AMD Radeon RX470: 4GB GPU not enough for Vegas' slo-mo effect?

studio-4 wrote on 6/21/2021, 10:21 PM

So I just installed my new (used) AMD Radeon RX470 4GB display-adapter into my 3.5GHz Xeon quad-core with 32GB of system-RAM (complete specs in sig). I booted the computer and Windows' device manager sees the adapter and reports, "This device is working properly." There are no '!' errors in device manager. Here's what device manager shows:

• AMD Radeon RX470 4GB.
• Driver date: 8/21/2020.
• Driver version: 27.20.1034.6.

This is the driver Windows automatically installed on boot-up (i.e., I have not attempted to update the driver yet). The new card's HDMI-output worked, so I opened a previously created Vegas project using that output and applied Vegas' slow-motion effect to a single, 10-second, 1080p60 iPhone video clip.

FIrst attempt: Fail.

• Quality: Fine.
• Method: Optical flow.
• Playback rate: 1/2x.

The render progress-bar appears and proceeds normally to completion. However, upon completion, the resulting Vegas error-message pops up in the effects' window:

"Your graphics card does not have sufficient memory to complete this operation at the quality level you've specified. You must choose a lower quality setting."

This is the same error message I got when I had a cheap AMD card in the machine with minimal VRAM (and the main reason I bought a new card). According to a reply I received in another thread, I thought 4GB would enough to apply the effect to a 10-second clip.

Second attempt: Fail.

• Quality: Medium.
• Method: Optical flow.
• Playback rate: 1/2x.

Vegas completed the "analyze motion" step then displayed the same error-message. Also, the frame-counter display at the bottom of the preview window said, "Frame: 588 . . . " with the ellipses continually "cascading" to the right.

Third attempt: Fail.

• Quality: Coarse.
• Method: Optical flow.
• Playback rate: 1/2x.

Again, Vegas completed the "analyze motion" step then displayed the same error-message. This time, the frame-counter display at the bottom of the preview window indicated, "Frame: 639 . . . " with the ellipses continually "cascading" to the right.

Also, just checked my preferences and GPU acceleration was set to: "Optimal - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (Oland)." What is the difference between "Oland" and "Ellesmere" options? [Answered: See next post.] Here's my current video preferences settings:

Preferences → Video:
Dynamic RAM preview max (MB): 200 Max available: 31,651.
Maximum number of rendering threads: 32

Finally, can anyone confirm that 4GB is or isn't enough VRAM for this specific effect, or do I need to update the driver or change some settings in Vegas first? Any other suggestions on how to proceed? Thanks!

Comments

studio-4 wrote on 6/22/2021, 12:01 AM

Also, just checked my preferences and GPU acceleration was set to: "Optimal - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (Oland)." What is the difference between "Oland" and "Ellesmere" options?

So I just did a quick Google-search and found this in Wikipedia, "Polaris 10 (also codenamed Ellesmere) found on 'Radeon RX 470'- and 'Radeon RX 480'-branded graphics cards [emhpasis added]," so I'll try everything again with the "Ellesmere" option checked instead in Preferences → Video → GPU Acceleration.

studio-4 wrote on 6/22/2021, 12:26 AM

Okay, I just changed the AMD acceleration to "Ellesmere," rebooted, and now the "coarse" analyze motion process is estimated at 20 minutes. This is over twice as long as when previously set to "Oland."

Fourth attempt: Successful—no VRAM memory-errors.

• Quality: Coarse.
• Method: Optical flow.
• Playback rate: 1/2x.
• Preferences → Video → GPU Acceleration → Optimal - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (Ellesmere).

This time, the "analyze motion" process completed without throwing any memory-errors. The only thing I changed is the GPU-acceleration option in preferences from Oland to Ellesmere. However, now the estimated time to render to AVCHD is at 32 minutes, and growing, for a 10-second clip (estimate indicated at 20%-completion). Previously, this clip would render in just a couple minutes.

I think I'll just skip trying to use this effect. It's probably reasonable to assume this is a fairly computational-heavy effect, so the extended render-time may be completely normal—I don't know. Anyone else experience similarly long render-times when using this particular effect?

3POINT wrote on 6/22/2021, 2:58 AM

Accidentally I played with this FX yesterday on my PC (specs see my signature) with a 2160p25 clip 11 seconds long.

The analyses took about 2 minutes with setting to fine, rendering took less than a minute. (but is ofcourse also depending playback rate setting, I used keyframes to slow down a part of the clip to 0,1)

I tried all options and methods but in all cases I was disappointed of the result, or better said it was unusable.

Quite good results I got with this standalone tool: https://www.prodad.com/Slowmotion-Timelapse/ReSpeedr-V1-29772,l-us.html

When looking for a slomo plugin: https://revisionfx.com/products/twixtor/ seems to be the standard.

studio-4 wrote on 6/22/2021, 11:58 AM

Thanks for reporting all that! I forgot to mention I was applying the effect to an already pretty heavily effected clip (halftone-effect). The CODEC must've really struggled since it took so long and the final rendered-results were, how shall I describe it, oddly "wrong." I'll try a plain-vanilla clip next time. I'm pretty sure the halftoned-image really tripped up the algos, so it'll be interesting to see if the render-time reduces significantly on more normal media.

Again, will probably never use this effect (now that I've seen its shortcomings). Obviously, the best slo-mo is going to come from high-speed photography on acquisition. Also did some GPU-benchmarking last night and the new card ranks about three times faster than the old card. Plus, my Xeon CPU did surprisingly well compared to some older Core i7 processors.