Premiere Pro Lag on FAST Computer ???

[Alex Gerulaitis]

The first thing to do (usually) is to check what’s going on with the system when that lagging starts happening: disk or CPU activity, large memory footprint, and what’s causing it, which processes. Possibly Premiere Pro starts something in the background, or there is some other system process that slows down the system or causing issues.

Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA

[Kevin Monahan]

[Brian Rapaport] “I am wondering why Premiere lags and freezes every so often? Is this just because of the amount of memory being used?”

There could be many reasons why this is happening, unfortunately.

How much RAM are you allocating to Premiere Pro? Check Preferences > Memory.
Has the RAM been tested and is it good? Run the Apple Hardware Test.

In Project > Project Settings > General, are you running the Mercury Playback Engine in Software Only mode or Hardware mode?

[Brian Rapaport] “I typically run everything off the External Drives. “

Are you running Premiere Pro off the boot disk?
On which drive is the Media Cache and Media Cache database set in Media preferences?
What is the connectivity with the external drives? eSATA? Firewire 800?

Kevin Monahan
Sr. Content and Community Lead
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Systems, Inc.
Follow Me on Twitter!

[Brian Rapaport]

Thanks guys!

Kevin Monahan So I checked it out and right now, Premiere has 58GB of RAM available, 58 out of 64GB. As for the PlayBack Engine, the Renderer option is grayed out. However it does say Mercury Playback Engine Software Only, I just can’t click it– How do I change this? Other settings on it are Display Format: Timecode, Audio:Audio Samples, Capture:HDV– if that helps. How do I run the Hardware test?

Nope, I am running it off of my Lacie 500GB External connected with USB 3.0.

Oh well could this be it? The Media Cache Database is located on the Boot Disk— /Users/brian/Library/Preferences/Adobe/Common/
Media Cache Files are located the same.

In Media Settings I also have clicked:
– Write XMP ID to files on Import
– Enable Clip and XMP Metadata Linking
– Automatically Refresh Growing Files every 60 seconds.

[Kevin Monahan]

You should run Premiere Pro from the boot drive, not an external one. That’s the first thing to test.

Kevin Monahan
Sr. Content and Community Lead
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Systems, Inc.
Follow Me on Twitter!

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Along with moving Premiere Pro onto an internal drive (or even eSATA, the USB protocols really just aren’t as responsive as you would think), you may want to check power saving settings. You may find that external drives are set to go to sleep. Try adjusting this setting under Preferences > Energy Saver. If this seems to be the issue I would see if there is a different program to control this setting with; Windows lets you set an idle time rather than just yes or no.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

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[Dave Brandt]

How are you connecting that LaCie 500gb USB 3 to your Mac? There is no native usb3 on that Mac so it will default to USB 2 which is a bit slow for your needs.

http://www.SolidMedia.ie

Macbook Pro 17″ i7 2.2 8GB
PC i7 32GB Self Build
FCP 7 FCPX Adobe CS6 Vegas 12 Nuendo 4

[Desmond Hew]

Hi Kevin, got 3 questions about Premiere CS5.5:

a) Which drive is recommended for the Media Cache and Media Cache [under the Media preferences]? Should it only be the Boot Disk? What about an external drive or will that slow things down?

b) I’m also thinking of ‘cleaning’ the media cache [by clicking CLEAN of course] to free some disk space… But I’m worried it’ll make Premiere having to conform or ‘index’ all my 5000+ video files all over again when I re-open the project… Is this a bad idea or will it be fine?

c) Can Premiere CS 5.5 [or CS6] detect/work with 32gb of RAM or even 64gb?

Thanks!

[Sibel Zivy]

Hello I’m Running PremPro CC and I’m facing the same issues here.
The only settings I’ve fiddled with are the playback engine which is set to hardware, I managed to do so from a thread by videoone, and the second is that I’ve moved my scratch out and back into my boot SSD.

Re-cap( Lag when previewing video on source monitor)

Specs- CPU: 6-core/12-thread i74930k. Clocked @ 4.15-Ghz.
RAM: 8-Gbs 1600-Mhz.
GPU: GTX 760 2-Gb version.@base of 980Mhz. Boosts to 1028Mhz when rendering.Max at 1033Mhz.
1x SSD(128Gb) on which cc is installed.
3x HDD of only one is 2TB runing @7200 which has all my video files and scratch files.

Allocation ram is 6.5 Gb which is the max I can allow.

I also preview at 1/4 quality( my videos usually range form 40mins@15~20 gigs upto 120mins@35~40gigs @1080p).

With the given I shouldn’t be facing these issues, So what can I do to mend this and how can can I optimize my system to fully utilize CC’s demands.

Please aide and Thank you!

[Nils Welter]

Brian,

Also your gpu could cause the problems. It’s an old and weak gpu. My experience with this gpu is to better disable gpu acceleration because the cpu can do it faster.

We put newer nvidia cards in all of our macs.

Nils Welter
Adobe Certified Instructor – Premiere Pro

CBC Cologne Broadcasting Center
Cologne, Germany

[Brian Rapaport]

Nils,

Thanks for the tip. I am definitely going to look into possible upgrade solutions. Since I posted this the problem seems to have lessened a bit. I work with a lot of time lapse material, usually all in the native 5K shot on my 5D, then down scaled in premiere to fit the window. I’m going to look into Nvidia!

Thanks,

Brian
Designer & Photographer
https://www.brianrapaport.com
Creative Director
Pixel Eyes Production House
https://www.pixeleyes.co