Video Studio issue Nvidia GPU cards

[Powelly_au]

Hi,
I was wondering if anybody can assist me. I recently upgraded from VS X9 to 2018. Until now I have been using the on board graphics of the Intel Core i5 4440 CPU. I recently I started editing Gopro 2.7k footage with some great results. (H.264 High Profile Video, Attributes: 24 bits, 2704 x 1520, Frame rate: 59.94 f/s, Data rate: 60Mb/s)
In an effort to improve performance I installed an MSI Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 super GPU as VS is supposed to utilise Nvidia GPU Cuda. Unfortunately when using the GPU card the video playback jitters and jumps and freezes and scrubbing using the slide bar tends to freeze up altogether. I have enabled all the Hardware acceleration in the ‘Preferences’ tab. I also rolled back to VS X9 and found the same results. The problem does not seem to be apparent when editing 1080p footage and I am yet to attempt to edit the 4K footage from the Gopro. Can anybody explain why the i5 CPU onboard graphics appears to work fine but the Nvidia GPU card does not appear to work with SV. When I observe the CPU / GPU performance window it appears that SV does not use the GPU at the higher video resolution. It appears to occasionally utilise some GPU resource with playing back ‘Clip’ but never when laying back ‘Project’. Is there some way to get SV 2018 to utilise the GPU or should I revert back to the CPU onboard graphics or is there a specific GPU I need to purchase that SV is compatible with. Any assistance would be most appreciated.
Regards,
Powelly

[asik1]

VS doesn't know what to do with your card.

[Powelly_au]

Hi Asik1,
Is there some way to tell VS what to do with the card. I notice most people on the forum have video cards installed and i assume they are all not experiencing this problem with the playback. Is there some way to make my GPU compatible with VS X9 or 2018? Regards

[asik1]

VS uses CPU for ages, they try implement cuda few years ago but never got it to work.
Their R/D stuff prefer to work on new software layouts than on hardware coding.

[Davidk]

There's really only one way to isolate this, and that's to (temporarily??) remove the nvidia card and disable/un-install it's drivers. Effectively, go back to your starting situation.
Your happy experience should be restored.

Alternatively, simply disable the various forms of acceleration in the preferences/performance tab: which may not affect your case but users do report improvements when they do this.

So, why??
VS has allegedly supported CUDA (the nvidia driver speed-up for video) for years, but you need to understand how it works (essentially, the display processor capacity is used via a driver to increase the capability of the overall video process function) and many versions of card hardware are not compatible with the software. Recent cards should (emphasis) not have this issue but there are no guarantees. Wikipedia has an extensive compatibility table in a CUDA article. However, most VS users reported either no or poor performance with CUDA. There are many posts on the forum about this - search for CUDA references.
This situation pertains to all versions of VS up to and including VS2018.

In version VS2019, Corel made a determined attempt to fix this and that version lists 2 types of acceleration - for Intel cpu's and for Nvidia cards. List box choice of one. It seems that since 2011 all Intel cpu's have been shipped with a built in video accelerator, software just has to use it. Test on results on 2019 have been pretty varied: for relatively short operations that really use the cpu - such as a 5 minute render - there can be a significant improvement (over a non-acclerated operation), but as the task gets longer the improvements basically disappear.
If your PC has an AmD cpu, that Intel selection will be meaningless, but it should work with an Nvidia card OK.

So, if you are set on using the display card you've invested in, try it out with a trial version of Vs2019 (now at sp3) and assess the results before buying. But you will need to hurry - the new Vs2020 is released in 2 weeks time and on past performance it will be full of bugs until at least SP2, ordinarily around mid-year.

[Powelly_au]

Thanks David,
Much appreciated, that explains a lot. I purchased 2019 when it was first released and rolled straight back to 2018 when I discovered it was very buggy. I will try upgrading again with SP3 and see it makes any difference. If not I am resolved to disabling the GPU card and reverting to internal CPU graphics when working on VS projects. Regards

[gregrg]

Hi
I currently have Video studio 2020. I attempted to edit a 2 minute video of 3840 * 2160 (recorded on a Samsung S9+ mobile phone). It really struggles. Specifically when playing back the video from the project timeline. Enabling smart proxy does help. However looking at the specs for VS2020 and comparing with my system, I would say I had a high-end system, not the highest end, but towards highness.

• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20Ghz
• Memory: 64Gb (49.7Gb free with VS loaded with the clip)
• Work disk: Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series
• Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

I also recently downloaded the free version of Resolve 16 which is almost full a version of the product and it had no problem showing the preview of the files when played on the timeline.

In the preferences you can see that VS 2020 does detect the graphics card and provides the option to enable hardware acceleration. However setting or un-setting the check box, made no difference.

For VS 2018, I contacted support, and after a lot of to and fro with them (them getting me to uninstall and defrag etc), I received this message:

"Mar 9, 09:27 EST
Hello Greg,

Upon verification, VideoStudio only uses the integrated graphics driver of cx’s processor (Intel HD Graphics), not any dedicated graphics card.
Thank you and have a good day.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any further questions.

Regards,
Kyle
Corel Technical Support Services"

I suspect, the same is still true for VS 2020

[Davidk]

For the sort of (4K or nearly so) video you are editing, you must have smart proxy enabled to edit those imported clips in any reasonable time frame.
Smart proxy is the creation of a SD (standard definition) file alias of the selected clip: used in edit only it means that the normal edit process on a vsp proceeds at a normal pace (rather than slow and jerky, with audio out of syn with video). Any edits applied to the proxy file are applied the real file at final render time: using the proxy just to speeds editing up.

You enable smart proxy in Preferences: using Settings/Preferences/performance tab:
- tick the smart proxy box
- choose the resolution you want proxy to start with (eg, setting 720x576 - standard definition - means proxy is enabled for any clip having resolution above that)
- specify the location where you want the smart proxy files (same filename as the clip with a .upx filetype) to be stored.
there are defaults for the last 2 items but you can customise it, and I do.

Further down that performance page, you can select the hardware acceleration to use. Choice of 2 - intel (uses and inbuilt video processor that's been part of every intel cpu since 2011, or nvidia (uses the cpu on an nvidia card as adjunct processor via the card driver). Various tests have shown some benefits for intel cpus on short tasks but that fades as the task gets longer. For an Amd cpu, or if you have an AmD powered laptop this won't apply. If you have an nvidia card in a desktop PC, read the wikipedia article on CUDA and the compatibility table there. The default is to have one of these enabled IF your system has an Intel cpu OR and nvidia card. No test data available on use of an nvidia card, but on past performance it won't help much: all you can do is try it on small test projects and time the performance you get. Some users get best results with hardware accel turned off.

As to Corel support, it has a poor reputation. Your best source of advice is right here in the forum.

[gregrg]

Thanks for the quick reply David. As I said, I have enabled smart proxy and it appears to work well.

I guess my issues, other than the fact that video card is not being used to its full, is that Corel have no information on performance. Its base system is an i3 with minimal RAM. Just saying more is better is a cop-out. In the new world of 2K, 4K etc, with the K-number getting ever larger, this must be something to be tested when releasing a graphics based software product.

This is what I would like from Corel.....
1. Explain exactly what their hardware acceleration is doing. I doubt its doing anything.
2. Publish performance guidelines showing suggested configurations related to complexity of task (showing video dimensions and the like)
3. A commitment to develop a CUDA card based acceleration that fully utilises the Nvidia card

[SteveMartinUSA]

I find VideoStudio 2020 "ultimate" starts to go bad after Full HD resolutions. I haven't found a way to edit 4K video in VideoStudio 2020, even from a very capable laptop. Bummer.

I've had unpredictable results with "smart proxy". For example, I only see a few of the proxy files in the specified location and I don't know if you have to re-add a clip to the timeline to get a smart proxy file to create. And when it does start to create the CPU can go to mid 80% range for a couple minutes while it generates just one proxy. The proxy file has a "UPX" extension. It's not an MP4, so I can't tell if the file is just for the trim on the timeline or for the whole file. Like does VS have to rebuild the file if I re-trim the clip......

My testing is a six minute long video from 4k 30 and 60 fps source clips. And all of this testing is done from my XPS 9500, with the i7 10875 processor and an NVidia 1650 GPU, and SSD storage (9/13/2020). I've tried both hardware compressions (Intel & NVidia) and watch the CPU come close to 100% while the video jerks around like an epileptic.

Fortunately, I have a smooth experience with Filmora on Windows and Lumafusion on a $600 iPad Air 3 where VideoStudio bombs. I don't have to generate a proxy in either of those--I'm able to work with the full resolution videos on the timeline without having to generate a proxy.

Sadly, I find very few professionally made tutorials on YouTube for VideoStudio, especially compared with other video editors like Lumafusion or Filmora. Mostly, I find very nice VS tutorials (only from Corel) that are short and to the point, but lack the detail that's ultimately needed.

[Davidk]

For those wanting corel to define or even document how their acceleration modes work and provide some sort of performance test a user can run - join the long list of dreamers who have expressed the same wishes. It hasn't happened yet.

Steve,
The proxy file generated is the upx file. It's generally smaller than the original, but not always.
When you first import a file to the timeline that exceeds the proxy thresholds defined ( settings/preferences/ performance tab), a proxy is generated from the original, and once done (the proxy icon appears in the TL clip thumbnail) thereafter any edits you make in the timeline are applied to the proxy. It's only when you want to render the result of your efforts (the share page) that those edit operations are applied to the original file (trims, filters, etc).
The proxy file created is also keyed to the original project and source file by folder/name. Some features about proxy files worth noting:
- you cannot re-use the created proxy file for the same clip used in another project.
- proxy files don't package (smart package)
- if you have deleted a proxy file (a good practice if you are not going to use them for a while - they do take up a huge amount of space if you just let them accumulate) because the project is over, or you are using a smart package on a usb stick, or you want make revisions to an existing project after the proxies have been deleted: the project file will have flags that say use the proxy, but if it cannot find the proxy then it just uses the original file and performance will be sloowwwww
- as part of startup, VS checks the proxy file lists: if the original files the proxies apply to are no longer found on the PC, the related proxies are deleted. That can be an unpleasant surprise the first time it happens: a project on a usb stick, not plugged in, and you start VS to work on something else. Later, to work on the project on the usb stick, plugged in and . . no proxy files. In this case, you would have to manually re-create the proxy files for clips in the project one by one (rt-click on clip, choose create proxy file, wait while it's done).

[Ken Berry]

The other thing to bear in mind regarding proxy files is that they take some time to create. So you need to be patient while they are created.

[SteveMartinUSA]

This is much better info than the docs...thank you. So what format and resolution do you recommend for the proxy? The default makes for a poor quality editing experience. Can I rebuild the proxy after assembling my timeline to improve the visual editing experience? AVI sounds fast but they take a lot of space....why not MP4, in Full HD?

[Davidk]

Ah, no - you misunderstand: the proxy file (.upx item) is the default, and only option. And it's only there to make editing response smoother. It's when you render a project result that any resolution issues in the final version are determined. Example
- you have a mixture of photos FHD and 4k video clips to create a project from. text and voiceover to be added as needed.
- assembling them into the time sequence in the TL, wait until the proxies are all created. That keyboard looking small icon in the clip thumbnail: sometimes you may have to change the focus (click) to the next clip for the icon to appear in the one just created.
- the FHD and 4k proxies may look 'washed out' - not as finely detailed as you want - but remember this is just for editing.
- add the xtras you want - transitions, text etc and apply any filters to the video or photos
- when you are finished, and want to create a final version, save the project then select the share mode (option at top centre of screen) and here you have all the options for resolution and detail in the final result you could want. Choose the media format you want for output (same as project settings? choose the configuration desirable from a drop-down list. many options depending on the format of the result you want)

If you are new to this, and have defined a project properties as 4K (settings/project properties, choose from the drop down lists for the variable format types available, OR have chosen to match the project properties to the first clip (4K) when you imported it, then on the share page to render a result, select top computer icon and choose 'same as project properties'. This will create a rendered video file somewhere in your PC. From the various option boxes, insert a file name and the folder where you want the result. click on start and wait for the result. If you want to choose the profile configuration - adjust the resolution - of the result, untick the same as project settings list box, and the options for profile and configuration detail become accessible. A drop down list box presents various options to choose from and choosing one, the details are shown in the configuration panel below. A marked up screenshot here shows this

Check the result with a player like VLC. If the result isn't what you want, re-open the project, go to share and change the result configuration (different output format, different profile configuration etc) and re-render. Repeat until you are happy.

[SoNic67]

I haven't found a way to edit 4K video in VideoStudio 2020, even from a very capable laptop. Bummer.

... all of this testing is done from my XPS 9500, with the i7 10875 processor and an NVidia 1650 GPU, and SSD storage (9/13/2020).

Most of the "gaming" laptops are using nvidia Optimus technology to pass the 3D images rendered by NVIDIA cards to the display - display that is hardware connected to the Intel GPU output.
This software "pass trough" is developed and works only for the 3D gaming, not for the video editors (that include NVENC capability).
Some laptops (usually workstation laptops) include a more expensive multiplexer switching circuit (mux) that can connect the display either to NVIDIA or to Intel GPU. Those have in BIOS an option to "disable" the iGPU, and only those can make use of NVIDIA acceleration in video editors (with iGPU disabled). Check your BIOS options, Dell usually has those under "Switchable Graphics" that has to be unchecked. One example:
https://www.goengineer.com/blog/solidwo ... e-graphics

Now, for desktops, obviously that is not a problem, since one can connect the monitor directly to any NVIDIA card.