PSA - Incompatible with Optimus Notebooks

[iNate]

Notice that the update to 1803 removed all the system restore points, as it happened, I had to restore back to the previous version of Windows, 1709, it appears that 1803 causes battery issues with Toshiba SSD, and my battery stopped charging

The Update doesn't remove any system restore points (not that you'd want to ever use them, in this particular situation). Windows will not let you restore back to an earlier release. Windows Updates are now like macOS yearly updates. That would completely trash your system. Going to Windows 1803 is more like going from macOS Sierra to High Sierra. The updates are huge, and they are not "Service Packs." Restores simply can't handle this properly. You have to use System Recovery to roll back a Windows Upgrade.

What Windows does, is archive your ENTIRE WINDOWS OS before the upgrade (this is why they take rather long, especially if you have a slow HDD), and you have ~30 days to Restore your PC back to what it was before applying the 1803 update - after that, Windows will automatically delete the old version, as it takes up a ton of space and they assume you're good to go if you haven't Recovered your system in a whole month. This is what the "Windows.old" folder on your HDD is after major updates - your entire Operating System, before the update.

If you want to roll back to pre-Update Windows OS, you don't look for System Restore. You look in the "Recovery" section of Windows Settings and roll it back to what it was prior to the update. The whole process takes a few clicks and a few minutes.

It has always worked this way since the release of Windows 10, because setting Restore Points across major OS updates is a recipe for absolute disaster.

System Restore is only useful for Application Installations and Cumulative Updates (basically what we used to call "Service Packs"). For Device Drivers, it is not useful (or rather, really should not be used), as you can target the specific driver you want to roll back in Device Manager without affecting the rest of the system (via the Driver Rollback function).

[Skipper]

I read this thread with much interest although I hasten to admit the in-depth technical issues are beyond my understanding, suffice it to say there are many more issues at play here than the average user on this site will probably ever knowingly encounter. iNate makes reference to this in his comment where he says "no offence" leaving me to wonder if he has sought help from the right forum but then where is there to go?
Recently I tried to get information for a PC build best suited to the current VS 2018 but even there the sensitivities of some about their particular preferences overshadowed the discussion to the point I decided to just drop the subject rather than provide a platform for discord and friction.
I, like most who frequent this site do so because we want to learn and we all come from a base of greater or lesser knowledge and if anything this thread has showed me just how little I know yet I have been blissfully editing video for probably 15 years or more.
If iNate has taught me one thing it might be shut up and just go and buy something off the shelf, it may not work as well as you hoped but you get what you pay for -apparently?
And thanks to our regular contributors who provide their experience willingly and without recompense which generally is sufficient to point me in the right direction

[iNate]

My statement of no offense was in reference to a generic statement I made about the user base that Corel generally targets with software like PaintShop Pro and VideoStudio, and how they may perceive application performance due to the condition in which they run the software, and their general knowledge about these issues.

So what they think is "good performance," may only be good because they don't mind the experience they're getting and don't have contrasting setups to compare them to. If you've never run the NLE on a discrete GPU, then sure... if the performance seems "fast," you may think it flies... But wait until you experience it actually utilizing that hardware!

It's like the people who thought their mechanical HDD was... until they got an SSD. "Fine" is only as good as the best experience you've had thus far.

That's an observation, but I didn't want it to be taken in a demeaning way; so I put in the disclaimer. I do understand the reactions that phrase ("no offense") can elicit, but sometimes it is truly in earnest

[LordLiverpool]

The situation with nVidia Optimus is ludicrous, and it seems to me to be mainly nVidia's fault. Why on earth can't users decide for themselves which graphics card is used with which software? Again, we have the "Daddy knows best" attitude so prevalent today amongst software companies - and of course it's untrue: "Daddy" turns out to be clueless. The only way to get acceptable performance in PSP on my brand new Alienware R4 was to disable the integrated GPU entirely - an option which I am fortunate to have. Users of other laptops are not so lucky. Whatever "compatibility" problems nVidia imagined to exist, prompting them to override my clearly stated preference, turned out to be mirages. It works just fine with the nVidia card.

[Dirk184]

Dell XPS 9560
CPU : i7-7700HQ
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050
16 GB RAM
512 GB SSD

WIN10 (1803)

vstudio.exe is shown under Nvidia GPU Activity

Videostudio runs smooth an performance is satisfactory

[Dirk184]

One further note: First thing I have to do after open a project is to click the "Fit project in Timeline window" button - then edit performance is much better.

[iNate]

Dell XPS 9560
CPU : i7-7700HQ
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050
16 GB RAM
512 GB SSD

WIN10 (1803)

vstudio.exe is shown under Nvidia GPU Activity

Videostudio runs smooth an performance is satisfactory

I just reinstalled VideoStudio on my machine, and what you're seeing is 100% placebo.

Yes, the Nvidia Panel says it's running on that GPU, however, all rendering is still done on the Intel CPU and all Plug-Ins spawned from the NLE still run on the Intel GPU - with the expected bad rendering performance.

While rendering video, all graphics rendering is done on the GPU (check Task Manager while rendering a video).

Only the Intel GPU is being used.

That setting is placebo, and the application seems to be blocked from running on the Nvidia GPU at the driver level.

It's still totally broken, and the performance problems will really rear their ugly heads when you start working on actual projects with Color Correction, Effects, Multiple Video Streams, etc. - particularly at > HD resolutions and higher framerates. The playback performance is still awful.

Uninstalled within 5 minutes. It's unusable. I'm just going to use DaVinci Resolve, and move on.

[iNate]

I have figured out what is going on...

1. VideoStudio does not use CUDA at all. What Corel is calling CUDA is actually nothing but NVENC Encoding with the dedicated hardware encoder chip on the GPU package. Honestly, this is pretty much worthless on a 7th Gen or newer Intel i5/i7, as those have QSV which will Accelerate Decode and Encode for H.264, HEVC, VP8 and VP9 as well. I guess it can help some people with AMD CPUs that don't have an iGPU, and an Nvidia GPU, but VideoStudio only seems to Decode with QSV so those people would probably still be gimped on such a setup (although having only one GPU may result in a different scenario altogether, which avoids the "Optimus Issues - which have existed since 2015, I've noticed).

2. When Rendering video, VideoStudio DECODES the video on the Timeline with QSV and then ENCODES the video you're rendering with NVENC. All Effects Rendering is done on the Intel GPU, which (if UHD 630) is probably 10x slower than a GTX 1030 (not to mention anything that is a 1050 or better). This is why plug-ins report Intel UHD 630 and not Nvidia - even if you force VideoStudio to run on the GTX card in Windows Settings, this is the case. It will still render on the Intel GPU. The GeForce driver will make sure of that... VideoStudio never actually uses the GTX card's GPU. It only uses the Encoder chip.

3. Forcing it to run on the GTX card slows down renders dramatically, in my case (they were at about twice as long), and I'm not sure why that is. It seems to break something; and my best guess is that VideoStudio OpenCL for processing, and since they don't actually have CUDA optimizations (i.e. don't actually use CUDA) the performance degrades when you restrict it to the Nvidia GPU only. Also, it may be hard coded to decode with QSV only, so when removing the Intel GPU for the equation, it falls back to Software Decoding (it definitely doesn't use NVDEC - I checked that). Nvidia's OpenCL support is not great, because they [obviously] focus on CUDA. Which brings me to my next point...

3. No Processing is done with CUDA. I think the reason why the NLE is not being allowed to run exclusively on the Nvidia GTX card has to do with the fact that Nvidia has weaker OpenCL support than Intel, and the driver sees that (it may just be comparing API levels and deciding based on that). Since the application itself doesn't use CUDA (NVENC is *NOT* CUDA), it restricts it to the GPU with the better OpenCL support - the Intel iGPU. This still allows the NLE to Accelerate Encodes with NVENC, which is does on my machine, because NVENC operates independently of CUDA.

This is a case of false advertisement, but it seems epidemic in the lower-end video editing market. The only [major] consumer video editing software vendor I've found that actually advertises, properly, how they use this type of stuff is MAGIX. Corel, and CyberLink (cannot speak for Pinnacle... never used it) are deliberately misleading about this (as in, blatantly lying).

I think for proper, actual CUDA support... we have to just use a more professional editor. Like Premiere Pro CC or Resolve. Not sure if Premiere Elements has the Mercury Playback Engine in it. VideoStudio is not an option if you want optimal performance on good hardware.

[thekwaze]

Greetings all!
I am a bit late to this one, but it came up when I searched online for the problems I have had with Videostudio recently.
I have just upgraded my pc from a modest i5 setup to a Ryzen 7 3700X/GTX 1660 Setup in order to fix the slow, jerky Videostudio problems.
So you can imagine how much I laughed upon firing up this new setup when it behaved exactly like the old i5 but with the added bonus of crashing at will.
I have carried out all the suggestions and they make scant, if any difference, so that's £1000 wasted on a pc that's no different to my old one!
Anyway although I've used Videostudio for about 10 years I have now had enough and it's pointless asking COREL advice on anything as it's proved to be pretty useless.
So I am looking for suggestions for a similar video editing programme that will actually utilize the onboard software properly.
I would be grateful for any suggestions you may have, or if you managed to get Videostudio to work and look forward to your response in due course.
Many thanks for your advice!