Premiere Pro CC is not taking advantage of multi core

[DavidROfficer6198]

I upgraded to Threadripper 2 - 2920x (12/24)

ASUS X399-A / 16GB ddr4

CPU utilization never gets above 45% during encoding. Encoding a 39 minute video from 2 cameras (1 is 4K, the other is HD) down to MPEG-DVD.

After 45 minutes, it still estimates 1 hour 25 minutes on a 2 pass encode. This is crap for a program that is supposed to be multi threaded. A 6 core, 12 thread intel processor can do a similar encode in 20 minutes.

Is it time to switch to a better video program? Is Adobe making PPro CC even more useless?

[Moderator note: moved to appropriate forum.]

[R Neil Haugen]

You don't mention the nature of the media, which of course is part of the process, other than frame-size. Codec makes more difference normally, and is very useful to include.

You've got a fast CPU with a modest amount of RAM ... what's your RAM usage during processing? What's the disc utilization, what type of disc is your media on and being exported to?

What's the GPU ... ?

PrPro tends to work up to 10 cores by some tests online, past that doesn't seem to necessarily matter. For especially H.264 long-GOP media either for playback or encoding, running closer to 10GB of RAM per core (assuming 8-10 cores) is considered better.

Often folks seem to think that by getting one part of their system "hot", the whole works should speed up, but ... that's inaccurate. It's always a balancing act. More cores up to 10, then faster cores at close to or above 4Ghz, then as close to 10GB/RAM per core as you can afford, on a mobo that doesn't give you resource bottlenecks as you add GPU, m.2 card, external boxes and such to it, then of course a GPU that can support the CPU/RAM.

The folks at Puget Systems and SafeHarbor Computing give a lot of information ... including that there are relatively few of the available CPU's that are really good for video-post work, as say even most of the spendier Nvidia chips don't test as well in PrPro, Ae, Resolve, and such as some other chips do. Past that, many mobo's actually distribute their "lanes" poorly for a jammed set of GPU, disc-connection cards, external boxes & such on a typical editing rig ... so getting the right chip on the right mobo is a bit of a pain.

Past all that ... why the two-pass encode? For so many projects, all that gets you is additional time these days ...

Neil

[DavidROfficer6198]

Memory usage is about 55%. the HD footage is avchd and the 4K is sony XAVC-S.

Video card is a GTX 950 2GB and is 95% utilized. Similar under an intel cpu (8086K) except the CPU with 16 threads was usually 95% used.

I've always used a 2 pass encode from CS4 and on. Someone told me file sizes and bit rate are better.

[RjL190365]

Sorry that I didn't read your entire dilemma, but with such a high GPU utilization but a low CPU utilization on a program that supposedly hammers most CPUs, I am now beginning to think that it's not the OS per se, but you just simply have a GPU that's quite underpowered for the CPU that you have. It doesn't matter how much VRAM that the graphics card has; it's just that the GPU itself is (relatively speaking) a weakling.

[DavidROfficer6198]

So why is Windows 8.1 utilizing it when Windows 10 isn't?

[Peru Bob]

DavidROfficer6198  wrote

So why is Windows 8.1 utilizing it when Windows 10 isn't?

Windows 10 may need more resources for the operating system than Windows 8.1.

[DavidROfficer6198]

video footage is on an m.2 driver which according to Crystal Mark hits read speeds of 3050. Max is 3500. nVidia cards support CUDA which is spossed to be accelerated in PPro. ATi video cards aren't as efficient

[R Neil Haugen]

First thing I note is the GPU ... at only 2GB of vRAM, that is supposedly below what PrPro really works with in 2019 ... but it is being used, well ... that's good the good news. The bad news is though it seems to be in use, running at that level of usage, my guess is that with the rest of that rig, you need a newer GPU ... that looks to be the bottleneck here.

Neil

[DavidROfficer6198]

I don't know. I was told a minimum of 1Gb and that 2Gb was fine. It uses the GPU to scale, the rest is CPU encoding. I know that if i was able to get windows 7 to install, CPU utilization would be much higher. Windows 10 sucks

[R Neil Haugen]

Not having any issues with Win10, don't really understand the problem there. We've updated a number of machines all of which ran at least as good if not better.

For PrPro 2019, 4GB is listed as the minimum vRAM for a GPU to be utilized for Mercury Acceleration in the specs.

Neil

[RjL190365]

Here's the deal with Windows 7:

1) It is slated to have its support ended in just 13 months. Afterwards, you will need to be a corporate customer and pay potentially millions of dollars (USD) for high-volume programs just to get further security updates for Windows 7.

2) As of early 2017, Microsoft now officially blocks any newer PC (for Intel, Kaby Lake or later; for AMD, any Zen-architecture or newer CPU) from ever receiving even critical security patches unless you've already updated to Windows 10. This means that PCs running these newer CPUs are now officially blocked from ever accessing the Windows Update site except for a forced update to Windows 10. That leaves your new system completely open to hackers and malware attacks.

3) If Windows 7 fails to install in a newer PC, it's because it does not natively support xHCI installation via USB that newer chipsets and motherboards now require. It only supports EHCI installs, which newer PCs do not support until an OS software driver is also installed already.

[DavidROfficer6198]

Not true. Starting in January 2020, normal customers won't get any more updates. You can manually patch WUAUENG.DLL and still get Windows 7 updates. Done it many times on Ryzen / Intel with a PS/2 port. Even get M.2 drives to work / boot.

But thanks for your input

[R Neil Haugen]

You know, I really liked the ability to create batch files and macros in Win 4.11 ... maybe I should try going back to that, it was a great Windows version ... 

Neil

[RjL190365]

Fair enough. But I cannot speak for any software hacks or any other tweaks that Microsoft does not officially endorse or support - which is why I didn't mention them.

And there are many newer PCs that have absolutely no PS/2 ports at all whatsoever - only USB ports. The thread starter's motherboard is one of those that have absolutely no PS/2 or any other legacy ports whatsoever.

[DavidROfficer6198]

When you have customers who WANT windows 7, you give them what they want. It does have usb 2 internally but i suspect even those wouldn't work if i tried an install

[RjL190365]

It all goes back to the differences between the EHCI protocol that's used in USB 2.0 and the xHCI protocol that's used in USB 3.x. Unfortunately, the firmware of newer systems requires full xHCI support in the OS setup phase to even install. The default Windows 7 setup, however, supports only EHCI, which is the major reason why the installation fails on many newer, legacy-free PCs.

[Bill Engeler]

Your GPU is not powerful enough and doesn't have enough memory. The 95% usage is evidence. For better performance, update the GPU. Windows 10 is not the problem.

[DavidROfficer6198]

Just installed Windows 8.1 and the CPU is fully (80% +) utilized. GPU is fully (95%) utilized as well.

I still think Win 10 and it's scheduler with AMD is the problem. Earlier this year, i had a 7820X and no issues to speak of

[DavidROfficer6198]

so do you think a gtx 1060 6gb will make a huge difference?

[XMJ68]

Yes definitely! I would have a AMD 5700XT for it's 8GB even if the power of the card is overkill...

[DavidROfficer6198]

so i tried my brother's 1060 3GB and it shaved an encode from 31m to 18m. Video card was still 100% utilized. CPU was slightly more utilized but obviously the cpu is totally overkill. need maybe a 2080 to satisfy it.