GPU ‘upgrade’ not an upgrade?

[Clive Mclaughlin]

So I tried a render to Sony AVC and found significantly better render speeds. Which is good. But are there any drawbacks from rendering to this format rather than MainConcept AVC?
But, it’s not that the Sony AVC utilises the GPU better, because the render time is equally as fast when I choose CPU only.

I’ve requested a returns to Amazon a few days ago, and still haven’t posted it back. I want to experiment. Wats the point in returning just to blindly choose another one.

[Clive Mclaughlin]

I decided to check performance again since I re-installed Vegas. Now I get full playback in ‘Preview’ but the CPU maxes at any ‘Good’ range and playback rate drops dramatically.
CPU upgrade would certainly help that, but in fairness ‘Preview’ is adequate to edit to.

So it’s really just the render speeds now. I was happy with the results on my GTX 570, and the R9 390 will probably go back.

I’ve been testing with the exact same timeline scetion and other components. I’ve uninstalled old drivers. I’ve re-installed drivers.

I checked my parts performance during render testing. Tested at CPU only, and OpenCL, and CUDA. On no occassions did we see the GPU usage rise above 1%, but in every case the CPU usage was in mid to high 90s.

[Clive Mclaughlin]

Update: On a longer render, I could see that the GPU render had no added effect over ‘CPU only’ in MainConcept, but on Sony/AVC, it had (very) marginal improvement over ‘CPU only’. But nowhere near the GPU acceleration I was enjoying on my GTX 570.

So if anybody comes across this post while researching GPU, it’s a thumbs down for the R9 390 if you are a Vegas Pro user.

John Laird posted earlier than his setup was lightning quick and included an R9 390. I’d like to see his comparisons between CPU only and GPU render. I suspect he may just be enjoying life with a superior CPU and his graphics card has little to do with it.

[Aaron Star]

“thumbs down for the R9 390 if you are a Vegas Pro user”

That statement is based on what? You offer no insight into your testing process, media types or project settings, so there is no way for anyone to know what you are doing.

I can assure you that the 390 will out perform the 570 with the proper use case. A use case like AVC, prores, cineform, xdcam, or HDCAM content with layers of timeline text, compositing, or effects like GBlur, Rays, SoftCon, Glow, cookie cutter (power windows,) min&max.

A go to test for OpenCL enhancement is to use a 1 minute clip of AVC, prores, cineform, xdcam, or HDCAM encoded content, then apply a “Sony Min and Max” with a “Sony Defocus” effect. Test play back speed, and render times using both CPU only and Auto settings in the render template. Monitor GPU utilization with GPUz or “AMD System Monitor.” If you get any “…” after your Frame: counter, then your system is dropping massive amounts of frames to keep up even with the low speed it is showing.

Most people also will render their finals in 32-bit Video Levels, this is another case where the enhanced Floating Point calculation speed will be noticed.

There is more to the rendering pipeline than just MC encoder acceleration.

I spent most my time editing and not rendering, so I would not give up an improvement in calculation speed that the GPU offers. If your use case for Vegas is just an elaborate video file converter, then you probably will not see much improvement with OpenCL.

[Clive Mclaughlin]

Aaron, whilst I appreciate your efforts, you can surely realise when what you are saying is way over most people’s heads.

I’ve very little idea what most of that means.

Ok, maybe I’m wrong to say it’s a thumbs down for every user. It depends on how much effects etc you might use.

But for me, on my simple wedding edit timelines with occasional cross-fade and light color grading, the R9 390 doesn’t produce rendering as fast as my GTX 570.

Can you tell me something I can do to change that?

If not, then it remains a thumbs down (for those with a similar need to mine).

I appreciate your efforts, but if you are keen to continue helping me here, you may have to dumb it down a little.

I’m a video editor, not a computer scientist!

[Aaron Star]

You can lead a horse… ahh whatever.

[John Norton]

“My main issue is the preview in multicam mode with a 4k track.

I decided to check performance again since I re-installed Vegas. Now I get full playback in ‘Preview’ but the CPU maxes at any ‘Good’ range and playback rate drops dramatically.
CPU upgrade would certainly help that, but in fairness ‘Preview’ is adequate to edit to.”

You may already know this …
I assume you are using proxy files for 4K …

Check out page 102 in the manual. Only draft and preview uses the proxy file, if you use good or best then you are using the 4K file alone for preview, obviously more difficult for your PC.