Many issues recently with the beta

[GalacticWarthog]

My system AMD Ryzen 3990X, 128GB, Windows 10 Pro 20H2, OS build 19042.906, NVidia RTX 2080S, Windows HDR color on, HDR monitor.

I'm mostly working with drone files (originally 4K HEVC 10 bit HLG), working color space Rec 2100 PQ, HDR Graphics White 203, and effects: scale, rotation, opacity, and Lumetri (basic correction). The past few days have seen WILDLY different performance issues with each update, today for example after the last update, loading a project from yesterday displays a black program monitor (even when using proxies). Also, when I render the project with Media Encoder (beta), it is super slow and does not use the GPU at all, and only one NUMA node (approx 50% total CPU). When I render it with the non beta, it is MUCH faster (order of magnitude) and uses GPU AND both NUMA nodes. On some days after an update, the beta is practically unusable to me, and on others it works really well.

Question: I do have a RTX 3090 that I plan to put into my system, would that help at all, or are these simply developoment issues with the DirectX work you guys are doing? Keep it up though, when the beta works, it is fabulous.

[Thomas Yang]

Hi @GalacticWarthog, thank you for reporting. I am glad to hear that you have had some good time with beta program. I saw you mentioned about turning on windows HDR color, that makes you an early adopter on the DirectX HDR feature. That's very cool!

Now coming to your question. Theriotically speaking, the DirectX Display work shouldn't affect rendering. That makes me think this could be sometthing wrong with rendering pipeline. A few things to try out for isolating the problem: 

1. Does the issue go away if you turn off Display Color Management in Preferences/General? ( Note this would also disable DirectX HDR)

2. Does the issue go away if you switch renderer to Software Renderer in project settings?

3. Are you able to playback normally with a simple project, such as a simple sequence with bars and tones?

4. What is your current build number? This can be found in Help/About Premiere Pro. If possible, do you remember the build number, or the date you updated, that was working for you last time?

5. What is your Nvidia Driver version? Did you happen to update nvidia driver or Win OS in the past few days? I noticed your WinOS is quite recent. 

6. If 5 is true, what happens if you let the application sit there for a few minutes, would the playback eventually come back to normal? 

Thank you,

Thomas

[GalacticWarthog]

The DirectX HDR feature is a game changer IMHO, the most exciting development in a long time.

1. No, issue does not go away when Display Color Management turned off.

2. Yes, issue goes away when I switch to Software Renderer in project settings.

3. Yes, if I create a new project and import one of the same clips and drop onto the timeline, works as it should.

4. Build 20

5.  Driver version 465.89 (0/30/2021). No did not update the driver recently.

6. No.

[Thomas Yang]

Ha, thank you! We are excited about HDR development too. Similar to high refresh rate monitor for gamers, I found that once I am used to HDR, I just don't want to go back. Looking forward to seeing more HDR content created!

Back to your posting, if software renderer is okay, then more likely there is something wrong with GPU accelerated filters or hardware decoding. For #3, you mentioned things were working fine for you with the same clip but a new project. Was the renderer set to software or CUDA? Does applying any gpu filters you had earlier trigger the problem again? You may also go to Preferences/Media/ and uncheck H264/HEVC hardware accelerated decoding/encoding in case it is related. 

Last but not least, improvements are made to beta builds daily, if haven't, it is always recommended to keep your beta builds up to date. Someitmes there were issues slipped through our automation system, but usually are fixed within next few builds.

[GalacticWarthog]

For your first question, when I used the same clip but in a new project, I used CUDA renderer and it worked fine. I'll check the GPU filters.

However, I did try unchecking HEVC hardware accelerated decoding/encoding (currently on build 23) and then loading the original project (with display color management and CUDA renderer), and this seems to work. So your hunch is correct.

However, when I went to reselect these options, and restarted, the application quit unexpectedly when loading the same project. After this same issue of quiting upon loading the project happened no matter what the options. After a few attempts (and the HEVC hardware accelerated decoding/encoding turned off), it worked again.

Thanks for all your responses, and as I said before, this new HDR capability is by far the most exciting development for me personally in a long time. I did have the external Blackmagic Design playback device to monitor the HDR output to an external monitor, but I found that whole workflow to be clunky and unsatisfying, not to mention it didn't work with my HDR gaming monitor. So for me as an amateur/enthusiast, the DirectX HDR functionality is a MASSIVE improvement and so much more conduicive to creating HDR content. So much looking forward to seeing this functionality in a stable production release!