a new motherboard as well.

[RjL190365]

That's a wise decision. As it currently stands, the i5-660 is definitely in no-man's land since every single current-generation GPU is either severely overqualified or completely lacks a hardware H.264/HEVC encoder of any sort.