AMD Threadripper 1950x Slow Adobe Boot and Render

[Mastar Media]

I just bought a power-house PC specifically for Premiere Pro and After Effects, and was expecting extremely fast render times. However, not only does Premiere Pro and After Effects take over 30 seconds to boot (my old computer booted them in less than 10 seconds), but the rendering time seems the same, if not worse. Here are my specs:

Processor: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X (16-Core) (Boost Up to 4.0 GHz)

Motherboard: ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME (AMD X399 Chipset) (Up to 4x PCI-E Devices) (ECC Support)

System Memory: 64GB DDR4 3000MHz

Storage Set 1: 1x SSD (480GB)

Storage Set 2: 1x Storage (3TB Seagate / Toshiba)

Graphics Card(s): 1x GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional (64-Bit Edition)

Both Adobe and the Cache are located on the SSD. I have tried allocating more memory to Adobe. I have tried both Creator Mode and Game Mode on the 1950x.

It took me 15 minutes to render a 12 minute 1080p video which barely had any effects, and used a lot of still frame pictures with voice-over. With this powerful of a machine, it seems absurd.

Also in Adobe Animate, when I try to preview my animations in 1080p within the program, there is still a lot of lag. I would get this on my older PC too, but I expected that this machine could handle it.

Does anyone know what may be slowing down the applications? Is Adobe Programs simply not updated yet for high-core processors?

[IAH Digital]

Leave all of your cores active and uninstall it. It makes the processor behave funny if the software is even installed. Ryzen master is not ready for prime-time neither does it help professionals. These things have helped my performance dramatically

[donbarrum]

did you change the voltage too ? what did you set it to? because the number showing is variable.

[Mike_1_Irish]

Well Donbarrum You say that you have your system booting up into windows in (15 seconds) Wow that is fast. I timed my system again tonight  and it was exactly 37 seconds before the Windows sign appeared on screen. Coming from the X99 platform with the i7-5960k 6 core CPU that system booted up in around 30 seconds or maybe even the same as my current system. Now when I look at my other PC with the 17-7700K 4 core CPU I don't think i even bothered to even time it but it was so much faster on bootup than any of the the multi- core CPU I have owned over the years. I also had a i7 that was one of the first or second gen ones and I had that until only recently. Wel even the old i7 had a very short bootup time of App 15 or maybe even a shorter time for the Windows screen to shot. Now my point is the multicore CPU's have a lot of things to check before the windows screen appears. This is the motherboard that is checking that all is well with the system before it continues the bootup stage. now back to the 1950X i-9XXX and ADOBE  (My feelings on this are as follows)   Adobe haven't updated their programs to take advantage of the multi core platform. I feel that this will be their downfall as follows. If you have highly paid staff where time is money you want the best performing equipment to allow them to speed up their workflow. We are looking at the multicore CPU's as WORKSTATIONS capable of performing much heavier workloads that those 4 core CPU's and this is I feel the problem lies. (It's working fine so why fix it Adobe is saying)??? This isn't the attitude to take in today's world. There are many more post processing software out there than ever before and if ADOBE isn't more proactive and see what the current trend are they will be left behind. I myself am looking at other software at the moment because of this problem. I'm Not the one. I love working on images with my old familiar Adobe LT/PScc because I have worked with it for so long now. I am telling you now that I will change if things doesn't improve with the ADOBE's old and antiquated setup where CPU and GPU are not utilised to their best.

I hope that ADOBE reads this post and works on this which I honestly feel if the don't act now and fast they will lose their foothold on the market that they have dominated for so long.

Kindest regards.

Mike                 

[donbarrum]

Yeah I would wish that as well. But Adobe said many years ago they would start optimizing After Effects, but it was a long process. So they removed multicore rendering (yes thats actually a fact !! ) and after that they have slowly been adding some microscopic optimizations that utilize the GPU more. But nothing that really shows a huge impact on rendering and after effects renders slower today on  a multicore systems than it did 3-4 years ago. and how the implemented the UI I have no idea, how it can be so expensive for the machine? I sit in 3dstudio Max which has a lot more stuff going on in the viewports and a complex UI. Everything is completely smooth on the Threadripper with a GtX 1080Ti, so how can After Effect be so slow?!? But I suspect the UI follow the responsiveness of the video you render in preview in AE. So the slower live updates are, the slower the program works, as like in a game if the game slows down from low FPS.
ANd apparently its gonna take Adobe a decade to add back multithreaded rendering, which is the final goal I would assume/hope...if not they took a BIG step back, while the rest of the world is leaping forward. So the AE Adobe team has a very strange way of looking at optimizations....So yeah I agree with you, but currently not many competitors to After effects, you have programs like Nuke and Flame, but still its a bit different kind of programs and very expensive unless you use them for huge jobs mostly focused on compositing.  

[Mike_1_Irish]

Back to your build Trevor. I'm sere that the VRM heat sink on the newer model should fit yours? What I'm  thinking, A quick email to ASRock should confirm this and maybe they mite oblige you be sending you out a replacement for yours if you word it nicely?

Mike    

[Mike_1_Irish]

Yes that is the point I point was trying to make. By setting the voltage to I think it was 1.225v Please check the screenshot I posted above. I set the speed to 3.650GHz and the CPU will wort at that speed as a minimum speed when needed it will boost up to 4.2 as it was designed to do. I have found with my CPU that it likes 3.650GHz and I have checked the voltage and it is indeed set to 1.225v I cant believe how much smoother thing are running now. If you click on the screenshot I posted you will see the settings I am using. Please try it out yourself and see how you get on. Now they say that eich CPU will behave a little different but at least with the way i have it setup it isn't stressing the CPU as 1.225v is mild compared the creasy voltages what some people are running them at? I do believe that running the CPU at these high voltages dill DAMAGE THE CPU OR AT LEAST SHORTEN IT'S LIFE.

Cheers.

Mike

PS. Sorry for the rant I posted above but that is how I feel and I am just been honest about it. It's nice that the post is still there and I ament barred?

Mike

[IAH Digital]

Hey all,

I've learned some things in the last month since building a Threadripper 1950x system. Here is a list of things I have done to increasingly improve the performance of the Threadripper in AE and Premiere. Its not perfect yet but its getting faster the more I tweak certain things

1) USE AN M2 drive for your cache!!!!!! I tried using a fast Intel SSD for my cache in After Effects and noticed that the computer I use at work using an i7- 7700K was MUCH faster than my TR 1950X. Part of the reason is because it uses a Samsung NVMe drive for its cache. I changed my cache to run off my of seperate NVMe drive and the performance on a vector heavy project increased by almost 20% or so. **THE M2 DRIVE NEEDS TO BE SEPERATE FROM THE OS AND STORAGE DRIVE

2) UNINSTALL RYZEN MASTER!!! It messes with your CPU processes. Once it was removed Premiere and After Effects performance improved.

3) CLOSE OR UNINSTALL ASUS SONIC STUDIO. It messes with your CPU processes. Once it was removed Premiere and After Effects performance improved.

4) DONT USE THE RYZEN POWER SETTINGS!!!!! Use PERFORMANCE POWER SETTINGS. Trust me

5) If you are working on a complex After Effects comp with vector elements TURN OFF 'SHOW LAYER CONTROLS'. This speeds things up significatly

6) USE AN M2 FOR YOUR OS AND APPLICATIONS!!!! The faster the M2 the better.

7) UNINSTALL ASUS AI SUITE or any overclocking utility. This processor is a different animal from INTEL, it doesn't work the same way

8) SET PROCESSOR AFFINITY TO 12 CORES FOR AFTER EFFECTS.....this should increase performance for now

Follow these steps and your Threadripper will start to perform like a dream. KEEP IN MIND, this processor is AHEAD OF ITS TIME and Adobe needs to catch up to these new massive multi-core processors. In time After Effects and Premiere will scale with hyperthreading and your system will CRUSH. AMD has started something interesting..dont throw in the towel. The best is yet to come

SPECS

AMD Threadripper 1950X

ASUS  ROG ZENITH EXTREME X399

CORSAIR VENGEANCE 3000 MHZ 64GB  - **make sure to set your RAM timings manually in BIOS
GTX 1080ti turbo 11GB

Samsung Pro M2 for OS and APPS

Samsung Pro M2 for CACHE
...the rest of the peripherals dont matter

I hope this helps. I'm still tweaking and I'll post any discoveries I find. Bless!

[donbarrum]

wow very nice info, thank you!
I will definately try out all of the above. So uninstall Ryzen Master, so you mean I should set up the amount of cores I use etc in the BIOS ?

I do have m.2 as both main and scratch drive unfortunately and no overclocking or Asus software, since my motherboard is MSI. And only MSI software I have is the driver update tool. rest is not used.

So the ones you mentioned which I haven't tried yet I will definately do...Performing like a dream in after effects is something I kinda doubt, hehe But at least I can gain some!...and yeah maybe in the future...

thanks again!

[IAH Digital]

Actually I meant set processor affinity for AE in task manager. Here is a link

How to Limit Apps to Specific CPU Cores with Processor Affinity

I'm going to try this as well. It may help. If everything listed helps by 5% AE can work like a dream

[Mike_1_Irish]

Hi and thank you for the info you posted. I have the same 1950X and ASUS Zenit Extreme board as you so I will give your suggestions a try and hopefully I will see some performance improvements.

I am not to sire how you are setting up your system ie? How do you set up your PC are you using the BIAS to set up your cores/ fan speed /memory ets??? What will control the CPU core speeds etc?

Could you please come back and advise me before I remove the Ai Suite 3 and the Rison master utilities.

PS. I have just now that the Ai 3 Suite isn't working after I installed the latest Microsoft updates!

Kindest regards.

Mike.

[IAH Digital]

My tech set my system up completely from the bios. The fan curve was also adjusted in the bios. Anytime my processor spikes my fans on my corsair liquid cooling 110 (i think) reacts automatically. I NEVER adjust fans or cooling, its all automated.

Threadripper is really different than Intel and thats why its throwing us for a loop. We are all coming from Intel platform and are trying to learn a new animal. This processor doesn't need to be overclocked it seems. I use my system for AE, Premiere, Maya and Keyshot and keyshot uses ALL of my cores. My task manager says my speed is at 3.8 GHZ at load but if you investigate further some of your cores are pushing 4.2GHZ at different times. I think its called XFR. This is new to us

THIS IS WHAT I SUGGEST FOR YOU:

1) RESET YOUR BIOS TO DEFAULT

2) UNINSTALL RYZEN MASTER!!!

3) UNINSTALL AI SUITE!!!!

4) Close Asus SONIC STUDIO and change your startup settings so it doesnt start up with your system. Do the same for Asus Aura. Only open these when you need them

5) RESTART and go into bios. MANUALLY put in your RAM timings. SET IT ONCE AND DON'T MESS WITH IT. I don't know how to do the fan curve but if there's a setting, set it to automatic or based on temperature

6) DONT USE RYZEN BALANCED POWER!!!! Only use performance power setting!!!

ITS NOT YOUR WINDOWS UPDATES!! (most likely). I thought so too. Its software conflicts mostly

NOTE**

After Effects still may not be as fast as your old system...yet. The new versions of AE will scale/use your many cores. Give it some time. This system is a year too early. Do these things in the meanwhile

Bless!

[Mike_1_Irish]

Gotcha. Wow thanks for getting back to me so fast. I will give it a try and see how things go. I received my new motherboard and CPU two week ago but havent had a chance to set them up for testing. I am hoping to set them up on a test bench tomorrow. I will remove those programs you mentioned from my C drive before installing it in the new MB.

I am using a 1Tb Samsung 960 Pro M.2 drive as my C drive with a Samsung 500G 950 M.2 as my scratch drive so I think I have the fastest storage needed. I also forgot to mention that I have my midea stored on a Samsung 1Tb 850 Pro SSD so I shouldn't have drawbacks where fast storage is needed.

Regards.

Mike

PS. Just to let you know I have problems with my motherboard where two of the dimm slots are faulty.I also ordered the new CPU so I can eliminate some of the other problems I have experienced with my system.

I will let you all know how I find the new system with this setup you have suggested.

Regards.

Mike

[Mike_1_Irish]

Hi all. Well I finally had a chance to play around with the Treadripper 1950X. I downloaded the latest bias but I had some problems with the AI suite Fan control etc. I went to the ASUS Republic of gamers website and found I wasn't alone with these problem. Fortunately there was a fix so I downloaded the firmware and all is running very well now.

Here is a screen grab of a four hour test I did today. It run stable at 4.22 GHz under  load 100% at Temp 64c. The CPU will drop back to 2.00!! or something when browsing the internet.

Regards.

Mike

[Trevor.Dennis]

Glad to see it is coming together Mike.  Would you believe that I _still_ don't have my 7900X system yet?  It has been a disaster, but I want to get it in my hands before I name and shame. 

[Mike_1_Irish]

Hi Trevor. well it is hard to believe that you haven't received your new PC by now!. I hope you have not handed over any cash, if it was me I would cancel it now.

Why don't you just order the parts from AMAZON DIRECT as I advised you before. Are you still interested in the i9-7900x or does the i7-7800 speed appel more to you now. Either way I would build my own and it will help pay for the video card?

Hope you get sorted soon.

Regards.

Mike

[Trevor.Dennis]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Mike+1+Irish  wrote

Hi Trevor. well it is hard to believe that you haven't received your new PC by now!. I hope you have not handed over any cash, if it was me I would cancel it now.

Mike

NZ$2.5K towards the end of October last year.  To be fair, the components came to some money though.  They finally tried to start it up yesterday, and got a zero zero error and no post, which probably means a dead motherboard.  One forum I looked at yesterday said that a zero zero on start up was a dead motherboard, but that it also fried the CPU.  It's issues like that that made me want someone else to build it.  The whole story is long, and more than a bit scary — like when the tech who was putting it together told me last week that they were now waiting for a fan for the CPU.  I'll say that again.  He expected that the CPU would come with a cooler, and discovering that it didn't he thought they had to order a fan for the CPU.  (The quote mentions a 280mm AIO Corsair or Cooler Master liquid cooler mounted at the top of the case)

I'd been told earlier that day that I could pick up the completed computer before 5pm that day, but when I got there they had barely started it, and then said it was my fault it was taking so long because I wanted them to get parts from various NZ suppliers to keep costs down.  I'd never said any such thing, but had given them a precise spec — a spec that was itemised on the quote — I didn't care where they sourced the components from.  So I completely blew a fuss at this point, which is when the 'fan for the CPU' comment was made.  I rounded on the tech and said "You are surely not so incompetent that you expected to air cool a 7900X?  A CPU with a TDP that goes into the 200s under load."  The tech got the hump, but I was right on the money, and ended up laughing.  That took some doing as I was as angry as I can ever remember being.

That was a week ago.  They arranged for a new motherboard to be couriered which may or may not get to them today.  There is a good chance that when they try and fire it again, the CPU will be dead, but I have given up caring now.  I know the CEO of this company, and have had a good relationship with them for the last 12 years and I expected better.  Never again though.

[Mike_1_Irish]

Yes Trevor these things can and do happen, I know for sure as well you know!!.  Well I am sure that they will sort it out the fact that you know the CEO should help to escalate things (Well that's if you informed him of the issues)   I really am hoping to hear how your chosen system runs for you and I ho wish you look with it.

Please keep me informed Trevor.

Mike

[Bill Gehrke]

Mike,

Great to see you up and running but After I saw you data I was shocked at that 199 processes running.  You should be able to get that down to ~120 before you have anything Adobe running.  Of course maybe you intentionally ran everything possible.

[Mike_1_Irish]

Hi bill. I haven't looked into that as yet but now that you have brought it to my attention i will. I had a chance to play around with the 1950x again today and I am now running at 39.25GHz and 4.51GHz turbo boost. I have run it for over two hours at 100% and it was stable but the temps reached 72c. My water temperatures to the CPU cooler ar in 32c in and 37c out the VRM is hitting 60c. The temps aren't reily anything to worry about as I wont be pushing things to these extremes with the programs I am running.

Here is a screen grab of my testing today.

Best regards.

Mike.

   

[donbarrum]

thats some extreme overclocking. Do you notice any difference in performance ? Or just slightly in rendertime?
Personally Im in getting more happy with the threadripper than I was. After effects performs  better after the latest after effects update, it seems to have improved things slightly. Shape layers of big magnitudes are still slow though, but otherwise it is ok. I wish I could have tested an Intel i9 with 18 cores with the same After Effects scene... if anyone here has such a rig it would have been nice to know send the scene over just to see if this problem is clockspeed or just an issue with AMD and After Effects. I don't think I will try to overclock my 1950x any further than now, since everything runs smoothly and fine now, and just After Effects not being impressive and the general boot time is where I feel the machine is slower than what I'm used to.....Premiere runs completely smooth too.

[Trevor.Dennis]

donbarrum  wrote

Personally Im in getting more happy with the threadripper than I was. After effects performs  better after the latest after effects update, [snip]

That's encouraging, and with the popularity of Threadripper and i9X CPUs with high core count, it would be nice to think that Adobe will do what they can to optimise performance with this hardware in mind.  What sort of benchmarks do the likes of Puget Systems use with After Effects, and can we share something like it for comparison testing? 

[donbarrum]

according to Puget the i9 processors perform slightly worse than the i7-8700, but nothing noteworthy. So you dont loose much, but you gain nothing. But the Threadripper does indeed loose a lot on user experience within the program, which is why I would love to know if that same downgrade feeling happens on the Intel, which I don't think you do.
I think it will take a long time until After Effects manages to utilize cores and the GPU to an extent its worth buying a powerful machine for AE alone. But at least what I hope is that it will be on par for those of us that uses the machine for 3d and other stuff than AE only. Puget makes it obvious you should buy a different machine if its AE or 3d focused, but usually a lot CGI artists use both. 

[Trevor.Dennis]

Don, we are up to week five a weekly challenge on the Photoshop forum.  I am currently using a six core 3930K at stock with 32Gb RAM, decent storage, but with an aging GTX570 as I have bumped the GTX970 to the 7900X system whenever the heck it arrives.  Bill would not approve of my system as it is not the lean, mean editing machine he likes, and I have too much going on in the background, but I was still surprised when I got into some lag states working on this smallish entry for the challenge.

I have other old projects that got so bad regards lag, I had to abandon them, and I am keen to revisit them when the new system turns up.  I have been toying with the idea of having alternative users on the new system, with one of them having the minimum going on in the background, but I don't know if that is even doable.

Mike, that is a lot of cooling.  I have just a single 280mm AIO, and I don't even know which one as communication with the builder is going via a third person after I blew up with the tech when he thought that an i9-7900X should have come with an air cooler in the box.  I actually called him incompetent but I was steaming at the time having been told to pick up the finished computer that afternoone by one person, and finding they'd barely started putting it together.   The thing is I was right on the money, and he really did think he was going to use a wee air cooler on a CPU that has a TDP that goes well into the 200s when stressed.

Mike, I'll see how I get on running stock, and look at fitting a custom loop myself if needed, but it sounds like you are getting a bit of fan noise and I'd obviously like to minimise that.

[Mike_1_Irish]

Hi Denis. FAN NOISE? Yes I have noise coming from the top cooling fans but I haven't had a chance to look into that yet. At the moment the system is running at 24c on the readout on the motherboard.The ASUS Ai 3 suite is reporting 27c!!!. Looking at the flow temp to the CPU it is reporting 25c in and 26c out. Now remember these temperatures are with the system only checking emails and web pages open so no real load in it. I hopefully will get time by the end of the week to sort out the fan curves. It shouldn't be a problem. What do you think of my rad setup and the rear fan taking cool ait IN to cool the VRM's? All the rads are taking the air out of the system and I also have another fan at the bottom takingm  fresh air in. My terry is. Any heat that is generated by the CPU will be removed from the case?

I hope that you get your system shortly and to the specks you asked for. I hope you gave him your specifications in writing?

Cheers for now Denis.

Regards.

Mike

[Mike_1_Irish]

Hi all. Well I finally got the time to fit the new motherboard and CPU today. I am happy to report that all my ram slots are working on this board. I have applied the same overclock settings as before and I have just now completed a onehout stress test. I will include a screen grab of the test in this post. I haven't had a chance as yet to see how my Adobe products run but I am hoping that I will get a chance over the weekend.

Regards.

Mike