Any way to make PowerDirector 12 use less CPU?

PureChaosX

Newbie Location: Planet Earth Joined: May 13, 2015 14:50 Messages: 24 Offline

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May 13, 2015 15:39

So as the subject asks, is there any way to make PD12 use less CPU than usual when rendering?

I use a laptop (Dell XPS M1730) to edit and render my videos, and AIDA64 to monitor my temperatures. When rendering, both cores of the CPU hit 100% (not surprising) and AIDA64 reports that both cores are hitting between 90-100 degrees. This seems quite hot.

So I was wondering if I could make PD12 use less of the CPU in order to take off some of the heat. I don't mind if it increases the rendering time, but those high temps concern me a little.I couldn't find anything in the settings. Not sure if I'm missing something, or it's a setting in Windows I need to change.

A brief overview of my system :: Windows 7 Ultimate x64, Dell XPS M1730, Intel Core2Duo @ 2.60GHz, 4Gb RAM,
nVidia 9800m GTX 1Gb x2, Powerdirector 12 (up-to-date).

Thanks to any who can help, even if it;s not good new

Windows 10 Pro x64
MSi P45T-C51 Motherboard
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 OC'd @ 3.0GHz
6Gb RAM
nVidia EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC 2Gb
500Gb SanDisk Ultra II SSD
Western Digital Blue 500Gb HDD x2

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

May 13, 2015 21:09

Strange to have people ask for computers to be slower, I'd maybe get the proper cooling.

Set affinity in Windows Task Manager for PD12.exe processes to 1 proc, twice the time, half the heat, assume you have the T7700 or T9500 CPU in that M1730.

Jeff

garioch7

Senior Contributor Location: Port Hood, Nova Scotia, Canada Joined: Feb 07, 2011 06:45 Messages: 852 Offline

May 14, 2015 13:13

PureChaosX:

Welcome to the PD12 Forum. Your poor CoreDuo is really going to work hard, particularly if you are rendering HD video.

Below is the link for minimum PD13 specs, but they are pretty much unchanged from PD12.

PD13 Requirements Link

You are also pretty shy of RAM for video editing. Normally a minimum of 6 GB is recommended for just running a 64-bit OS. 12GB would be much better for HD video editing.

Laptops are generally not recommended for HD video editing because intrinsically they have cooling issues, due to their small form factor. I did render many SD .mpeg2 videos on an i7 Dell Studio XPS 1645 laptop, and it would get pretty warm. Things are much better with the rig in my signature that I had built for HD video editing.

What you could do is break your projects up into sub-projects of small durations, and render those individually. Then create a final project by inserting the pre-rendered sub-projects videos as a master project. Using SVRT, you should substantially reduce the load on and the heat being generated by your CPU. That is the approach I would take.

I agree with you: those CPU temperatures are a cause for concern. I am surprised that the CPU hasn't shut down automatically because it is being overstressed.

Have a great day.

Regards,

-Phil Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

PureChaosX

Newbie Location: Planet Earth Joined: May 13, 2015 14:50 Messages: 24 Offline

May 14, 2015 20:08

JL_JL - Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a go the next time I'm about to render a video, and I'll see how much of a difference it makes.

garioch7 - The XPS has a max RAM capacity of 8Gb, which I will eventually take avantage in the next month or so. Strangely, recently I used another Dell, a Latitude E5500, with a 2.4Ghz C2D, which rendered videos in almost the same time, with very little heat generated.

I realize laptops aren't the best for HD rendering, but this XPS has been doing pretty well. I'm not sure how acurate AIDA64 is though, it's either teeling the truth with the temps, or they're way off (plus or minus). I have recently started to break up the projects. I used to render 1hr+ long videos, then use another software to split them into clips. Now I just trim them in PowerDirector prior to rendering. Most of my videos are 20 minutes long.

As for SVRT>... I've encountered problems with that in the past. Any video rendered using SVRT would often come out corrupt. And as I upload to YouTube, those videos are rendered unplayable. I've since stayed away from SVRT, but I'll give it another shot.

Thanks for the help! Windows 10 Pro x64
MSi P45T-C51 Motherboard
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 OC'd @ 3.0GHz
6Gb RAM
nVidia EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC 2Gb
500Gb SanDisk Ultra II SSD
Western Digital Blue 500Gb HDD x2