Nothing maxes out (cpu/gpu/memory) when rendering

[amkrisis]

Hello,

I'm rendering 4k footage, with multiple effects (After effects transitions, Magic Bullet effects (denoiser), sharpening, grades, correcting gopro distortions, etc... out with Media Encoder, set to high quality, h.264 100Mbit CBR. Original footage is h.264 4k, vbr.

Is it 'normal' that nothing is maxing out in terms of GPU, CPU and memory?
Everything is at 20% and I can't really find the bottleneck?

Here's my setup:

Ryzen 1700 (15-20% usage), spread over all cores

16gb of ram (20-40% usage)

GPU: RX480 16gb (29% vram usage)

All temps are within range as far as I can see.

Disks are barely being used from what I can see.

Memory usage is set to 13gb, 3gb for other applications, and the render engine is GPU accelerated.

Shouldn't at least one thing be maxing out and be the bottleneck?

I basically have 75% of my system doing nothing when exporting? Kind of a bummer, or to be expected?

I am reading about that AE doesn't use the cpu's that well, so that might be it?

I am aware that stacking up effects, AE elements etc isn't ideal, and I would be fine with long render times is it was actually maxing out something, but this is just bizare to me...

Any ideas?

Also: would transcoding to an intermediate codec like cineform speed up rendering? (I know it'll scrub faster, etc... but I'm talking about outputting to h.264 specificaly)

[Peru Bob]

It could be that your disks are not fast enough to keep up with the rest of the system.

What is your disk setup (what kind, what size, how many, how full, and what is on each)?

[amkrisis]

System disk is a Samsung 950 EVO 250gb (about 100gb free)

Scratch disk is currently a normal drive, 500gb, 400gb free (It is a SATA I (old, i know), 500gb 5400rpm drive)

Media is stored on a 3th WD MY Pasport Pro, with 2tb free, plugged into USB 3.1 port.

Currently exporting to the WD drive.

I'm guessing the weak link is the normal drive being used as a scratch disk? Perhaps replacing it with a more modern SATA III 7400rpm drive might be the way forward? Big SSD's are a bit out of my budget.

The disks aren't being used that much it seems, all at 2-3% at any given time?

I could go for this setup:

OS and programs: SSD

Scratch and cache: 7200rpm drive

Original media and project files: stored on a usb 3.0 drive (WD My Passport Pro) (5400rpm)

And perhaps render out my current (old) Sata I 500gb 5400rpm drive?

Thanks

Benny

[Peru Bob]

amkrisis  wrote

Scratch disk is currently a normal drive, 500gb, 400gb free (It is a SATA I (old, i know), 500gb 5400rpm drive)

Media is stored on a 3th WD MY Pasport Pro, with 2tb free, plugged into USB 3.1 port.

That is your bottleneck.

amkrisis  wrote

I'm guessing the weak link is the normal drive being used as a scratch disk? Perhaps replacing it with a more modern SATA III 7400rpm drive might be the way forward? B

OS and programs: SSD

Scratch and cache: 7200rpm drive

Original media and project files: stored on a usb 3.0 drive (WD My Passport Pro) (5400rpm)

And perhaps render out my current (old) Sata I 500gb 5400rpm drive?

The external drives will be a bottleneck. Don't use 5400 RPM drives at all.

[amkrisis]

Would a 250gb ssd like the Samsung EVO 850 be ok for storing the cache and using as a scratch disk? (so just dedicated to those two things)

I have no idea how big it needs to be to be...

And using a 7400rpm harddrive to store the source media?

[Peru Bob]

I'm moving this to the Hardware Forum for advice from the hardware experts.

[RoninEdits · Accepted solution]

you mention the gpu memory usage, but what about gpu usage itself? you can use gpu-z  to monitor its usage, watching gpu load %. if its near max it is the bottleneck, probably from fx like MB denoiser. if its usage is low, its probably AE and/or the fx/plugins in AE causing a software bottleneck. if you are using dynamic link for AE projects to premiere, you might want to render out the AE project and bring in a rendered video to premiere.

i don't think the storage drives are causing such low hardware usage, but better drives could help some. a 250-500gb ssd for cache and another ssd or fast 7200 rpm hdd for media would be good options. if your projects are small enough, a single 500gb ssd might also work for cache, project and media files.

[amkrisis]

You're right!
It's maxing out at 100% as soon as my intro (which is a cineform output) hits the encoding.
I believe most MB effects are GPU assisted as well, so you're probably bang on.

I am however seeing quick drops of the gpu memory clock, it's running at 2000MHz, and drops to 300MHz very quickly and then shoots back up again (see screenshot). It's

Impulsive as I am I allready ordered a 2tb hdd (7200rpm) and a 250gb Samsung EVO 850 which I'll set up as a scratch and cache drive. But I guess I won't see any drastic improvements unless I avoid using GPU heavy effects like the denoiser.
Not sure if I even need it, I just wack it on there when the ISO was high for good measure so...

So, the cpu doesn't pick up where the gpu left if it's maxed out? So they aren't balancing the load I guess?

Anyway, since the drives are on their way I'll use them.
One extra question though: if I use the ssd as a scratch and cache drive and I'm encodingor editing, will it run into issues when it's full, or does the software manages it automatically and clears it when needed?

I quickly changed the cache and scratch settings to the slower drive (away from the OS SSD) and noticed that the folders are only a few mb big each? I thought these would fill up rather quickly?

[RoninEdits]

I am however seeing quick drops of the gpu memory clock, it's running at 2000MHz, and drops to 300MHz very quickly and then shoots back up again (see screenshot).

i wouldn't worry about it. most newer hardware is focused on power efficiency and they try to downclock whenever possible to save on power.

So, the cpu doesn't pick up where the gpu left if it's maxed out? So they aren't balancing the load I guess?

i'm not sure how the MB denoiser works, if it only uses the gpu or can also access the cpu like neat video's denoise. if it only uses the gpu then everything else will have to wait on the gpu to finish processing the denoise and other gpu fx. many plugins only work with one video card, but you might wanna see if MB denoiser or other MB plugins work with two video cards. that is if your computer hardware can support two video cards...

I quickly changed the cache and scratch settings to the slower drive (away from the OS SSD) and noticed that the folders are only a few mb big each? I thought these would fill up rather quickly?

cache files are generally small, like index files. its the render previews and AE disk cache that can use lots of space.

One extra question though: if I use the ssd as a scratch and cache drive and I'm encoding or editing, will it run into issues when it's full, or does the software manages it automatically and clears it when needed?

if its full there will be problems, also ssd's and hdd's loose performance the closer they are to being full. premiere recently added some feature to automatically delete old cache files, but i'm not sure if that is in AE too. you could delete cache files after a project is done or when the free space on the drive is getting low.

[Bill Gehrke]

"Media is stored on a 3th WD MY Pasport Pro, with 2tb free, plugged into USB 3.1 port."

Check the speed of this device with something like HDTune.  It could be that it might even be a 5400 rpm drive but in any case it is just a single hard disk drive.  If you really want to use that USB3.1 port on your computer my suggestion is get yourself a Samsung T3 USB 3.1 portable SSD which will give you speeds like this.

For video editing your media files are sequential read operations.  I use these devices daily on my laptop.  I have all the project files on it.