Finding why video editing performance is low

[seanspotatobusiness]

I have the system specification below. It was suggested that my hardware is the reason why certain video-editing applications perform functions too slowly to avoid dropping frames in real time etc. When I look at GPU-Z whilst creating a RAM preview in Hitfilm Express, I see that the graphics card assets appear to be underutilised. Am I right in thinking that there's no point in changing graphics card because this one is already able to handle everything my PC is giving it? In other words, should the GPU be at 100% for one of its parameters (i.e. memory used, GPU load, memory controller load, video engine load, bus interface load) before a person needs to upgrade?

Mainboard: ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming, board revision 1.04, BIOS v1904
CPU: Intel i7 6700 (6th gen), Stock HSF, Undervolt Offset -0.15 V, LLC 4
RAM: Corsair LPX Vengeance 2x8GB DDR4-3000 (CMK16GX4M2B3000C15)
Graphics: Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 w/ 2 GB

 

[t53186]

Seems like two questions you are asking.
I see nothing wrong with your hardware, what are the recommended system requirements for whatever software you are using?

As far as upgrading, yes when you fully utilize any sub-system (cpu,ram,etc) it would be time to upgrade, but it's not an easy decision, other factors may need to be considered.

 

[seanspotatobusiness]

Seems like two questions you are asking.
I see nothing wrong with your hardware, what are the recommended system requirements for whatever software you are using?

As far as upgrading, yes when you fully utilize any sub-system (cpu,ram,etc) it would be time to upgrade, but it's not an easy decision, other factors may need to be considered.

Thanks for replying.

I surpass the minimum requirements of the software but I don't think that's very informative. Something is limiting the rate of processing video or a) no frames would drop during real-time playback of modified video or b) rendering would be done instantly. The fact that it takes X minutes to render demonstrates that something is restricting the rate of completion of the process and I want to find out what that is. I reason that it's not the graphics card because of the parameters measured with GPU-Z. I reason that it's not the CPU because resource monitor reports it underutilised. I've tried to find a utility to measure the saturation of the system memory controller but I cannot.

Hitfilm requirements
Windows PC - 64-bit version of Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10
Apple Mac - OS X 10.10 Yosemite, OS X 10.11 El Capitan or macOS 10.12 Sierra
Internet connection required for online activation and web services
Intel Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 or AMD equivalent
4 GB RAM (8 GB or more recommended)
Graphics processor with at least 512 MB video memory.

Shotcut requirements
Operating system: 64-bit Windows 7 - 10, Apple OS X 10.8 - 10.10, or 64-bit Linux with at least glibc 2.13.
CPU: x86-64 Intel or AMD; at least one 2 GHz core for SD, 2 cores for HD, and 4 cores for 4K.
GPU: OpenGL 2.0 that works correctly and is compatible. On Windows, you can also use a card with good, compatible DirectX 9 or 11 drivers. We do not have a list.
RAM: At least 4 GB for SD, 8 GB for HD

 

[photonboy]

You are likely better off talking to users with specific knowledge of HitFilm. I did find THIS which may not be 100% up to date:
https://hitfilmtips.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/tip-understand-how-hitfilm-uses-your-hardware/

I've not looked at these but the last two discuss "lag" so it's a known issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWFGg9R0m64
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6ugMQo9mbo
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAk3NDNwnV4

(may be different versions between videos)

It's not always easy to determine where the bottleneck lies. Sometimes it's obvious but not always. For example, you may have a CPU bottleneck even when every core/thread shows less than 100% usage.

As for the GPU it depends how it's being utilized. For example, if you're just using the VIDEO ENCODER or DECODER that's a dedicated piece of silicon so you won't register high GPU usage likely.

I got the impression that more than a GTX950 might help, but I couldn't find confirmation.

 

[t53186]

About the only thing I would upgrade is system memory. I use Adobe premiere pro and with only 16GB i get an occasional hit but with 32 not problem.

Is the problem apparent on all video. I've noticed .mkv video the only one I have problems with.

 

[seanspotatobusiness]

About the only thing I would upgrade is system memory. I use Adobe premiere pro and with only 16GB i get an occasional hit but with 32 not problem.

Is the problem apparent on all video. I've noticed .mkv video the only one I have problems with.

I've never seen Hitfilm taking more than 2 GB of RAM and even with Chrome and Hitfilm running together I still have 40% (6.4 GB) free so I'm reluctant to buy more RAM because I think it will just sit there, not helping.

I have transcoded my videos to codecs suitable for editing (ProRes and DNxHD) so I don't think it's the format but rather the number of operations applied to each (crop, feather, brightness/contrast and perspective warp x 3 videos at once) plus effects I've applied to an image.

In the end I've improved performance by turning each video file into its own "composite shot" which I could then make a proxy of and then I hid the graphic with effects applied and the combination of these led to smooth playback. It would still be nice to have been able to brute force it with my hardware but I suspect the software isn't using it fully or as Photonboy suggests it's using a subsystem of the GPU. I'm sure it's not the encoding or decoding because Hitffilm uses the CPU for these.

 

[t53186]

Ah, having never used Hitfilm I defer to your experience and thanks for the info, just in case. I do agree with your thought that the hardware is not fully utilized.