Underwhelming GPU Rendering

John222 wrote on 11/16/2015, 10:59 AM
Vegas 11 Pro , AMD R9-290x Windows 10 with AMD 1045T processor and 8gb RAM . Results are inconsistent at best. I'm using software to monitor GPU utilization during rendering and it might start at 20% then drop to zero for several seconds then go to 5% and then back to zero.... Just bounces around resulting in only about 10% render time savings over using CPU only. I really don't think this video board renders any faster than my older AMD 6870.

Summary, I think my money would have been better spent upgrading my mother board and processor.

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 11/16/2015, 11:35 AM
>Summary, I think my money would have been better spent upgrading my mother board and processor.

That's pretty much always the case, John. A powerful GPA does little but improve graphics performance.
OldSmoke wrote on 11/16/2015, 12:21 PM
The CPU must be able to pass the frames to the GPU as fast as fast as the GPU can process it. If the CPU is weaker then the GPU, you wont see any significant benefit. Aside from the CPU, your systems PCIe bus and memory bus must also be sufficient. To take full advantage of the R9, you should at least have at least a full working PCIe 3.0 and an i7 4core CPU at around 4GHz or faster.

This works the other way around too, if the CPU is faster then the GPU... same thing.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

Marc S wrote on 11/16/2015, 4:41 PM
I never use GPU because in Vegas I get render glitches and lower quality.

In Premiere CS6 however it works great.
OldSmoke wrote on 11/17/2015, 7:20 AM
For me, it's the best thing that ever happened. I can do so much more with it like preview of 1080 29.97p, 32bit full range project at Best/Full even with FXs applied.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

Marc S wrote on 11/17/2015, 3:27 PM
Oldsmoke, what card are you using?
OldSmoke wrote on 11/17/2015, 3:37 PM
ASUS Radeon R9 290. I changed from GTX570 to GTX580 but the R9 is a lot faster because OpenCL is much better implemented in the AMD cards. You will lose fast rendering for SONY AVC and MC AVC but it does help with Vegas2Handbrake and MPEG2 renders are very fast too.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

astar wrote on 11/18/2015, 4:04 AM
GPU in Vegas is not some magic bullet, it only performs math faster than the cpu can. If you ran tests that demanded the gpu performance you would see much better render times. Certain native codecs in vegas also demand more from the gpu, than some camera native formats. 32bit FP mode is another example of where the GPU assists greatly. Mpeg4 compression is not really a good show of the benifits of the GPU.

The posters core system sounds under powered for the GPU chosen. The cpu is weak and ram is to limited.
John222 wrote on 11/18/2015, 8:31 AM
Agreed. My point was, it would have been smarter to use the cash towards upgrading my CPU, MB and RAM. Without those things in place the video card upgrade has little or no return on investment.

I'm currently planning to get one of the i7-5820K combo deals from newegg in the next few months. Hopefully that will complement my video card and boost overall performance from my system.
OldSmoke wrote on 11/18/2015, 9:33 AM
The i7-5820K is not really a good choice. The CPU has limited PCIe lanes, 28 compared to 40 for the 5930K. The only good thing is, you are already on the latest 2011 socket and you could upgrade the CPU later. However, if budget allows for it, go with the 5930K which has more PCIe lanes and 2 additional cores.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

John222 wrote on 11/18/2015, 10:34 AM
Aren't the extra PCIe lanes only benneficial when running multiple video cards?

OldSmoke wrote on 11/18/2015, 11:13 AM
And other add on cards too; sound cards, raid cards, capture cards and so on. 16 lanes would be used for the GTX570 and that leaves you with 12 lanes. Most add on cards only use 4lanes but some may also be shared with USB3.0 or other onboard equipment. This is a 5820 CPU limitation and not your new motherboards. As I mentioned, if you want to upgrade later, that is ok too as the motherboard will support 40 lanes. If you don't want to upgrade at all, then there is really no advantage to have the socket 2011, in my opinion.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

R0cky wrote on 11/19/2015, 3:27 PM
I tried an R9 380 and it made a huge difference in some things compared to my GTX 960 which doesn't really do much in Vegas.

The R9 had double the frame rate using twixtor up until it crashed vegas. It crashed so much it was unusable and I returned the card and went back to the nvidia card. At least vegas is reasonably stable with it.

I have never had an AMD card that didn't crash something all of the time. This is over years and a number of different computers. I have always ended up back with nvidia.

rocky
ushere wrote on 11/19/2015, 4:33 PM
+1 rocky...

i keep looking at the r9 series but every time i think, why not? i have memories of every other time i've used an amd card.
John222 wrote on 11/20/2015, 11:23 AM
I think I may just go with the I7 4790 and save myself a lot of money. It only has 16 lanes, but I only have one video card and have no plans of getting a second card nor add on audio cards, for that matter. It will be much faster than my current system and I can just add to my existing ram. CPU, motherboard and an additional 8gb or RAM for approx. $500 and call it a day.
OldSmoke wrote on 11/20/2015, 11:54 AM
If you have no intention to upgrade to a 6-core in the near future, the 4790 is a better choice over the 5820.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

john_dennis wrote on 11/20/2015, 12:28 PM
"[I]i keep looking at the r9 series but every time i think, why not? i have memories of every other time i've used an amd card.[/I]"

After looking at preview frame rates around 10-11 fps all week, I've been swooping on the newly shipped R9 380x. Based my own perceptions of AMD, I'll look closely at the return policy of the location where I buy the card.
wwaag wrote on 11/20/2015, 1:40 PM
@john dennis

I'll look closely at the return policy of the location where I buy the card.

Amazon is great. 30 days. Just a short reason for return , plus they pay for return shipping if it doesn't work right.

wwaag

AKA the HappyOtter at https://tools4vegas.com/. System 1: Intel i7-8700k with HD 630 graphics plus an Nvidia RTX4070 graphics card. System 2: Intel i7-3770k with HD 4000 graphics plus an AMD RX550 graphics card. System 3: Laptop. Dell Inspiron Plus 16. Intel i7-11800H, Intel Graphics. Current cameras include Panasonic FZ2500, GoPro Hero11 and Hero8 Black plus a myriad of smartPhone, pocket cameras, video cameras and film cameras going back to the original Nikon S.

Simmo1985 wrote on 11/22/2015, 2:27 AM
I get a LOT better performance on the 14.9 drivers than the newer 15.x drivers in Windows 10.

The 14.9 drivers technically aren't supported by Windows 10, and my personal computer setup will be different than most. I have a 980ti, which I plug my monitors into. The R9 290 just sits in my machine and is used only for Vegas hardware acceleration. I had to find the drivers on the Guru3d website. Not sure how well the 14.9 drivers would work in Windows 10 if you're using the R9 290 as your main GPU. Could be worth a shot.

If so: uninstall current drivers using the DDU utility (Display Driver Uninstall - also available on Guru3d website). Install 14.9 drivers. Then you'll need to download the “Show or hide updates” troubleshooter for Windows 10 (available on Microsoft website), run that and prevent your computer from downloading any AMD driver updates. If you don't do that, it'll download the 15.x drivers and re-install them.
John222 wrote on 12/6/2015, 5:50 PM
Well just as an update, I added another 8gb of ram (bringing me to 16gb) and it resulted in a 30% reduction in render time. Next I'm going to overclock my CPU from 2.6 to 3.2 and adjust settings to take advantage of the ram capabilities. I think this should hold me for a while.

Originally I was planning to upgrade to an Intel CPU, only because AMD doesn't have a horse in the race right now. However, I just found that AMD will be realeasing it's newest Zen processor in the spring. This should hold me till then.

John222 wrote on 12/23/2015, 8:28 PM
A short update. I added a H80i gt cooler to my CPU. Now I've successfully over locked from 2.6 to 3.4 without any problems. To be sure I ran Prime for several hours and did some HD renders at the same time. That's about as far as I can go,

VP11 Benchmark test results;

MC AVC Internet HD 1080p Render = 234 Seconds
HDCAM EX HQ 1920x1080-60i 35mbps = 60 Seconds

The mainconcept render was CPU only since my R9-290x was not supported. The HD cam render seemed to use my GPU pretty heavy..

Max. Temperatures were as follows;
TMPINO = 56C
TMPIN1 = 35C
TMPIN2 = 43C

GPU = 94C

chandan-prakash wrote on 8/19/2017, 4:04 PM

let me add something from my experience too. I recently bought a Dell laptop, i7 7th series, 16 GB Ram, 512SSD. Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti GPU ( along with integrated intel HD630 ). Prior to this I had one Toshiba laptop with i7 3rd series with some HD AMD GPU and 8GB GB RAM with standard HDD which I bought in 2012. Since last year I have been editing all 4K videos on that old Toshiba laptop without any major issues. Obviously rendering was taking hell lot of time. Hence I bought this new Dell Laptop.

Observations: For 4K editing only as I don't edit 1080P anymore.

a) selecting Mainconcept AVC for 4K at 30P ( my videos shot in 4K at 30P using DMC-G7 at 100 Mbps ), it didn't matter whether I forced Vegas Movie Studio 14 to choose Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti, integrated Intel HD 630 or NO GPU at all, they all took approx. 36 minutes to render 2.30 Min video.. ( I ensured that Vegas chose the GPU that I wanted by following all suggestions that I could find on internet and I think I managed to do it quite well. ( options --> preference --> video --> acceleration gives me three options: Nvidia, intel , off ), allow legacy GPU rendering from General Tab etc. etc.)

So, Vegas has absolutely disregarded both of those GPUs.

b) By selecting XAVC-S , and then 4K at 30P, my rendering time came down to approx. 13 minutes for the same 2.30Min video. However, selecting Intel HD 630 or Only CPU also resulted in more or less same time...

Was I really so naïve to assume that over 5 years computer world would have moved on and with 7th gen Processor, 512 GB SSD and with fast 3D gaming Nvidia 1050 Ti would atleast result in better rendering time...

I mean I am regretting my new purchase that has costed me £1300 for no apparent gain whatsoever.. GPU has been totally disregarded by Vegas 14.

OldSmoke wrote on 8/19/2017, 5:23 PM

Have you tried to select Intel Quick Sync (Speed) for the Sony AVC encoder? It only works in the "speed" mode but should help with rendering time. You may have to enable "Allow Legacy GPU rendering" under preferences.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

chandan-prakash wrote on 8/19/2017, 6:11 PM

hi,

thanks for your reply. I didn't try that because Sony AVC doesn't have any 4K output option. I only edit 4K content. however, because you asked me to try so I tried doing it but I got a message that intel quick sync (speed) is not available. I tried doing it by selecting intel HD 630 option through preference --> video -->GPU acceleration option and then Allow GPU Rendering is always checked for me.

OldSmoke wrote on 8/19/2017, 6:31 PM

hi,

thanks for your reply. I didn't try that because Sony AVC doesn't have any 4K output option. I only edit 4K content. however, because you asked me to try so I tried doing it but I got a message that intel quick sync (speed) is not available. I tried doing it by selecting intel HD 630 option through preference --> video -->GPU acceleration option and then Allow GPU Rendering is always checked for me.


Yes, you are right. The Sony AVC doesn't allow 4K rendering. Have you tried disabling the Nvidia card in the bios, just for testing?

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)