Speeding up playback performance VP17 vs VP18

hambonio wrote on 8/4/2020, 3:11 PM

I now have a fresh Windows 10 Pro installation (2004).

The only software I have installed is VP18 and VP17.

For scrubbing footage: Typically with VP17 and VP14, I have been able to increase playback speed to 4x while still displaying max FPS, and with 7x playback speed with displaying ~18-22 FPS playback. I usually have my displays set to Best:Half for scrubbing.

With VP18, the frame-rate drastically starts dropping once I start going above 2.5x speed. Once I hit 4x speed it drops to 1-2 FPS, and 7x speed is less than 1 FPS playback. I tried setting the playback quality as low as Preview:Quarter with not much help.

I noticed this first with my basic install of VP18, so I also installed VP17 to make sure I wasn't going crazy. It still works like butter in VP17 at higher speeds, even at Best:Full it is almost full frame-rate.

I did try the tips in the video here: and maybe it seems to help just a touch, but I think it is my wishful imagination. It is still nowhere near the playback speeds of VP17 that had none of those options changed after a fresh install (I did change most of those options as well in VP17 after watching).

I also had the exact clip solo loaded into each version, basically setting up the same project but loaded on their own, and can switch between each version loaded at the same time and see a huge difference. No effects added, just simple bare 4K footage from my a7sii.

I now have tried both of the newest drivers for my Radeon VII - The normal and Enterprise versions - and the result is the same.

VP18 build 284 - VP17 Build 452

Radeon VII

3x Dell Ultrasharp U2718Q 27" 4K UHD Monitors

Ryzen 9 3900x,

Crosshair VIII Hero, X570 Motherboard

64GB RAM

Any other tips?

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Comments

VEGASHeman wrote on 8/7/2020, 11:49 AM

Thank you, all, for the files.

I can play the OP's file on both a NAVI-based RX 5700 GPU, and a Polaris based RX 550, at full frame rate on my machine with the A7S II clip using the AMD decoder. My understanding is that the RX 4xxx series shared the same media decoding/encoding engine (including the Radeon VII), so I am puzzled by the behavior you folks get. I will try further with a RX 470 and a WX 9100 and report my findings.

VEGASHeman wrote on 8/7/2020, 11:51 AM

@Former user: I believe the problem with the A7S III clip is due to to the 10-bit 4:2:2 nature of it - none of the hardware decoders support that yet, and the software Intel decoder we use can not handle it. We are actively looking at alternate solutions to get this working through one of our updates for VP18.

hambonio wrote on 8/7/2020, 11:58 AM

Thank you for testing, and offering to test further.

Without trying to derail this post too much, but now that there is a7siii discussion for some reason, will the XAVC-I files from the a7siii be an issue? That will be my main camera once they ship. I believe even the regular XAVCS (non HEVC) can now do 10 bit as well.

andyrpsmith wrote on 8/7/2020, 12:03 PM

It loads in my V18 but the image is corrupted, Vegas did not crash. The audio is OK.

VEGASHeman wrote on 8/7/2020, 12:09 PM

@hambonio: I assume you are talking about H.264/XAVC S-I 4:2:2 10-Bit specifically. We have not had a chance to look at these files just yet (if you can point to a sample file, that would be great), but yes, we do aim to support the non-RAW formats from this camera as part of the VP18 updates.

VEGASHeman wrote on 8/7/2020, 12:10 PM

@andyrpsmith: Yes, it is a similar issue to the files produced by Canon R5/R6 also.

andyrpsmith wrote on 8/8/2020, 4:34 AM

Does disabling OpenCL make V18 more stable and what maybe the disadvantage?

Former user wrote on 8/8/2020, 6:09 AM

Thank you for testing, and offering to test further.

Without trying to derail this post too much, but now that there is a7siii discussion for some reason, will the XAVC-I files from the a7siii be an issue? That will be my main camera once they ship. I believe even the regular XAVCS (non HEVC) can now do 10 bit as well.

@hambonio 4K H.264/XAVC S-I 4:2:2 10-Bit and H.264/XAVC S 4:2:2 10-Bit work fine but due to lack of hardware decoders it requires a lot of cpu. The difference in cpu between the 2 formats is only 10% on my 4 core cpu which came as a surprise, the Intra version is not as CPU friendly as you'd think. 25P and 30P can play fine, 50P and I get only 5fps. Luckily this is not one of those strange situations where there's CPU available but Vegas wont' use it. VP18 is using 100% of my cpu trying to play 50P. It would most likely work with a fast 4 core, near 5ghz or much more easily with 6/8core cpu

hambonio wrote on 8/8/2020, 6:16 AM

Thank you for testing, and offering to test further.

Without trying to derail this post too much, but now that there is a7siii discussion for some reason, will the XAVC-I files from the a7siii be an issue? That will be my main camera once they ship. I believe even the regular XAVCS (non HEVC) can now do 10 bit as well.

@hambonio 4K H.264/XAVC S-I 4:2:2 10-Bit and H.264/XAVC S 4:2:2 10-Bit work fine but due to lack of hardware decoders it requires a lot of cpu. The difference in cpu between the 2 formats is only 10% on my 4 core cpu which came as a surprise, the Intra version is not as CPU friendly as you'd think. 25P and 30P can play fine, 50P and I get only 5fps. Luckily this is not one of those strange situations where there's CPU available but Vegas wont' use it. VP18 is using 100% of my cpu trying to play 50P. It would most likely work with a fast 4 core, near 5ghz or much more easily with 6/8core cpu

Good to know. Then hopefully 24 cores should be no issue.

AVsupport wrote on 8/8/2020, 9:06 AM

A7Siii 10bit xavcs intra files 4k play back fine, and it seems 'preview auto' works better than before. better if you have fhd project. not so good if your fps is 50p or so. did post a link to some sample footage i found on fb user group in the '8 bit video levels' thread. Also noticed the 'read ahead' buffer issue is still there where clips cut you can experience frame drops when the system load is high.

AVsupport wrote on 8/8/2020, 9:25 AM

HEVC decode support with contemporary GPUs like my run of the mill gtx 1060 should be possible

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

hambonio wrote on 8/8/2020, 8:41 PM

"did post a link to some sample footage i found on fb user group in the '8 bit video levels' thread. "

Good stuff, I just found it! My secondary PC was able to play the 24p clips fine. The 60p clips were rough, but I already am assured I will be using proxies for 60p or 120p scrubbing for sure.

Do you happen to know what these clips were shot in? I had some fun grading them and got some stellar results. Also would love to know the lens used if possible. Now I want those cameras to ship yesterday....

Former user wrote on 8/8/2020, 9:34 PM

HEVC decode support with contemporary GPUs like my run of the mill gtx 1060 should be possible

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

You have to scroll down to NVDEC. 1060 is not supported, but also note no Nvidia GPU currently support 422 HEVC decode