VS10 and system optimization

lespurgeon · Post by **lespurgeon** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 5:49 am

I bought/downloaded VS10+ last week to do a rush edit job for work. I was waiting on Pinnacle to arrive in the mail, but based on my VS10 experience, may never bother loading Pinnacle when it comes...

So a couple of quesitons,
I have a dual core AMD X2 4400+. I get 100% use of one core, and 0 of the other. Is there any way to turn multi-threading support on in the rendering engine? Also, I have 2 gig. ram, but the software never appears to use more than 300 MB or so. Any setting to tell it that it can take over more memory, as you can do with Photoshop?

I have not gone digging into .ini files yet.

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 9:11 pm

As far as I know, there is no way to use both cores 100%. I think Ulead would have to tweak the compiling at their end. As you may know, it's not always easy to split a single task into two equal threads. But, if you render two projects at the same time, you might be able to utilize all of your processing power!

I don't think that you can increase memory usage either. And it might not help, since with video editing all of the data has to be read from the hard disk, processed, then and written back to the hard disk. You are processing a few frames at a time, and you don't really need a lot of data sitting in memory.

lespurgeon · Post by **lespurgeon** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 9:25 pm

Thanks DVDDoug. Kind of what I figured, but I had hoped some of those optimizations had happened between V9 and V10.

I also cleaned up those bad typos in the original post...

dufus · Post by **dufus** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 6:16 pm

VS10 with dual core.
I upgraded from VS9 to VS10 and got the same (100% on one core only).
HOWEVER
I tried an install on a clean os (XP Prof SP2) and got 100% on both cores.

I tried changing the affinity of vsstudio.exe and vsstudio.dat on the first scenario but VS10 kept reseting the affinity to one core. On the second scenario the affinity "sticks".

There's something on the system/in the registry from either another app or the previous version which VS10 does not like.

Any ideas?

PeterMilliken · Post by **PeterMilliken** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 8:53 pm

Well isn't this just typical of ULead's lack of product testing? How many times have we seen problems in new releases because of inadequate testing with a previous version installed?

It certainly explains why their web-site claims the use of both cores but many of us with dual cores have seen no difference. All the posts re dual-core I have seen have been from people who have VS 9 installed, so assuming there is some setting that needs to change but the VS 10 install doesn't change it properly (or at all?).

Just a plain lack of comprehensive testing on ULead's part (again) - based on previous history they'll release at least one patch that doesn't fix the problem before they get it right.

I guess we'll probably have to wait for VS 11 before we finally get dual-core usage without hassles....

Peter

Post by **Ron P.** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:49 pm

That does take the cake, So in other words maybe they should have added the instruction to the installion of If you have a dual core system, To install VS10:

Reformat your hard drive.
Do not install any other Ulead applications.
Install VS10.

...

At least we would know...

dufus · Post by **dufus** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 1:17 am

To be fair it could be some other app or setting I've accumulated over the months since XP was last installed.

If it get the time I'll Ghost back my clean XP, install VS9, uninstall it then install VS10 just to see...

If it is VS9 maybe a InCtrl5 registry compare to see what VS9 leaves behind will tell us something.
Don't hold your breath - I'm a bit busy atm.

lespurgeon · Post by **lespurgeon** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 3:07 am

Not my issue.
I've never had a prior version of ulead anything on my machine.
Odd...

PeterMilliken · Post by **PeterMilliken** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 3:18 am

dufus wrote:There's something on the system/in the registry from either another app or the previous version which VS10 does not like.

I guess it is possible that it is "another app" as dufus speculates - although it would surprise me that another app could affect the behaviour of VS at this level - a more likely culprit (to my mind) would be a setting from a previous version such as VS 9.

I am not sure whether I have a Ghost image of my machine with just XP (well, I know I haven't since it came from Dell preloaded) but if I get a chance I'll re-image with the earliest image I have (it would have to be before I loaded VS 9) and see whether VS 10 (trial) uses both cores or not...

Who knows, now might be a good time to try out the installation CDs that Dell sent with my computer

Although that would definitely require more time than I have and I am not intending to update to VS 10 anyway - I have decided to jump across to MSP 8.

Peter

PeterMilliken · Post by **PeterMilliken** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:34 am

I just restored my computer to its shipped state (Microsoft Works, MacAfee virus scanner etc etc - no previous version of VS) and installed VS 10 - trial. No difference in rendering speed - CPU utilisation never got above 50%. I checked the affinity and it indicated that both CPU's were enabled - VS10 just didn't seem to want to use them.

I really don't have the time to load the system from scratch - I guess it is still possible that "some other app" is causing VS 10 (trial) to not use the second core but I don't think this very likely - ULead would have just about had to test in a vacuum for them not to notice interference from other apps...

So the puzzle of why VS 10 doesn't use both cores when rendering continues....

Peter

dufus · Post by **dufus** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 11:41 am

Ok - this is bizzarre
I Ghosted a vanilla XP (no extras at all), installed VS9 and guess what - I got both cores up to 97% - PC was flat out - full size mpeg processing faster than real time. I never got both cores to work together when I was using VS9 under my "loaded" OS.
I didn't think VS9 supported dual core/HT...

It also automatically set the affinity to both "CPUs" btw

What gives?

Maybe it's a codec like divx/lame or antivirus (which I haven't installed on the vanilla XP) which VS doesn't like...

In case anybody is curious, it's the same PC just booting off a different disk so VS can't be "seeing" anything different in the HW unless it "prefers" ATA over SATA!

Another depressing thing is the uninstall. Inctrl5 shows hundreds of additions to the registry even after a full uninstall (incl. Quick time and smartsound)

dufus · Post by **dufus** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 2:32 pm

Update

Started again:
Vanilla XP Pro SP2
Windows Update with all patches
installed DivX6.2 codec
Installed VS9
VS9 used BOTH cores
Installed DVDMF4
Both MF4 and VS9 used both cores
Uninstalled MF4
VS9 used both cores
Uninstalled VS9
Installed VS10
VS10 used both cores
---End---

VS10 still does NOT use both cores when booted from my "normal" disk.
If only we knew why VS10 (or the OS maybe) turns off the affinity for vstudio.dat...

There's 4 hours of my life I won't get back

PeterMilliken · Post by **PeterMilliken** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 7:37 pm

Interesting that VS 9 uses both cores - did you render long enough to be certain that there was going to be a noticeable improvement in rendering time? (just an idle question - of course it would with both cores running - unless the same rendering was happening on both cores in parallel

).

Maybe what we need is several computer images i.e. one image that contains VS capable of using both cores and the 'other' for when we want to do something other than video editing?

I use Image for Windows for my imaging. I keep the image files in a second disk partition for speedy restoring (backup held on DVD as well

), so it should be possible to have two sets of image files on that second partition and just swap between them as needed.

I'll try and create a basic system from scratch this weekend and see whether I can get one that allows VS9/10 to use both cores...

Peter

dufus · Post by **dufus** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:03 pm

To answer your "idle" question.
VS9/clean os/2 cores 221 seconds
VS10/"normal os"/1 core 340 seconds (54% longer)

Here's a tip.

If you're just converting files (ie not adding filters, joining etc) use batch convert and put a dummy short file at the top of the list. When VS10 is converting the first dummy file, set the affinity to both cores and all subsequent conversions in the list use both cores.
It seems VS forgets to reset the affinity in this case!

We need a patch to disable the reseting of the affinity!!!!!

Xyzzy2 · Post by **Xyzzy2** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 2:19 pm

Wild guess- some Microsoft critical patch? But then Ulead would immediately know it as well.

Anyway, maybe in addition to System configuration, there should be Programs button, presenting at least all resident software ("system tray icons") of a user, to help solve problems?

X.