Radical Slowdown in Auto GK

[Greg12]

Since version 1.84, I have noticed Auto GK is an incredibly slow tool. It used to take 6-8 hours to produce a 2 hour movie and could produce a 30 minute DIVX in about 40-50 minutes on my P4 3.4GHZ system.

Now a 2 hour movie takes 16 hours and is only 70% done with pass 1 of 2. I dont know what part of it is bad but I have noticed one thing. THe programs it spawns are marked as "low" on processor priority.

It's a damn shame, there aren't any good alternatives. Im trying to find one because I can't wait 48-72 hours for my movie that on anouther system would be done in 8 hours.

[steve2713]

I'm using the latest version and it takes about 4 hours for a 2 pass XVID file, converting from a 1 hour 40 minute movie. I've got a P4 2.8ghz HT and 512mb RAM.

[manono]

It's not AutoGK; it's you and your computer.

Make sure you don't have anything running in the background that might steal CPU cycles. Make sure your hard drives aren't running in PIO mode. I run my encodes with VDubMod at Idle Priority, and it doesn't slow down unless I'm doing something else computer intensive at the same time.

Also, the time it takes to encode depends on any filters being used. If the film requires IVTC (check the log and the .avs), the encoding will go much more slowly than if it uses a straight Forced FILM (for NTSC people). So, not all movies will take the same time. But your current times do sound ridiculously slow.

To prove it's not AutoGK, you might try opening an .avs in VDubMod directly and running an encode to check the encoding speed. Or change the VDubMod Priority to Normal when it's running, and see if the encoding speed goes up. I'll bet it doesn't (again, unless you have something else running at the same time).

It's a damn shame, there aren't any good alternatives.

It's far and away the best noob-friendly (and lazy-people friendly) AVI encoding front end. I hope you get the problem sorted out, so you'll agree again. Good luck.

[Greg12]

how do i know if it's using itvc

[manono]

The .avs will have the Decomb Plugin loaded, and Telecide/Decimate lines in it. Their use will only slow the encoding by something like 25%, and nowhere near enough to account for the kinds of times you're getting.

[Greg12]

I am processing 2-4 frames per second

[manono]

Like I said, I think there's something going on with your computer that might be causing the slowdown. Have you checked out my other 2 suggestions? Also, is your CPU one of the ones that slows itself down when it heats up? I don't know, but some do.

[Greg12]

Before engaging Auto GK, I checked the system. The System Idol Process was running at 98.

I turned a turbo-fan on the computer. Frame encoding went up 2 frames.

I began encoding a 40 minute program. 8 hours later it was 80% done with pass one.

I used anouther program called simple divx, it didn't do what i wanted with the ifle size but it finnished in 10 hours. (2 hour movie)

[Greg12]

PS I've tried reformatting 4 times.

[manono]

Hi-

Are you saying you took off the cover and blew a table fan on it? And the FPS went up by 2? And you were getting 2-4fps before? So, blowing the fan increased your FPS by 50-100%? If so, then I think it can possibly be hardware related. That is, nothing is quite as CPU intensive as video encoding. Are you overclocked? Do you have a way to monitor CPU temperatures? If you are overheating, and if your CPU does throttle itself when getting overheated, then that could certainly be the cause of your problems.

So, the possible remedies might include turning down the overclock, checking to see that both the CPU and heatsink are seated properly, applying fresh heatsink paste, and adding fans to the computer.

If I misunderstood about what a turbo fan is, then take the cover off anyway, and blow a table fan over the CPU and see if that helps.

[Greg12]

It's a laptop so I couldn't take the top off or anything but I put it on my desk, hooked up the cooling pad, then took my desk fan (which looks like a jet engine and the model is turbo-fan) and pointed at my laptop so that the air would go in the front and get carried out the back and the FPS went up by 2.

I ran simple divx and the system randomly shuts down sometimes when it begins encoding. I'm not overclocked. I'm running a desktop replacement laptop.

[RabidDog]

Not to put to fine a point on it .. but your laptop system sounds like a (expletive withheld) .. try encoding these things on your proper desktop and they should be done in 4-8 hours .. you have very low memory and a pretty slow cpu. Autogk works fine ....

[Sober]

Its not your computer my friend, its the actual program itself. I used TMPgENC with no problems whatsoever and with AutoGK its really slow its untrue.