Premiere Pro 2.0 rendering speed concerns... at DVinfo.net

Peter Manojlovic · July 17th, 2007, 12:52 PM

Okay, so my new system is an HPwX9300 2x Dualcore Opteron 270..
Disk drives and arrays are configured optimally....(ie separate OS, audio, capture, and video scratch disks)....

Scenario...
I've noticed that rendering from my timeline only results in a 33-35% CPU load via taskmanager...
The tasks are doled out to each CPU unevenly.. but that's not my issue...
I've been forwarned that Premiere Pro wasn't a heavily threaded application, like Vegas might be..

My concern is the 33-35% CPU load...I was hoping to at least push it to 65%..
I cannot find any information on unlocking the potential for more CPU allocation..
Of course, i've tried setting a higher priority, and realtime priority, but that was fruitless..Apart from setting the Affiinity to the One Core, i'm at a loss..

Are most people finding the same results??

Marco Wagner · July 17th, 2007, 01:22 PM

I'm seeing mine go from 30's to 90's. For me, it seems to depend on how intense the render is. For example, just simple cuts, it renders at the lower percentages. For huge effects and such, that's where i see the jump.

Peter Manojlovic · July 17th, 2007, 01:51 PM

What's more odd, is that after the 50% render mark, speed slows down significantly..
It's definately not indicitave of the realtime playback that i'm getting (although i don't tie the two together)...

I'll do some more tests, as to what kind of filters, effects, and sequences tend to slow down rendering significantly..
But I don't understand why CPU load would have the to suffer for this..
I can understand slowdowns due to extra cycle times, and plugin architectures, nonetheless, if CPU load moved to higher grounds, then one can discuss about overall speed...(even playing field discussions)..

It's like i've got a Ferrari, and am driving on cheap All Season tires...

Chris Soucy · July 17th, 2007, 09:06 PM

If the cpu is idling during rendering, it's waiting.

Could be a heap of reasons - not enough memory so it's waiting on disc accesses to get data, a bottleneck in your North/Southbridge, a video card (s) hogging bus bandwidth (if you're using two cards in SLI mode this can really chew up bus bandwidth).

Are your disc drives and controllers up to the job - I would recommend at least two 7200 rpm 16mb buffer drives in Raid 0 on the fastest Sata 300 controller (if you have more than one) as a minimum, for getting good data bandwidth to/ from your hard drives. Keep them de - fragged and don't let them get more than 60% full.

CS

Peter Manojlovic · July 18th, 2007, 05:52 AM

I would agree with bottlenecking issues, but my workstation is a powerhouse..
It's an NVIDIA nForce Professional chipset, 2gig RAM. A 10000RPM OS drive, 500g data drive (audio conform), 1Terabyte capture drive, and a 73 gig U320 SCSI video scratch disk.
It's a Matxrox validated station, so i would guess that hardware isn't an issue.

But to assure myself of your same statements, i used a very intensive encoding application as a measuring stick.

Example:
I installed an old trial version of CCE encoder.
I loaded an .AVI and ran the encoder with no filters..
It was 5X realtime encoding...All four CPU's running at 60+%....My jaw dropped..
I'm definately investing in a Sharpie pen and colouring over my bottom LCD to remove the watermark...

So i continued to use the CCE plugin that allows for encoding straight off the Premiere timeline..
All of a sudden, encoding times dropped to .45x realtime, and CPU was similair to Premiere rendering circumstances...

Therefore, i have my concerns about Premiere's timeline handling..

July 17th, 2007, 12:52 PM	#1
Peter Manojlovic Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Hamilton Ontario Posts: 769	Premiere Pro 2.0 rendering speed concerns... Okay, so my new system is an HPwX9300 2x Dualcore Opteron 270.. Disk drives and arrays are configured optimally....(ie separate OS, audio, capture, and video scratch disks).... Scenario... I've noticed that rendering from my timeline only results in a 33-35% CPU load via taskmanager... The tasks are doled out to each CPU unevenly.. but that's not my issue... I've been forwarned that Premiere Pro wasn't a heavily threaded application, like Vegas might be.. My concern is the 33-35% CPU load...I was hoping to at least push it to 65%.. I cannot find any information on unlocking the potential for more CPU allocation.. Of course, i've tried setting a higher priority, and realtime priority, but that was fruitless..Apart from setting the Affiinity to the One Core, i'm at a loss.. Are most people finding the same results??

July 17th, 2007, 01:22 PM	#2
Marco Wagner Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Saint Cloud, Florida Posts: 1,043	I'm seeing mine go from 30's to 90's. For me, it seems to depend on how intense the render is. For example, just simple cuts, it renders at the lower percentages. For huge effects and such, that's where i see the jump. __________________ www.facebook.com/projectspecto

July 17th, 2007, 09:06 PM	#4
Chris Soucy Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Fairfield, Dunedin, New Zealand Posts: 3,691 Images: 18	Hi Peter................. If the cpu is idling during rendering, it's waiting. Could be a heap of reasons - not enough memory so it's waiting on disc accesses to get data, a bottleneck in your North/Southbridge, a video card (s) hogging bus bandwidth (if you're using two cards in SLI mode this can really chew up bus bandwidth). Are your disc drives and controllers up to the job - I would recommend at least two 7200 rpm 16mb buffer drives in Raid 0 on the fastest Sata 300 controller (if you have more than one) as a minimum, for getting good data bandwidth to/ from your hard drives. Keep them de - fragged and don't let them get more than 60% full. CS

July 17th, 2007, 01:51 PM	#3
Peter Manojlovic Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Hamilton Ontario Posts: 769	What's more odd, is that after the 50% render mark, speed slows down significantly.. It's definately not indicitave of the realtime playback that i'm getting (although i don't tie the two together)... I'll do some more tests, as to what kind of filters, effects, and sequences tend to slow down rendering significantly.. But I don't understand why CPU load would have the to suffer for this.. I can understand slowdowns due to extra cycle times, and plugin architectures, nonetheless, if CPU load moved to higher grounds, then one can discuss about overall speed...(even playing field discussions).. It's like i've got a Ferrari, and am driving on cheap All Season tires...

July 18th, 2007, 05:52 AM	#5
Peter Manojlovic Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Hamilton Ontario Posts: 769	I would agree with bottlenecking issues, but my workstation is a powerhouse.. It's an NVIDIA nForce Professional chipset, 2gig RAM. A 10000RPM OS drive, 500g data drive (audio conform), 1Terabyte capture drive, and a 73 gig U320 SCSI video scratch disk. It's a Matxrox validated station, so i would guess that hardware isn't an issue. But to assure myself of your same statements, i used a very intensive encoding application as a measuring stick. Example: I installed an old trial version of CCE encoder. I loaded an .AVI and ran the encoder with no filters.. It was 5X realtime encoding...All four CPU's running at 60+%....My jaw dropped.. I'm definately investing in a Sharpie pen and colouring over my bottom LCD to remove the watermark... So i continued to use the CCE plugin that allows for encoding straight off the Premiere timeline.. All of a sudden, encoding times dropped to .45x realtime, and CPU was similair to Premiere rendering circumstances... Therefore, i have my concerns about Premiere's timeline handling..