Can't squeeze 100% performance out of my machine. WHY?

[anubis13]

I run vista 64, intel quad core 2.8 ghz, 8 gigs ram, 3tb of storage space.

When I encode to mpeg with vegas 9 64 bit or Mainconcept Mpeg encoder my processors never really go above 50% usage. I use the task manager and everest ultimate 5 to gauge my CPU utilization

I would like to use more than 50% of my gear. Anyone know how or why this happens?

[poisondeathray]

Often there are other bottlenecks

e.g. if you are color correcting, filtering , rendering etc... these might not be multithreaded, so the data arrives at the encoder too slow to saturate all your cores

[anubis13]

that stinks

[akrako1]

when you view the CPU usage of each individual core, what do you see? If you have a quad-core machine, and you're using at most 50%, then I'd assume that the software is only capable of using 2 threads (thus cores). I'd expect to see two cores running at near 100%, and the other 2 basically at idle.

just my $.02

[anubis13]

in everest all 4 flopping between 35-55% once in a while one will hit 65% but no higher.

[redwudz]

Just for an experiment, you might try running graysky's benchmark test: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic347859.html It should run all four cores at 100%. If it doesn't you may have a problem. If it does, maybe just the software you are using isn't multi-threaded.

[ocgw]

I run vista 64, intel quad core 2.8 ghz, 8 gigs ram, 3tb of storage space.

When I encode to mpeg with vegas 9 64 bit or Mainconcept Mpeg encoder my processors never really go above 50% usage. I use the task manager and everest ultimate 5 to gauge my CPU utilization

I would like to use more than 50% of my gear. Anyone know how or why this happens?

Most likely your HDD's are not keeping up w/ your cpu's, I'l bet you are doing SD video, w/ HD this would rarely happen

If am correct the only way to improve your system performance is to use faster hard drives

What hard drive(s) are you using now?

ocgw

peace

[akrako1]

is your hard-disk activity light flashing rapidly or solidly on during these operations? if not, then your hard drive speed isn't the bottleneck.

[anubis13]

yes I am doing SD video.

I have a 1.5tb 7200 rpm Seagate Free agent External USB (the video comes on and off this drive)
a western digital Diamond 7200 rpm 600Gb for the os
a 1tb Seagate Barracuda LP 5400 rpm for extra storage

if I were doing HD I would get a RAID setup with 10,000 rpm drives

[ocgw]

yes I am doing SD video.

I have a 1.5tb 7200 rpm Seagate Free agent External USB (the video comes on and off this drive)
a western digital Diamond 7200 rpm 600Gb for the os
a 1tb Seagate Barracuda LP 5400 rpm for extra storage

if I were doing HD I would get a RAID setup with 10,000 rpm drives

Contrary to popular belief HDD rotational speed DOES NOT = transfer rates

I have been "doing" HD for years, trust me, you don't need RAID unless you are running uncompressed video

My Samsung F3 1TB HDD's sustained transfer rates exceed my 10,000rpm WD Raptors and even my 15,000rpm Fujitsu Serial Attached SCSI's (on the LSI Logic Host Bus Adaptor)

Your bottleneck is the usb connection

Mount your video drive internally or w/ an E-sata enclosure and your problem is solved

You can take that to the bank

ocgw

peace

[anubis13]

I moved the file to my internal drive (os) and i still got CPU usage under 60% with Mainconcept mpeg encoder
i tried graysky's and the cpus hit 100%. I didn't finish the whole test.
Vegas 9 64 bit gave me between 85 to 90% cpu usage.

I'm thinking Mainconcept 1.3 isn't optimized for quad cores as much as newer software.

[jagabo]

Many MPEG encoders don't use more than 2 cores very well. Especially the ones that come "free" with packages like Pinnacle Studio, Ulead Videostudio, etc. x264 (graysky benchmark) is much better at using multiple cores.