I have the lightening bolt, but it doesn't help. I think my issue might be my GPU. I think I might need an upgrade to at least 4GB GDDR5. I will try playing around with proxy files. I'm editing 1080P files

Magix' "recommended" minimum GPU is the GTX 1050 for the latest iterations of the program, which allegedly makes better use of any GPUs a system has.

https://www.magix.com/gb/video-editing/movie-studio/specifications/#c1477846

Thank you Friend

@raybbj

Hi

. . . . I'm editing 1080P files . . . .

Which format and codec are the video files?

Download and install MediaInfo and analyse one of the clips and post the results, see this tutorial if you are not familiar with MediaInfo,  on how to setup MediaInfo and analyse a video clip. 

As @AAProds has suggested - proxy files these can help with the performance of the PC - they do take up more disk space and are only used for preview playback in the program, when you export the original video files are used. Once the project is finished and exported or disc created the proxy files can be deleted if necessary - they are in the same folder as the video files in the project, and if you ever go back to the project at a later date they will be recreated.

. . . .  I think my issue might be my GPU . . . .

There are 2 GPU's in your PC. MEP 2015 cannot use the GT 750, however it can use the integrated HD4600 GPU providing that:

• it has not been disabled by the GT 750 installed
   
• has a monitor plugged into it.

HTH

John EB
Forum Moderator

@raybbj

Hi.

Although playback may be stuttery, does the project export OK?

If so then the nvidia card may not be the problem but simply the rest of the system can't cope with the amount of data throughput or general processing needed in real time for playback.

As Al has mentioned it would be unusual to see any part of a system max out as the whole process is interactive and component dependent so is say a disc drive does not have enough cache to deliver the amount of data needed per cycle the processor will sit idle awaiting the next block of data. That will not max out the disc drive either as it is only being asked for a finite amount of data at a time but the seek time and amount of data it can proved at one time can limit the overall performance. The more tracks you add the more data has to be sent from different parts of the drive at the same time.

That is not to say you can't max out a component but normally that comes from using a third party effect and not normally using plugins from within the core program.

As well as trying to use proxy files that will be smaller files in Mbps to read for playback, you can also select to use less frames per second (from within the blue lightning bow drop-down menu) which is hardly noticeable from a playback perspective but can help with smooth playback.

Audio buffers in the program settings can also be increased along with sample rates so more gets loaded at a time. That normally helps with a smoother playback but makes the program less responsive to playback commands and introduces lags between say pressing play and when play actually commences. (You will see a blue line go across the bottom of the program as the data gets loaded into ram before playback commences).

If MEP 2015 has the option, you can also manually add a preview render to the effected area by using the range markers and asking it to do a preview render in that section. That will then give a smooth playback of that section but only until you alter something in that region, then it will have to be re-rendered.

Other things can also effect responsiveness and smooth playback.

For instance. Using a template to divide the three video clips into the view that I want will use more processing power than setting each clip up individually by using the crop, and size position functions within MEP on my machine.

You may also find that two different projects behave differently if the resolution is the same but the frame rates differ. The less frames per second, the less data throughput there will be.

At the end of the day, the more we ask our systems to do, the more we hit these types of performance walls when our expectations exceed the overall performance of our machines.

I do it regularly. 😂

Sometimes there are alternative workarounds, other times not so much short of upgrading a system or part of it, but which part may be trickier to work out than one would think.

Ray.

@raybbj

After seeing @johnebaker has posted while I have been typing and assuming you have both GPUs enabled then there is also a Windows setting in Win 10 that could be of benefit.

Open Windows Settings. Click on System and scroll down to the bottom of that page.

Select Graphics settings.

Make sure Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling is switched on.

Under the Graphics performance preference and in the Choose an app to set preference box select Desktop app and click browse.

Go to local Disk C: \ Program files \ Magix \ Movie Edit Pro (or similar folder) \ 2015 and scroll down to the programs exe. file. Click on it to use it.

In the graphics preference box chose Power Saving and save.

That will ensure the best mix between your Intel graphics chip and the nvidia card.

That setting will not work with the new version of MEP (2022) but does work with older versions.

Ray.

Playback is fine after I render the project.

I don't see any integrated graphics GPU (HD4600). When I look at my Device Manage, I only see the GTX 750 listed. The GTX 750 is the only place to plucg in a monitor. The MOBO does not have any video ports.

I wonder if there is an App/Program that I can download to see the GPU performance is it hits the Brady Bunch portion of my video (multiple videos in one shot). This way I can see if the GPU is the weak link.

@raybbj

Hi.

When using MediaInfo use the 'text view' which has much more file detail in it.

Then we can see more clearly what we are dealing with.

Looking at the data I can see, it looks like it is an HEVC codec which I'm surprised your system is capable of dealing with one instance of. As such it could also be a variable frame rate file. Both of which are not easily dealt with within a video editor.

In which case I don't think if that even if you did have use of the inboard Intel GPU, it would not do you much good.

It is possible that if you have a prebuilt system that the manufacturer had custom motherboards made that did not support the embedded GPU chip in the processor. Mainly that would have been done to reduce production costs. The same as not have a power supply more than needed to operate the computer as configured.

HEVC, also known as H625, is very processor intensive and not a good codec for using within a video editor as an HEVC codec needs twice the processing power than if you were using H264 (MPG-4) files of the same frame rate and resolution.

Some iPhones have the option of recording in the MPEG-4 codec and personally I would try and see if that is possible. The files will be twice the size but more easily editable.

Ray.

@raybbj Right click on the Taskbar at the bottom of your screen - Taskmanager - Performance,

I stole this pic off the net because it shows the Intel GPU & Nvidia

@CubeAce 'Looking at the data I can see, it looks like it is an HEVC codec' ?   I looked when i saw it was an iPhone vid which often has cropped up because of it being recorded with the setting on the phone as HDR & so HEVC format,, But that media Info he's posted says AVC

PS, the media info also shows 60fps, a GTX 750 would struggle with that fps, my PC isn't keen on 60fps.

@Former user

Hi Gid.

I stand corrected. You are right, it is H264 MPEG-4/AVC. So it probably won't be variable frame rate.

I'm surprised your system is struggling with 60fps files.

Ray.

 

@raybbj @CubeAce @Former user

Hi All

60fps can create significant extra load with older versions of MEP on older systems. As can playing H.264 AVC files in a Quicktime container file.

Make sure that you tick the setting "Reduce frame rate" after double clicking (Rt.Clicking?) the Lightning Bolt button.

AFAIK all i7- 4790 processors have the HD4600 integrated graphics so it is possible as Ray says that the mobo may be custom made and not have an output, but as the GPU is integrated on the CPU it may still be capable of doing the Decoding function, which can be a considerable load with 3 streams of video, if it could be activated in the Bios.

Peter

My PC is an off the shelf ASUS PC. I did not build this one myself. When I looked at the CPU usage yesterday, it was peaking at around 85%, but today it's peaking at 100% when I try to playback 4 simultaneous videos in the editor. So maybe it's a CPU issue??? As you can see in the screenshot below, the CPU spikes to 100% when the video hits 4 simultaneous videos in the editor.

I have tried every option in the Lightening Bolt feature (frame rates, etc.) nothing helps.

This has been a problem I have been dealing with for years. I usually only have 4 or more videos playing simultaneously in any given movie for a 5 or 10 seconds at a time, so I have just lived with it. The laggy'ness goes away once it goes back to just one or 2 videos per frame, but I thought I would spend some time now trying to troubleshoot it.

I suppose I could try dropping the raw videos from 60FPS to 30FPS and see what that looks like. I record music videos, so a lot of fast moving hands (drums, guitar, piano, etc), so I figured 60FPS would be best to capture quick moving subjects.

@raybbj

I'd go the proxy route if MEP 2015 has that capability. MEP takes it's time producing the proxys (which are simply MXVs of the files) but after that editing will be nice and quick.

@CubeAce Hi, Sorry didn't mean to infer my PC struggles, it has no prob playing 60fps but in Vegas i can see the playback fps, 60fps def takes a little more time to get up to the full 60, esp if i add effects, but that's Vegas, MEP plays files 100x better, there appears no lag but i can't see the playback speed in MEP, watching the GPU in Taskmanager & looking at the playback fps i can see my PC is having to do more work, I've switched the screen capture from 60fps to 30fps because they play absolutely no prob, I was just trying to mention that even on my PC i can see/tell the difference between the two 😉👍

'H264 MPEG-4/AVC. So it probably won't be variable frame rate' This is one of my Samsung S21 phone vids, all my phone clips are variable. sorry to pull you again on this 😉😁

@raybbj Your GPU is only 1GB so quite underpowered & it looks like it's doing very little @Scenestealer as you say I had to turn on my on board GPU on my old PC in BIOS , is it poss that his is not turned on & that's why it doesn't show in Taskmanager,? I've got an AMD CPU so no Intl GPU to compare Taskmanager views.

When you open Settings - Program (or click Y ) what have got set in this tab?

I also though it was strange that the GPU was going very little in task manager also. I will try to see if the on board GPU is disabled somehow. Here are my settings.

@raybbj Hi, hmmm Movie Edit Pro 2015, it's different to 2022, 🤔what options do you have in the Video Mode dropdown?

@raybbj Hi, hmmm Movie Edit Pro 2015, it's different to 2022, 🤔what options do you have in the Video Mode dropdown?

 

Compatability - Video for Windows

Standard - Direct 3D, HW acceleration

Alternative. - Video Mixing Renderer9

@raybbj & i don't think it's been asked, what version of Windows are you using, just out of curiousity, Your CPU, GPU & Magix version are all from 2015 so i don't think it matters if you're using an older Windows version,

Windows 10 Home 64 Bit

@raybbj @Former user @Scenestealer @AAProds

Hi.

I have just re-read the whole topics replies.

I missed an important point brought up by @johnebaker which is MEP 2015 or any other version of MEP can't make use of the nvidia GTX 750 for hardware encoding. Possibly this has to do with the way that card handles nvenc, or rather can't due to the way the card works. That means without the use of the Intel chip you have no hardware encoding capabilities and purely relying on CPU grunt with the exception of the 3D graphics rendering which would be the activity you are seeing from the nvidia card.

I think Peter could also be correct about the codec wrapper. In Windows what is the file extension? Is it mov. ?

If so, that is additional strain on the system.

I agree with the others that enabling the use of proxy files may help but it doesn't always. At least not for me in the past.

Ray.

@raybbj, @CubeAce

Hi Ray and Ray

. . . . Possibly this has to do with the way that card handles nvenc, or rather can't due to the way the card works. . . . .

It is the other way round, MEP 2015 does not support NVENC, it was introduced with MEP 2021, after NVidia dropped the NVCUVID encoder dll in favour of NVENC encoding.

. . . . off the shelf ASUS PC . . . .

Assuming this is standard desktop PC, ie not a laptop, given the age of the computer it will have a standard VGA video output on the motherboard, usually coloured blue or black, it may not have an DVI or HDMI outputs. If it does not have a VGA output then it is very unusual.

The HD 4600 not appearing in Device Manager would suggest it is not enabled in the BIOS and, as I previously stated, requires a monitor plugging into to before it will be available.

John EB

@raybbj @Former user @CubeAce @AAProds @johnebaker

Hi

The high % of CPU usage is typical for earlier versions of MEP because the CPU was being used to do the Decoding of the file during playback with the GPU processing cores being used for Direct X acceleration of some of the effects plus the display on the monitor.

The big boost for the later versions of MEP has been that the decoding is now done on the NVENC chip on the Discreet GPU ie Nvidia, and the frames kept in the GPU memory rather than being passed back to the CPU for further processing. This short cut speeds up the process and makes use of the many processors available on the discreet GPU for further processing. Keeping everything on the GPU leaves the CPU almost idle whilst outsourcing these tasks to the Discreet GPU and and or the Integrated GPU on the Intel CPU.

The big push from Magix has been to use the GPU's in this manner to greatly assist when playing back ie decoding several streams of HD or UHD

I think I might need an upgrade to at least 4GB GDDR5.

@raybbj - This would only be of benefit if you upgraded to MMS 2022 for the reasons above and of course you would need a GTX1050 series or later card to get the decoding benefit of the NVENC chip for playback and encoding as this is not present on earlier cards like the GTX750.

Your best bet would be to use proxies as suggested, and try to enable the 4600 iGPU.

@Former user ......but in Vegas i can see the playback fps,

In MEP you can get an idea of how well the system is handling the Frame rate by looking at the little numbers at the extreme bottom left of the program which say " CPU 30/30" or "5/30" - 30 being the number of frames in the buffer for display. When this drops down below 10 you are likely to be losing display frame rate.

Peter