What do i need if CPU usage goes 100% when video editing?

[NaHLiJ]

Whenever i use a program called AVS Video Editor and try to edit 720p movies about 4 gigs my CPU usage goes to 90%-100% and it is very laggy and hard to edit the video.. i have 1 GB of RAM does this mean that I need more? Also when i have alot of programs open my CPU goes to 100%. By adding more RAM I will be able to have more programs open and my CPU usage will be less right and computer wont be slow right? Thanks

[aedipuss]

it would help if you filled out the computer spec portion of your profile.

most likely a faster computer with more ram is needed.

[NaHLiJ]

Sorry I forgot about that. I filled it out. But I have a dual-core 64-bit processor and 1GB of RAM. So is my processor slow or if i added mayb 2 GB more of RAM help?

[deadrats]

i've used avs video editor, with that program, the more ram the better, many video editing apps load substantial parts of the video file to memory and work from there, i have 4 gigs of ram and trying to edit a 4+ gig file with that app is a pain, i can't imagine with just 1 gig.

with respect to the cpu usage, you want a video editing app to make full use of your cpu, a good app would use all the cores of even an 8 core cpu.

having said that, if you're going to be doing video editing with 720p files on a regular basis, you would be doing yourself a huge favor by spending a couple of bucks and going with a more modern cpu with more cores and significantly greater amounts of ram.

"bulldozer" is due to be released Oct 12, depending on pricing and what the benchmarks show you could decide to go with either a 4, 6 or 8 core cpu based on that architecture or perhaps a sandy bridge based quad core, like a i5 2400.

no matter which way you go do yourself a favor and pick up 8 gigs of ram, if you shop around you can pick up ddr3 2x4gig modules for about $80.

[dragonkeeper]

deadrats is correct your machine is a bit underpowered for what you are trying to do, it can get the job done but it will be a painfully slow process. If thinngs are tight money wise or you just wanna wait to see how the new offerings from AMD spec out, i would look into upgrading the current system check to see if your mother board supports quad core chips and buy a couple of 2GB ram sticks. Upgrading to a quad core with 4GB of ram should set u back around $125

[jagabo]

I haven't used AVS Video Editor, but a dual core A64 3800+ is very anemic for editing h.264 video with long GOPs and no hardware GPU decoding.

Adding more RAM won't hurt, but running out of RAM usually doesn't cause CPU usage to max out. CPU usage drops because the CPU is waiting for the disk all the time (virtual memory) -- unless your disk drive has fallen out of DMA mode.

[NaHLiJ]

my computer can only hold 4 GB of RAM and 4 slots. I currently have 1 GB of RAM but im not sure if im using 2 slots of 512mb each.

Wait so gettin a new processor is what would make the video editing easier? Would having at least 2 GB RAM help and how much MORE help will 4 GB RAM be because I heard a jump from 2 GB to 4 GB isnt that great

[edDV]

I heard a jump from 2 GB to 4 GB isnt that great

In most cases CPU investment gets you the most performance.

The step up from 1 GB to 2 GB RAM will be a great positive with your current rig. Going to 4GB or higher will have less affect depending on the software being used.

If you upgrade from XP to Win7/8, 4 GB should be used because the OS itself is more RAM hungry.

[deadrats]

the thing to remember is that the cpu is the only thing that actually does any processing work (let's ignore the gpu for the sake of this discussion), the ram can be thought of as the bed of a pick up truck and the video file as the load you need to transport. a more powerful engine will allow you to carry a given load faster but a bigger bed will allow you to carry a bigger load. assuming you have the man power to load a bigger bed, you would be well advised to go with a bigger engine and larger bed.

so long as your app will use the ram (and avs editor does) then you would do well to up the ram in conjunction with the processor, but do yourself a big favor and don't dump any money trying to upgrade an old setup, spend a couple of hundred bucks and get yourself a quad core (a cheap AMD can be had for $100) and some nice ddr3.

[NaHLiJ]

so a quad core will allow me to run the program very smooth and does this apply to lets say, firefox starting up faster or opening up other programs and browsing through your folders faster?

also what do you mean as in trying to upgrade an old system? I can get 2 GB of RAM for $30 which i think is pretty cheap and if that would improve my performance where at least the program wont freeze (bcuz it will usually freeze and i have to start it up again) then i might just go with that, rather than spending 100$+ with a new AMD.

[jagabo]

I can get 2 GB of RAM for $30 which i think is pretty cheap and if that would improve my performance where at least the program wont freeze (bcuz it will usually freeze and i have to start it up again)

That's not likely a problem of too little RAM. If you wait a long time (several minutes, maybe even hours) does it ever come back to life?

[deadrats]

so a quad core will allow me to run the program very smooth and does this apply to lets say, firefox starting up faster or opening up other programs and browsing through your folders faster?

most certainly, especially if you do browse with a lot of tabs and have programs, like a firewall and A/V with heuristics turned on.

also what do you mean as in trying to upgrade an old system? I can get 2 GB of RAM for $30 which i think is pretty cheap and if that would improve my performance where at least the program wont freeze (bcuz it will usually freeze and i have to start it up again) then i might just go with that, rather than spending 100$+ with a new AMD.

there's a saying that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear; going back to the truck analogy, assuming you have an old work truck but you just bought a 25' boat and need to tow it up to the lake. you realize that your anemic 4 cylinder is really straining to pull that load; upgrading an old system is like wasting money buying a K&N filter, cat back exhaust and high performance chip just to get an extra 25hp and 25lb-ft torque at 500 lower rpm's: yeah the upgrade was cheap, yeah you upped the power and yeah when you're not towing you will see better acceleration and maybe slightly better fuel economy but you wasted your time as it's not going to make that much of a difference when towing that big ass boat up that big ass mountain.

with regards to that specific editor, the freezing is 100% due to running out of ram, if you open up task manager and look at your ram usage you will see that it's using almost all of it; it's one of the few programs i have ever seen that will use all the system ram you have; one of the reasons i stopped using that editor (and i love it's simplicity) is because even with 6 gigs of ram, if you load up a big 1080p file, that SOB will suck up all your ram and leave your system becomes a dog, on the bright side if you have 6gigs of ram and you load a 4gig file in the editor it's happy as a pick in shit.

if you don't wish to spend the $100+ on a decent upgrade, up the ram for the $30 or so you are willing to spend and stop using that editor, try avidemux, it's a nice competent editor, legally free and doesn't hog all the ram.

you have options, but if you're going to do any editing of HD materal, in an even semi-serious way, you would do well to bite the bullet (if you can) and get yourself a more modern setup. i know times are tough and perhaps the disposable income isn't what it could be but the aggravation and time you save yourself will be well worth it.

[NaHLiJ]

i really appreciate your help deadrats. Since you know alot about the program, do you know when you start lets say a movie it says it is "caching", once i let it sit there for a few hours and when i came back i was able to edit and skip around the movie easily, but if i open up a movie then i try to skip around and edit it right away, it is very laggy almost like it hasnt been buffered or something? Is the trick that you have to wait the movie to fully cache so that you edit it?

also how you said the freezing is due to running out of ram but i thought ram doesnt really have to do with the 100% CPU usage, it is mainly because the processor is to slow? so if i do have lets say 4 GB ram then the CPU usage wont be at 100% while i use it?

[deadrats]

i really appreciate your help deadrats. Since you know alot about the program, do you know when you start lets say a movie it says it is "caching", once i let it sit there for a few hours and when i came back i was able to edit and skip around the movie easily, but if i open up a movie then i try to skip around and edit it right away, it is very laggy almost like it hasnt been buffered or something? Is the trick that you have to wait the movie to fully cache so that you edit it?

"caching" means that it's copying portions of the file (in many cases the whole file) to ram; if you wait for it to finish then the entire movie is in ram and yes, assuming you have some ram left over, you will be able to work with the file smooth as silk, if you try and edit without letting it cache the program is trying to load the movie into ram and also obey your requests, that app isn't coded properly (i.e. to support shadow files), so you end up with a really crappy experience.

as i said i used to use it quite a bit, because i like all the effects it had and found it very easy to use (very intuitive) but the performance issues eventually drove me away; once in a while i download the trial of the latest release but they have kept the old code base and it's still the same shit.

if you're hell bent on using that app, add as much ram as you can, as i said that app is a ram hog (kind of reminds me of working with photoshop on the old imac's, due to the way it used ram OS9 developed a rep of being a "ram" OS, meaning that the more ram the better).

as a side note the same guys behind avs video editor have also released a free version called videopad video editor, under a different company name; tried it, same crap from a performance standpoint, i uninstalled it in less than an hour.

i don't know what kind of editing you do (transitions, effects, simple cutting) but if all you do is something like cut out commercials or splitting a file by scene try x media recode, easy to use and understand, free and works well with even 1080p.

[RabidDog]

Your discs might be a problem on such an old system .. if they are PATA 33 or 66. or running at 5400rpm, and especially if you are trying to run everything off one hard disc ???

Bandwidth, bandwidth bandwidth

A general system upgrade sounds in order.

[NaHLiJ]

yea all i do is like make a mix from scenes from a movie and the only thing i do is multi-trim and mayb sometimes use a slow motion but thats it.

going back to the processor thing; what kind of processor do you think would be good "enough" for video editing just so it wont freeze and stuff because all i really do is just trim and slow motion effects, it doesnt have to be perfectly smooth, so i dont need the best like, one for serious gaming. also something under at least $200 or lower 100's? thanks for your consideration once again..

[NaHLiJ]

Your discs might be a problem on such an old system .. if they are PATA 33 or 66. or running at 5400rpm, and especially if you are trying to run everything off one hard disc ???

Bandwidth, bandwidth bandwidth

A general system upgrade sounds in order.

i tried searching those terms rpm, and PATA but i couldnt find out what my computers is... umm if u mean by i only use one hard disc i think yes, i only use my C: drive to store stuff.

[Cruzonin]

Well it runs my CPU at 100% and my used Memory is 5.77 of 8 gb.
I am running win7 Intel core 2 Quad Q8200 ATI Radeon HD 4650 1024MB 8 gb ram with a 1 Tb HDD.
Not the best of the best but much better than you seem to be running to do this job.
So it seems to me it does not matter what you are running the program AVS is designed to use up all the resources your system has to offer.

My suggestion is to find another program that is not such a resource hog or plan to run the program and go to work for the day and hope it is finished when you come home.

[CalebTheEternal]

I am having the same problem, I have i7 3770 at 3.4 Ghz and I am using Windows Movie Maker, Yeah it sucks, and its running my CPU at 80+ % and also at 80 Celsius. 116 GB Ram

[glenpinn]

I am having the same problem, I have i7 3770 at 3.4 Ghz and I am using Windows Movie Maker, Yeah it sucks, and its running my CPU at 80+ % and also at 80 Celsius. 116 GB Ram

hi, i too have a 3770 cpu and 16gb ram in my editing pc, and i film weddings in 1080/50p avchd and use VRD as my main editing software, and my cpu also runs at over 80% usage while encoding my files, so dont be bothered by the 80% + cpu usage, that is normal for that cpu when encoding videos, especially if it is HD video.

even if the cpu runs at 100% you can still be able to use your pc for other stuff while the software is running an encode, and thats because the cpu will throttle back its usage on the editing software to allow you to do other things as well, thats the way intel design their sandy bridge and ivy bridge cpu's.

also, dont be bothered about the cpu running at 80 degrees, thats quite acceptable if it is running at over 80% usage, those cpu's are designed to run as hot as 110 degrees.

if you are concerned about the cpu temps, then maybe try to apply a better thermal paste to the cpu and heatsink, or buy a decent aftermarket cpu cooler.

to those using AVS software, i just suggest that you ditch it, it is by far one of the crappiest programs out there, there are much better programs that you can use, and some of them are free.

cheers