VideoStudio X10 not utilizing CPU or GPU

[w1cked]

Hey,

so I am rendering a 30 minute long video with FHD 60fps input, that is supposed to be also 1080p 50fps or 60fps in output.

The rendering process is painfully slow on my workstation, which is pretty beefy in terms of hardware configuration: RyZen 1700 8core/16thread CPU, Geforce 970 second-to-current-gen graphics card and 16gigs of RAM. The rendering takes well over 2.5 hours to complete. By comparison, my Surface Pro 4 with a Core i7-6650U and onboard graphics barely outperforms my desktop workstation. How is it that a 15 Watt ULV processor can show almost identical render times in h.264 as my 65 Watt desktop cpu?

As you can see in the attached screenshot(*), neither the CPU or GPU are utilized during the rendering process. The CPU occasionally spikes to around 70% usage for a few seconds, then drops down to under 30% and even under 10% most of the time. As can be seen in the hardware monitor, the GPU is not even used at all.

I have tried different output formats all in full HD resolution and 60fps and they show similar results.

Is this due to VS X10 only using Intel's quick sync video but not using any comparable AMD technology? Can we expect Ryzen to be supported in upcoming releases?

Thanks for your advice.

* http://abload.de/image.php?img=vsx10-renderufo2b.png

[asik1]

Hi,
It's a known issue. VS hardly uses the GPU.
Have you tried WMV, here on my i5 it will render at 80+%.
and on AMD ???
Have you used NB tuneup? very slow...

[lata]

Hi

I don’t pretend to understand graphic acceleration, I do not have a graphics card but rely on “on-board graphics”
Even so my processor goes all out in rendering my video.

From Preferences only the top option is selected for performance acceleration.

click image for larger view

[w1cked]

@asik1
I don't really know what NB tuneup is. Using WMV changed nothing for me

@lata
I checked all acceleration options before, now for testing purposes I also only selected the top one, still no change for H.264 and H.265. The CPU usage spikes occasionally and is around 10 to 30% the rest of the time. Also, the rendering is roughly the same speed as before, which makes sense as the GPU was at 0% usage.

I can see that VS uses 80-90% of the CPU and onboard graphics on my Surface Pro 4 TabletPC with the Core i7, so I assume this issue is specifically to do with newer AMD Ryzen processors, if you say that you see no issues with an AMD A10.

How long would it approx. take your machine to encode 30 mins of FHD video?

[lata]

First I do not have H265 capability, well VS wont let me do that?

The render times depend on a few factors, what we are rendering from and to being one of them.
The amount of edits and complexity of any filters will extend render times.
Take care when testing as Smart Render would influence the second render.

You can repeat this and will be using same clips.
I took the three sample Mpeg4 clips, added to timeline multiple times. 18 clips at 2 minutes
Then rendered to AVCHD as below

MPEG Transport-Stream Files
24 bits, 1920 x 1080, 25 fps
Frame-based
(HDMV-PAL), 16:9
H.264 Video
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 20000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 384 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio, 48 KHz, 2/0(L,R)

Cpu above 90%
Time to render 2 min 35 sec, just over real time

Another test…

If I add my MTS from Panasonic camcorder and render to same properties
13 clips total 3 min 53 sec
Time to render 1 min 20 seconds, well under real time.

PAL double (50 fps)
MPEG Transport-Stream Files
24 bits, 1920 x 1080, 50 fps
Frame-based
(HDMV-PAL), 16:9
H.264 Video
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 26000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 384 kbps


Ok
I did another using my MTS files 1920 x 1008 x 25fps v 16800kbps,
5 minutes of video 23 clips took 1 min 10 seconds.
Cpu was low, below 40%, I guess Video Studio found these easier to handle.

As I say it is not easy to compare

[BikerDave1]

FWIW and my two cents, once I got my system up to working properly in a 64-bit environment I ran a comparo between VS X10.5 and ________ video editing software (it is the leader in CPU/GPU usage for AMD utilization and priced just above VS x10.5. PM me if you want to know which one). The results? VS X10.5 won!! The compare included 2 FX's/2 clips and in 4K rez @ 94MB bitrate content which was ~40 sec faster in a ~10 min timeline. I was surprised enough by the results that I felt convinced enough that I completely removed the 'other' video editing software and use VS x10.5 exclusively.

BTW: I use a variety of programs to determine the cores and threads usage as well as temps and wattage & voltage. All cores and threads were used though with my system I could do other things which the system was doing its thing (see my config in my profile). Wattage and voltage were nominal and its a happy camper.

Conclusion: As others have stated its all about what you are rendering with what effects and in what format. It could be true that Corel needs to focus less on the Intel CPU/GPU marriage but as even others have stated AMD is only just coming around to be a competitive player and that could make all the difference to the software engineers time and effort on the coding.

[w1cked]

@lata
Thank you for taking the time to do these tests. I repeated your first test with the sample mp4 files with the exact same output settings. The results were a surprise to me. Smart rendering was disabled for the test runs of course.

On my desktop machine - Ryzen 7 1700 the render time was 48 sec regardless of hardware acceleration enabled or disabled. The CPU usage was at around 85% on all 16 threads all of the time, so that is good. GPU was at 0%.
On my MS Surface Pro 4 - Core i7-6650U the render time was 46 sec - go figure. The CPU utilization was hovering at around 90% and GPU (onboard) at around 45%.

Taking a look at this CPU benchmark comparison the Ryzen should handily beat out the mobile Core i7 in multithreaded apps: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.ph ... cmp[]=2970

Btw. my project I was initially referencing to mostly consists of 1 video track (h264), 1 audio track (mp3) and some transitions and occasional overlay effects.

@BikerDave1

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to troll Corel for not optimizing their software, I know that Ryzen is a fairly new architecture and might lack support. I am just trying to figure what must be going wrong here. I mean, if the rendering is doing its thing but both CPU and GPU are not nearly under full load, not even the disk, I am wondering what it is in fact doing that is taking so long. I mean, 2.5hrs render time isn't really a big deal, and editing and previewing are smooth and fast, but it is irksome that VS X10 might not be using my hardware to its fullest potential. Moreso because I recently upgraded for these kinds of computing tasks.

I wonder if I should reach out directly to Corel to inquire about their plans for Ryzen support. Maybe upgrading to X10.5 will help?

[lata]

I wonder if I should reach out directly to Corel to inquire about their plans for Ryzen support. Maybe upgrading to X10.5 will help?

It certainly not harm in contacting Corel

Upgrading to X10.5, I thought you were using the latest version Help About 10.5.0.0.60

[BikerDave1]

TonyP: Please check your messages. I replied to your email but it says it was Sent and also stuck in the Outbox at the same time! Never seen anything like this. Weird

[lata]

TonyP: Please check your messages. I replied to your email but it says it was Sent and also stuck in the Outbox at the same time! Never seen anything like this. Weird

Private Messages remain in our Outbox until the recipitant reads / accesses the message

[w1cked]

Alright so I took the opportunity to re-install VS X10 with an update to 10.5 and upgrade to Ultimate during the Black Friday sale. Unfortunately it didn't change anything about the utilization issue, the rendering times also remain unchanged. Although I have a boatload full of new samples, FX filters and other things afterwards, hehe. So there's that.

I think I might reach out to Corel during the next couple of days. I will let you know of the outcome.

[laurentje]

... then drops down to under 30% and even under 10% most of the time...

The same experience of me.
Have you trimmed some clips? Or is it related with the length of the clips. See other tread: http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=62765

[w1cked]

Well yes, almost all of my clips are trimmed. However I do not think that this is the issue, as the same project renders fine with high cpu load on my second machine.

I have contacted Corel support but have not heard back from them yet. We'll see

[laurentje]

...
Is this due to VS X10 only using Intel's quick sync video but not using any comparable AMD technology? Can we expect Ryzen to be supported in upcoming releases?
...

I have the same problem slow rendering, low load on CPU and I am on Intel.

[TonyP]

I guess people will have to define "slow rendering" and what are they specifically doing.
I placed 5 UHD 4K clips on the main track and one on the overlay track.
Added some transitions and did a PiP with the Overlay and tossed some "bubbles fx" on it too for good measure.
During playback of the timeline (I have every "optimization" turned on in Preferences but no proxy), neither the CPU or GPU did much.
In Share, rendering to file MPG4 UHD 4K, look at the screen shot below. It was that way for most of the rendering. Oh, and the GPU during this time? The fans for it didn't even turn on.
Basically the same results when rendering to HEVC. I saw some GPU usage, but no where near anything the Gaming X card is capable of.