I built a super computer for editing but it still seems slow

[Arbutis]

After much research and a lot of money I finally built my powerhouse:
Win10 pro 64bit, 64 GB DDR4 RAM, Intel i9 14 core CPU, MSI 1080Ti GPU, M.2 1 TB main drive, 500 GB SSD Samsung Pro drive, 6TB Seagate storage drive, etc, etc, etc.

I thought this machine would be fast as lightning for any video project I would throw at it.

I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 as my primary editing software - I am not using the latest PP software only because I choose NOT to be a monthly subscriber to Adobe. (yet this could be where I have a speed problem?)

I primarily will be shooting with GoPro, DSLR, and other Vidoe Cams in a 1080p format. My thoughts in upgrading to this new computer was to enter the 4K world and start editing in that resolution and higher frame rates.

However, after setting everything up - I still find Premiere Pro to be quite laggy. I can't believe it myself because just about every component I bought for this system was designed to be overkill for its intention. I pushed everything to the MAX and paid a bundle for it - yet I still don't feel like my performance is any better than my previous build which was less than half the machine this one is.

I went to a website to do a benchmark test of all my hardware to make sure that it was all running as it was intended and all components seemed to pass with above average performance. No noticeable problems there.

The only thing I can see as a potential bottleneck is the PP CS6 software. However, this system should STILL crank out incredible speeds with this software. I just don't get it.

For example, when I move video clips into the timeline they most always have a yellow bar over the top even before any editing. I am 'creating the sequence from the source clip' so there is no mismatch. As soon as i put in some small edits and transitions the bar turns red. If I start throwing in too many layers or effects, it starts to lag in preview and certain effects seem to take a ridiculous amount of time to process. This beast of a machine SHOULD be able to handle 100 times the editing I'm throwing at it.
Example 2: I shot some drone footage at 1080p 60fps and after importing the footage I could not even play a preview of the clips in real time without any changes made or edits. I had to completely render the 60fps footage down to 24 fps and save it as a new video before I was able to include it in my timeline without any lags or performance problems. Something is not right.

Sorry for the long thread but after spending so much money and time and research for this system for the whole purpose of creating much better quality videos, I am finding myself more frustrated than ever just trying to get the smallest of tasks completed.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[poisondeathray]

For example, when I move video clips into the timeline they most always have a yellow bar over the top even before any editing. I am 'creating the sequence from the source clip' so there is no mismatch. As soon as i put in some small edits and transitions the bar turns red. If I start throwing in too many layers or effects, it starts to lag in preview and certain effects seem to take a ridiculous amount of time to process. This beast of a machine SHOULD be able to handle 100 times the editing I'm throwing at it.
Example 2: I shot some drone footage at 1080p 60fps and after importing the footage I could not even play a preview of the clips in real time without any changes made or edits. I had to completely render the 60fps footage down to 24 fps and save it as a new video before I was able to include it in my timeline without any lags or performance problems. Something is not right.

Example #2 suggests something definitely wrong , if the source footage is "normal" AVC directly from a hardware recorder such as a drone, camcorder, dslr .

Example #1 depends on what was done exactly; "too many layers or effects" is pretty vague . 25 layers is going to be slower than 3. That can potentially grind down faster hardware than your setup rather quickly. It also depends on which ones, and how many. Some effects render fast. Some render very slowly (e.g. some types of denoisers). Some effects are GPU accelerated . More effects are GPU accelerated in newer CC versions than CS6. Some combinations might be 10x faster for example, or no difference on CC

There could be some issue or incompatibility with MPE and your drivers. 1080Ti came out long after CS6. You can try setting MPE to not use GPU/Cuda and see if that makes a difference . (Not ideal, because it's much faster when working properly)

You said you ran some benchmark software, but that was only generic, right ? There used to be a Premiere Pro benchmark suite on the Adobe forums specific to Premiere that might help you figure out what is going on.

[Arbutis]

I did figure out a 'workaround' in order to get the CS6 project to use the GPU/CUDA for rendering and this has seemed to greatly improve rendering time. However, I'm not entirely concerned about rendering time because once I FINISH a project, I can usually hit render and go to sleep for the night. I care much more about the lagginess while creating a project.

In my first example, I'm only talking about the very basic of layers and transitions with minimal effect. Not your 20 layers and multiple transitions all over the place. I would just like to be able to scroll/wipe smoothly through my videos as I am creating and editing without many lags or delays.

[poisondeathray]

In my first example, I'm only talking about the very basic of layers and transitions with minimal effect. Not your 20 layers and multiple transitions all over the place. I would just like to be able to scroll/wipe smoothly through my videos as I am creating and editing without many lags or delays.

Well your example #2 already raises a red flag if it was just simple edits


But it depends on how you define a "delay" . Editors who do this a lot, "feel" anything is a delay compared to the instantaneous smoothness of something like DV . SD resolution, I frame.

For a single video layer 1920x1080p59.94 , if it's standard AVC , it should "feel" just a bit slower than something like DV. I'm talking like a few ms in difference. It should feel almost instantaneous when jumping around on the timeline. There won't be any difference between a 4 year old quad core and your computer for single layer scrubbing. It will "feel" the same in terms of latency.

You should be able to do that with at least a few layers , and transitions should be GPU accelerated, even in CS5 , even on older computers, quad cores, a few generations older and much slower than yours , with GPU's 5x slower than yours - if your videos were "standard". You should be able to scrub through (navigate) at full resolution (you shouldn't even have to reduce resolution like 1/2 or 1/4 or something like that - maybe for UHD video) . ie. you should be able to get realtime playback on the fly with just a few layers , and simple edits and transitions without having to pre-render everything

But if your videos were non standard (e.g very long GOP's , many b-frames , different bit depths. ) - but those are not typical of hardware encoders - that could also explain it. Or maybe HEVC - but I don't think CS6 had a HEVC decoder yet

[poisondeathray]

I did figure out a 'workaround' in order to get the CS6 project to use the GPU/CUDA for rendering and this has seemed to greatly improve rendering time. However, I'm not entirely concerned about rendering time because once I FINISH a project, I can usually hit render and go to sleep for the night. I care much more about the lagginess while creating a project.

GPU/MPE/CUDA helps with editing too, because some effects/transitions are instantaneously rendered, instead of having to rely on CPU and slowing down. It depends on what you're doing exactly , but even simple things like resizing can be accelerated (something as simple as an insert , overlay, PIP etc... is accelerated because it's resized)

So I'm not only talking about exporting the whole thing, it's faster and "snappier" during the process of editing.

[Arbutis]

I agree with what everyone is commenting on. Sounds like my machine 'should' be performing well enabling me to scrub through the timeline with ease.

So how come it isn't??? That's why I'm frustrated. I don't know what else to do to test to improve.

[october262]

I agree with what everyone is commenting on. Sounds like my machine 'should' be performing well enabling me to scrub through the timeline with ease.

So how come it isn't??? That's why I'm frustrated. I don't know what else to do to test to improve.

try updating the graphics card drivers. also do a google search for Premiere Pro to be quite laggy
and see the results.

[KarMa]

In the Adobe PP menus, there's an option for accelerated H.264 Intel decoding which might help (Prefrences --> Media). Besides that I would look into editing with proxies.

[Arbutis]

Based on my system specs, I shouldn't have to edit with proxies. It should be fast as lightning based on all of the research I put into each component.

I have my OS and Adobe programs on the m.2 drive (C drive)
I move all of my clips to a 500GB SSD drive and edit and save all my stuff there while working.
When finished, I transfer all of my working and completed project files to a 6TB HDD. (to minimize clutter on the SSD)

What am I doing wrong?

[Waloshin]

You built a supercomputer but decided to use outdated software CS6. CC 2019 is way more optimized for your i9, Gtx 1080 Ti; which I understand you do not want to pay a yearly fee and neither did I. Try Resolve works way better than premiere cs6 and will blow your mind in how fast you can scrub through your timeline .

[lordsmurf]

You'll never scrub GOP very well.
Smart renderers scrub by I frames, while full NLE scrub frame by frame.
I would assume a "H264 optimize" features actually tells the NLE to only scrub I frame. Failing that, you need a proxy.

I don't think CS6 vs CC is the issue.

[smrpix]

You can eliminate or confirm CC vs CS6 as the culprit by downloading the free trial of CC and seeing if it makes a difference.

Don't be scared off by proxies in Premiere (especially in CC.) They are quick to make and easy to swap out. Makes life a lot more pleasant.

[budwzr]

Don't forget Adobe software is built in a clickable bitmap. Not a native Windows application. Most of the processing is done by brute force, not Windows Database Optimized.

[TimA-C]

Have you got your HDD settings in BIOS set for AHCI and is Windows 10 also set for AHCI? (there are some registry keys you can check. Google is your friend.) With 64Gb of RAM I'm guessing you could reduce the size of your swap file? If you bring up the task manager whilst in Premiere, can you see any other processes active that might be slowing you down?

[sophisticles]

This is definitely software related; I'm assuming the OP did a clean install of Win 10 and drivers? If not, that would be the first thing to do. But as has already been pointed out, to spend that kind of money on a new pc build and then be too cheap to by the latest software, which is optimized for this kind of hardware, is just mind boggling.

Download the trial versions of the newest versions of Vegas, Resolve, etc and see if that makes a difference.

My system is nowhere near as beefy as the OPS, I have an R5 1600, 8 GB DDR4 2400, couple of SSD's. GTX1050, and a 20 GB swap partition and using Ubuntu + Shotcut I am able to smoothly scrub through 4k, even with multiple browser tabs open. The only 4k I can't smoothly scrub through, or play back smoothly, is the MXF variant of Tears of Steel, the Netflix samples such as that massive 96 GB sample they released and a couple of 4k samples from Harmonics, but everything else, including 2160p60 ProRes, HEVC, AVC and long GOP MPEG-2 I can play back, edit and scrub through smoothly.

The Ops system should not experience so much as a hiccup.

[gta5]

the problem is software, change it.
i use vegas pro

[Arbutis]

Thanks guys. I bit the bullet and upgraded to PP CC 2019. This definitely helped a lot. Still laggy with 1080p @ 60 fps and anything 4K related but as long as I stay in the 1080p 24-30fps range, I think I'm good.

Appreciate the advice.

[sophisticles]

Thanks guys. I bit the bullet and upgraded to PP CC 2019. This definitely helped a lot. Still laggy with 1080p @ 60 fps and anything 4K related but as long as I stay in the 1080p 24-30fps range, I think I'm good.

Appreciate the advice.

There's still something wrong, you're system should not lag at all with "1080p60 and anything 4k related", as I said my system can do most 4k smoothly and I have yet to see any 1080p, regardless of frame rate or how many filters and effects I'm using, that causes it to lag.

Have you done a clean install of OS and drivers after you built the system?

[Arbutis]

Yes. I built it, installed Win10 Pro, updated all drivers, tested speed online on a site that does a benchmark for all of your hardware components. Everything was flying.

The only thing I have not done yet is to explore Overclocking my system. I didn't even think I would need to do that with all of the components I have. Think it's worth a try?

Otherwise, I don't really know how to 'test' the true power of my mega-computer system. The only thing I know for sure is that I can't do anything 4K related in a hurry - which basically has me doing everything at 1080p 24fps just so I don't get frustrated. Currently I don't NEED 4k or higher fps for my projects - it would just be nice to know I could if I really wanted or needed to.

Considering: Overclocking, using Proxies for 4k or higher fps

???

[poisondeathray]

Yes, if 1080p60 is not smooth, not realtime or greater - for sure that indicates a problem . Red flag there . That should scrub and playback fluidly on all decent systems (quad core in the last 4-5 years), at full resolution (you shouldn't have to reduce the preview , but that's an option for slower computers) . That is hardware much slower than yours

UHD/4K is always perceptibly slower when seeking , on any system . The description is a continuum of smoothness . It will never be lightspeed instantaneous as I-frame SD DV for example . What one person describes as "smooth" can be perceived extremely laggy for someone else when seeking. It's about perspective and feel .

But if you can't get realtime playback on 1080p60 footage (ie. dropping frames during playback, not even scrubbing) , something is wrong if that is standard AVC footage, L4.2 , from a camera.

Something else wrong ? Such as temps, throttling ? Doing other stuff in the background, virus scan etc... ?

[TimA-C]

Seriously, check the AHCI settings in the BIOS and the relevant registry keys as that could definitely reduce hdd performance.

I also have a vague memory that there were some issues with a particular chipset and M.2 drives a while back? Make sure your chipset/hdd controller drivers are fully up to date - don't just rely on Windows update - and that your motherboard BIOS is the latest available from the manufacturer. Finally, make sure that your memory has been properly detected by the motherboard and is running at full speed. (It's not *that* uncommon to have to manually set the memory settings with high end RAM.)