Terrible Render Preview Window Performance

herein2015 wrote on 4/2/2015, 10:17 PM
I have tried every setting I can find, watched hours of YouTube videos looking for a solution and benchmarked my video editing workstation multiple times trying to improve the performance of the video rendering preview window. As of this writing I am almost ready to ask for a refund and to move on to a different product.

Video preview performance is horrible; the window skips frames, freezes, stutters badly, and I have yet to successfully watch even a simple transition between clips; typically the preview window skips right over transitions and I have no clue if they are where I want them until after the final render.

My video editing workstation is as follows:

Platform: HP Z800
Processors: Dual Hexacore Xeon Processors
Memory: 48GB
Storage: OCZ SSD
Video Cards: Dual NVIDIA Quadro FX4800
OS: Windows 8.1

I have tried the following:

-Enabled GPU Acceleration within the preview options
-Disabled scale video to fit window
-Disabled GPU Acceleration
-Reinstalled Movie Studio Platinum multiple times
-Tried the 32bit and 64bit versions of Movie Studio Platinum 13 Build 942
-Upgraded the firmware on my video cards
-Tried different versions of video card drivers
-Tried the software on two different workstations
-Updated my workstation with all of the latest patches
-Reloaded my entire workstation and installed nothing but Movie Studio

Throughout all of these tests, my workstation is practically asleep; CPU never rises above 10%, GPU never rises above 3%, memory utilization never rises above 8GB, disk latency is typically less than 5ms.

My source media is typically 1080P in MP4 format at 60FPS. With my output typically being 720P at 30FPS in MP4 format.

I have tried many other products including Lightworks, Corel Video Studio, Cyberlink PowerDirector, and even Windows Movie Maker 2012. Not one of them have a problem in the preview window showing me smooth high quality video with the transitions, filters, text, etc applied.

I even went so far as to run Corel VideoStudio X8 side by side with Movie Studio 13 on the exact same clip; the preview window for Corel was smooth, the one for Movie Studio was stuttering badly; my CPU didn't even go over 20% and GPU stayed around 5%.

The absolute only thing that improves its performance is creating a Dynamic RAM Preview, but to have to do that over and over for short sections of the video makes no sense to me after giving it this many resources.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Comments

astar wrote on 4/10/2015, 8:21 PM
The FX4800 is very low end for GPU timeline / rendering, it is basically a 260 desktop card. The K series would be the modern versions. Vegas will only render one GPU anyways. Try a 290X or if you need workstation graphics a w9100. 290x and w9100 share the same GPU chip.

http://anandtech.com/show/7481/the-amd-radeon-r9-290-review/14

Verify that your GPUs are communicating at x16 2.0 with GPU-z. If not correct.

Verify your memory is running at 1333 and not 800.

Verify that your HDD bandwith is actually what is should be with something like Blackmagic Disk IO or CrystalMark. A tool like Speccy will allow you to verify the NCQ is enabled for the media interface, and correct transfer speed is operating.

google "DPC latency check", and verify that you do not have a bad driver/component causing issues. There a few tools out there that can verify this.

Do the trial of Vegas Pro 13 B444 and see if the rendering is different. I was under the impression that Vegas MS was gimped for tracks and rendering speed. That was the carrot to go Pro.

Since you make no reference to source material type ---> going to .mp4. We can only assume going to .mp4. Try rendering some of your source footage to XDCAM-EX, and then try some render tests. Some source codecs could be holding you back. XDCAM is a highly Vegas optimized workflow.
jrappl wrote on 4/19/2015, 6:47 PM
Ok, just for kicks...

Turn GPU rendering off in options/preferences/video
Set Dynamic RAM to 200MB
Set Max rendering threads to 16

Try it, it worked for me...