PhotoStory slows down when Music is added

John-Moy wrote on 9/24/2018, 9:29 PM

Photostory is snappy in the GUI but once I add music to it, it slows down.

The tools freeze up, stuttering and exporting is really slow.

Once i remove the music track, everything becomes snappy again.

I also notice the GPU is utilized a lot more when the music is removed. GPU usage drops when music is added back in.

Please advise. Thanks

Latest version is being used

Comments

emmrecs wrote on 9/25/2018, 4:12 AM

First, can you confirm, via Help>About Magix Photostory, that you are running version 18.1.1.53, which is the latest?

Then, please read this post and give us ALL the information requested there. My suspicion, based on what you have written, is that you have some kind of "bottleneck" somewhere in your computer that is causing the issue you're experiencing; hence, the request for full details about your hardware.

Jeff

John-Moy wrote on 9/25/2018, 8:43 AM

I confirmed it is 18.1.1.53.

Lenovo Yoga 710 laptop
intel i7 7500u cpu 2.7 ghz
16gb ram
SSD 256 Gb storage, 45g avail
internal graphics card: intel HD graphics 620 & NVida GeForce 940mx
built in internal audio card
Windows 10 home, 64bit. all updates applied, version 1803 build 17134.285
Using Mp3 for background music.
Export to mp4, at HD quality

Also note when music is added, I see the GPU usage decreases significantly.

Hope this helps.

emmrecs wrote on 9/25/2018, 9:27 AM

Hi, thanks for the update.

Two things strike me as possible causes of the issue you are seeing:

Running the OS, the program and the audio from a single disc, even an SSD, is going to be somewhat taxing on your system.
(And I think this may be even more pertinent in your case) use of mp3 files as an audio source can cause problems for video editing-type programs. I would suggest finding some method of converting the mp3 to wav; this will produce a much "bigger" file but it will be one that does not require PS Deluxe to decompress it in order to play it.

Your comment about the GPU usage decreasing when music is added may simply be caused by the fact that your computer is somewhat struggling to cope with the throughput of data required, especially since the mp3 file will need to be decompressed "on the fly". IOW your computer resources are being stretched and hence lower priority is being given to your GPU.

I notice you say you are exporting to mp4 HD; have you actually created an exported version? Does it play without problem?

HTH

Jeff

John-Moy wrote on 9/25/2018, 10:36 AM

Converting the mp3 to wav did the trick! GPU and CPU usage increased.

export time went from 2 hours to 15 minutes.

Thank you

emmrecs wrote on 9/25/2018, 1:30 PM

@John-Moy

Thanks for the update. Great to hear everything's now running smoothly!

Jeff