Definitive Hardware Setup

[john4647]

I have read many threads on the forum regarding hardware and hardware setup.
Although Corel list System Requirements in the manual, I wonder if there is a 'best' scenario for types and settings of CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD, VRAM, etc.

I can't help feeling that I may have got something very wrong in my setup as programme execution, particularly playback of the project or video clip in the preview window is not good to say the least.
The preview of even a small file seems to 'miss out' certain images and transitions and quite often just stops.

John

[Ken Berry]

You don't say what formats you are editing. Looking at your computer specs, I would have thought you should not be having trouble at all with HD and standard definition projects. If you are editing 4K or HEVC video, then perhaps you should be using SmartProxy to insert standard def copies ("proxies") of the original video. This makes it easier and smoother to edit and preview. When satisfied, the edits are applied to the originals before rendering the project.

Oddly enough, though, some people have found in the most recent couple of versions of VS that SmartProxy seemed to be causing the sort of problems you mention. Turning off SmartProxy seems to have fixed things for them when they have a powerful computer like yours.

Others have found that switching off hardware acceleration in Properties > Edit also seems to have rectified things.

[1jhill]

You don't say what formats you are editing. Looking at your computer specs, I would have thought you should not be having trouble at all with HD and standard definition projects. If you are editing 4K or HEVC video, then perhaps you should be using SmartProxy to insert standard def copies ("proxies") of the original video. This makes it easier and smoother to edit and preview. When satisfied, the edits are applied to the originals before rendering the project.

Oddly enough, though, some people have found in the most recent couple of versions of VS that SmartProxy seemed to be causing the sort of problems you mention. Turning off SmartProxy seems to have fixed things for them when they have a powerful computer like yours.

Others have found that switching off hardware acceleration in Properties > Edit also seems to have rectified things.

I’m not sure disabling proxy would help. I have similar specs (he doesn’t list what i7) and my GPU should be more powerful than his and if I’m not using a proxy while doing 4K the playback will be really choppy. If using a proxy then I can do just about anything and it will play fine with the exception of the colorfast filter. For some reason that filter has worked like crap for playback in 2018 and now 2019 went back and forth with Corel and newbluefx and in the end they both just pointed fingers at each. That was my original reason to switch to pinnacle from 2018 is the color editing would then pre render and playback smoothly however it’s downside is if you change even one little thing you have to pre render again. So far 2019 has been working good for me as it has the ability to use a proxy for faster editing and not requiring a pre render when changing minor stuff and has almost the same level color grading of pinnacle or colorfast plugin.

[john4647]

You don't say what formats you are editing. Looking at your computer specs, I would have thought you should not be having trouble at all with HD and standard definition projects. If you are editing 4K or HEVC video, then perhaps you should be using SmartProxy to insert standard def copies ("proxies") of the original video. This makes it easier and smoother to edit and preview. When satisfied, the edits are applied to the originals before rendering the project.

Thanks for the reply Ken,

I am not editing 4K and I am not sure what HEVC is. My input is mainly from my Panasonic HDC SDT750, which produces .MTS files and my Panasonic DMC FZ which produces .jpg files. I have all the acceleration options ticked and I use smart proxy. My CPU is i7-6700 @ 3.40ghz.

[john4647]

So far, I have tried opening the programme (2018) as administrator, resetting priority to real time, smart proxy both on and off, all hardware acceleration on and off.

None of this made any difference to my playback in the preview window. (It's 'choppy' misses out large chunks of playback and quite often just stops)

Can't help thinking I must have something basic amiss in my hardware setup?

[Desertsweeper]

For me the shortcoming of your hardware is the 3TB drive. You don't state what that drive is, but even if it were say a WD Black, which is about the fastest consumer 3TB drive available, it is relatively slow for video editing. If it is one of the "energy saver" green drives it will crawl along at a snail's pace. Nowadays you really want at least your OS and Apps on an SSD drive, better still two of them. They are so cheap now there is no reason not to have one in your build and you will instantly notice a huge improvement in the performance of your computer overall. In a one-drive build you will have your Operating System and Apps running off the SSD with good space to spare. The footage can be sourced from the 3TB drive. In a two-drive setup you will have the OS and Apps on one drive, and your footage on the other. The 3TB is where you are going to save your renders and bulk footage (moved to SSD when being worked on). If your Main-board supports NVMe then go with those as they are even faster than SSD.
I am also going to throw a guess out there and say your intel GPU (The one built into your CPU) may in fact perform better than the nVidia GPU you are using, which is decidedly "low-end". Try to pull it out and feed your monitor from the digital-out port of your main-board, assuming it has one. It would be rare not to. make sure you have installed the latest Intel Video driver from their website. Make sure all the hardware acceleration stuff is ticked in prefs. This will cost you nothing to try.

[john4647]

For me the shortcoming of your hardware is the 3TB drive. You don't state what that drive is, but even if it were say a WD Black, which is about the fastest consumer 3TB drive available, it is relatively slow for video editing. If it is one of the "energy saver" green drives it will crawl along at a snail's pace. Nowadays you really want at least your OS and Apps on an SSD drive, better still two of them. They are so cheap now there is no reason not to have one in your build and you will instantly notice a huge improvement in the performance of your computer overall. In a one-drive build you will have your Operating System and Apps running off the SSD with good space to spare. The footage can be sourced from the 3TB drive. In a two-drive setup you will have the OS and Apps on one drive, and your footage on the other. The 3TB is where you are going to save your renders and bulk footage (moved to SSD when being worked on). If your Main-board supports NVMe then go with those as they are even faster than SSD.
I am also going to throw a guess out there and say your intel GPU (The one built into your CPU) may in fact perform better than the nVidia GPU you are using, which is decidedly "low-end". Try to pull it out and feed your monitor from the digital-out port of your main-board, assuming it has one. It would be rare not to. make sure you have installed the latest Intel Video driver from their website. Make sure all the hardware acceleration stuff is ticked in prefs. This will cost you nothing to try.

Many thanks, very tempting, the NVMe thing.
Just to clarify, my storage of 3TB consists of 3 Hard Drives. My main drive is 1TB partitioned C & D. The C Partition (200GB) is operating system and programmes. The D Partition is data only. The other 2 drives (1TB each) are for back up and larger data file storage.
I am not sure if my computer is NVMe compatible? How would I find out?
As for the GPU, does Corel VS actually make use of this? Task Manager has never spotted any use.
My apologies for asking so many questions.
Thanks again.

[Desertsweeper]

Your drives are, I guess, mechanical. How they are partitioned and spread out matters little in the world of performance. They spin disks of relatively slow magnetic metal to store and read data. NVMe is the ideal but SSD is a good compromise, should your computer not support NVMe. Identifying the mainboard specs will reveal the possibility of NVMe, but SSD is a drop-in guarantee that will boost your performance. Also do not discount my suggestion of removing your graphics card and testing the built in Intel GPU. My system runs super-fast on the iGPU

[john4647]

My Motherboard is an Asus M32CD. I don't think it is NVMe compatible as there are no free card slots. In fact the only slot on the board is taken up by the Graphics card.

There is however, a free SATA 6 socket which I think I may need for SSD.

The O/S and programme transfer procedures look quite daunting though as W10 does not support the old 'Easy Transfer'. I suppose I need 3rd party software for this?

I also need to check if there is enough physical space inside the box to add the SSD.

I will keep you posted and again many thanks for the help.

[lata]

Hi John
Just going back a step to Smart Proxy
Enabling Smart Proxy also needs Proxy files to be created
Right click one of your video files and select Create Smart Proxy, takes a while to create the files.
You can view the process from Settings Smart Proxy Manager – Queue Manager and File Manager
Once created a small double icon is visible on the clip, on the library and timeline
Please make sure the proxy files have been created.

click image for larger view

What are the full properties of your video files, right click for properties
Otherwise when you add a video to the timeline you should get a message to match the project settings (First start a new project)
If you see that choose Details, the right hand panel shows the video properties, copy and paste to your post.

As for SSD, I thought the drive comes with a bit of software that will easily transfer the operating system for you.

[john4647]

Hi John
Just going back a step to Smart Proxy
Enabling Smart Proxy also needs Proxy files to be created
Right click one of your video files and select Create Smart Proxy, takes a while to create the files.
You can view the process from Settings Smart Proxy Manager – Queue Manager and File Manager
Once created a small double icon is visible on the clip, on the library and timeline
Please make sure the proxy files have been created.

The attachment proxy icon.jpg is no longer available

What are the full properties of your video files, right click for properties
Otherwise when you add a video to the timeline you should get a message to match the project settings (First start a new project)
If you see that choose Details, the right hand panel shows the video properties, copy and paste to your post.

As for SSD, I thought the drive comes with a bit of software that will easily transfer the operating system for you.

Thanks Trevor, some of my files had smart proxies created and some did not. Now they all have and preview playback is much improved.
Is it necessary to individually create smart proxies or will this happen automatically once the option is ticked?

My project properties are same as my first clip, as below:

On further investigation, yes SSD's do come with software.
Having read what 'Desertsweeper' says, I think I will go down this route.

Many thanks to all for your help.

[lata]

Once Smart Proxy is enabled adding a video to the timeline will have Smart Proxies created automatically
Where Proxies have not been created then right click to do that, library or timelines.
Whilst proxies are being created then playback is slow / slower.

I own a Pana 900 series camcorder, properties look the same as you show and always thought playback for 50P was smoother/easier than 50i (25fps)
As an aside for 2019 corel have dropped surround sound support, only stereo available.
For Windows 7 afaik no Digital Dolby support, I would think we are able to play but not create / render to Digital Dolby

[Davidk]

Let me address that last dolby remark of Trevor's.
Corel's decision not to support the AC3 codec (dolby) under windows 7 in vs2019 means that any video clip you have which has recorded audio using dolby will play in VS2019 as a silent movie. Personal experience. I never even tested the render issue - if the vsp won't play audio, rendering is pointless.

I run my PC's using win7, for reasons that have been articulated often by myself and others in this forum, and I won't re-iterate them here. And since I have 175gb of video clips of places world wide recorded with dolby sound that I have used, and still expect to use, in various projects. That Corel AC3 decision means I can't use any of those clips in 2019. Livid, I made a fuss about that. Corel said it wasn't a decision taken lightly, and did nothing: did not even offer it as a paid add-on. The commercial basis of the decision is shot full of holes: the dolby patent is expired, 2 years ago, so no license fees, and win 7 is still the equal or 2nd largest windows market in the world (Feb stats data from 2 sources). Shooting oneself in foot seems to cover it.

So, using video clips with dolby sound will be with VS versions up to and including 2018. If you run win 7 and have lots of video material with dolby sound, don't un=install any of the older VS versions - you will probably need them more than any new function that may be in 2019. I'd even go so far as to say that if there isn't any really attractive feature in 2019 that you want to use, bearing in mind the silent movie result of the missing codec, stick with what you have and don't upgrade.

[john4647]

Just a quick update regarding suggestions and proposed solutions.
I have upgraded my Storage to SSD (1TB C Drive Windows and programmes only)
It was indeed supplied with very good cloning software.
My original HDD is now used for data only (no programmes)
As suggested, this has improved the speed of boot up and programme loading. It has also decreased VS2018 render time, albeit only slightly.
However, my problem regarding Clips playing in the preview panel remain the same. (It's 'choppy' misses out large chunks of playback and quite often just stops)

[Davidk]

If you keep having slow/sluggish edit performance between sessions, re-check the smart proxy settings for the clip/s concerned.

Smart proxy files are only created automatically the 1st time they are added to a project in the TL, using the import video function. If you are for example using a project file that has smart proxy enabled but there is no proxy file (removed as part of cleanup? folder path to proxy is different? using the vsp on a different PC via smart package, which doesn't transfer any proxy files with the package) the vsp is marked as having a SP file but since there isn't one to be found, it uses the original large file (HD or 4K) instead. And it doesn't tell you that the proxy file is missing - the only indicator of that will be the 'keyboard' icon (I call it that because it looks like a keyboard. I'm sure it has a more formal name) is not showing in the clip thumbnail in the TL.

You can check that a proxy file exists or not: go to settings\smart proxy manager\smart proxy file manager

and you should see this panel which lists all the smart proxy files you have (from the folder setting you created in the performance tab of preferences)

If file you want a smart proxy for is not there, then you have to individually - manually - create a proxy file: rt-click the clip, from the context list, choose create proxy file, then OK. And, of course, wait for the proxy to be created. Sometimes you have to move the TL off the clip being proxied, and then back, for the proxy icon to be shown in the clip thumbnail. You would have to do this for every file that should be proxied, but isn't.