welcome to the forum

Quote: ... although in the future I might start targeting 2.7k and 4k.

...
The GTS 450 is an old graphics card but faster than the integrated graphics.

Will getting a new GPU speed up rendering? If so, what would be a good one to get?

for your near 4K AVC H.264 / HEVC H.265 production, for nVidia side of things,

i recommend Maxwell 2 armed GTX 960 2GB or GTX 950 2GB & GTX 1050Ti (update) for desktop.



happy editing.

PepsiMan

'garbage in garbage out' 'no bridge too far'

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Quote: Hi

I am a DirectorSuite user and want to reduce my render times. I typically work with footage from my iPhone 6 (1080p), GoPro Hero 4 Black (2.7k) and occasionally a Canon PowerShot D20 (1080p). My output is usually 1080p H.264 AVC MP4, although in the future I might start targeting 2.7k and 4k.

Often I use ColorDirector with PowerDirector and the render times can be 50 minutes for a 3-4 minute video.

My hardware is:

• Intel i7-4790K


• 32GB RAM


• Nvidia GTS 450


• 3 x monitors


• 250GB SSD OS drive


• 3TB HDD storage drive

The GTS 450 is an old graphics card but faster than the integrated graphics.

Will getting a new GPU speed up rendering? If so, what would be a good one to get?

I'm not sure if ColorDirector takes advantage of the GPU or not.

You are seeing encode time of 50 minutes for 3-4 minute video, ie. 12x-16x as long rendering time as the project.

Try creating a simple project that has just a source clip on it, and render it to 1080p H.264 AVC MP4 as you usually do.

Do a CPU rendering (uncheck the "fast hardware rendering option" if available).

See how long that takes compared to the source material. My guess is that it will take somewhere around 1-2x the amount of time to render as the duration of the project with your CPU. The GPU will primarily help with the compression. It may help with some plug-ins too, but I'm not sure to which extent, and not necessarily with all plug-ins.

My guess is that you should not expect miracles from a GPU upgrade. MSI X99A Raider
Intel i7-5820k @ 4.4 GHz
32GB DDR4 RAM
Gigabyte nVidia GTX 960 4GB
480 GB Patriot Ignite SSD (boot)
2 x 480 GB Sandisk Ultra II SSD (striped)
6 x 1 TB Samsung 860 SSD (striped)

2 x LG 32UD59-B 32" 4K
Asus PB238 23" HD (portrait)

As a comparison your video card on a Passmark benchmark of High end video cards.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=GeForce+GTS+450&id=1

As you can see there are many video cards much faster benchmark than your card. if that would give you that much of a boost in your Hardware rendering time is a big question. The benchmarks are a good measure of the relative speed of the GPU performance.

They are not a measure of the rendering speed in Powerdirector or Colordirector. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

The key are the build in en and decoders of the GTX 960.

With the 960 I can render 4K 264 and 265 at about 2x real time. In the case of 265 a 30x improvement over rendering with the CPU and at outstanding quality. And it has HDMI 2.0 output allowing 4K 60 FPS on a 4K TV and a 24" monitor

The 960 kept me from getting a new computer! Yes, in my setup it IS a miracle! It is future proof for some time to come. Any better GPU cards, and there are none at this time, will really only bring incremental improvement.
Eugene 73s, WA6JZN ex DL9GC
CYBERLINK PLEASE ADD UHD BLU RAY BURNING SOFTWARE
PD14,
Win10,64bit.CPU i7 6700,16GB ,C= 480 GB SSD ,GPU GTX1060 6GB 1 fan. Plus 3 int, 4 ext HDD's for video etc.LG WH16NS40 reads UHD.
4K 24" ViewSonic monitor.Camera Sony FDR-A

Thanks for the replies guys.

Julien: I tried removing the color grading and render times improved to 1-2x as you guessed.

I appreciate all the recommendations on which GPU to buy but I still don't have a clear answer as to whether a better GPU will improve color grading render performance. I've recently upgraded my computer for the purpose of improving my productivity with video editing as I have many hours of footage to edit and intend on color grading. If I can be sure that a new GPU will have a dramatic effect on rendering times then I'll be happy to fork out the cash to get a decent one.

I submitted a question to Cyberlink a few days ago but I'm yet to receive a response (as a paying cutomer I'm a rather disappointed by their service).

Quote: Thanks for the replies guys.

Julien: I tried removing the color grading and render times improved to 1-2x as you guessed.

Yes, which means that whether a new GPU helps will primarily depend on whether ColorDirector is taking advantage of GPU acceleration or not.

I would suggest you upload a 1 minute project including the color grading. Many other members have a faster GPU than you and can try it. Not everyone uses ColorDirector, but it's a free 30 day trial. I will test your project.

I only installed the trial of ColorDirector 3, but not ColorDirector 4. I think my CD3 trial is now expired. But I could try another system.

I also just did a new PC build with an i7-5820k and GTX 960, and I can try your project on that combo ... When my overclocking trials are over, that is. MSI X99A Raider
Intel i7-5820k @ 4.4 GHz
32GB DDR4 RAM
Gigabyte nVidia GTX 960 4GB
480 GB Patriot Ignite SSD (boot)
2 x 480 GB Sandisk Ultra II SSD (striped)
6 x 1 TB Samsung 860 SSD (striped)

2 x LG 32UD59-B 32" 4K
Asus PB238 23" HD (portrait)

Quote: Hi

I am a DirectorSuite user and want to reduce my render times. I typically work with footage from my iPhone 6 (1080p), GoPro Hero 4 Black (2.7k) and occasionally a Canon PowerShot D20 (1080p). My output is usually 1080p H.264 AVC MP4, although in the future I might start targeting 2.7k and 4k.

Often I use ColorDirector with PowerDirector and the render times can be 50 minutes for a 3-4 minute video.

You would probably get the best answer if you could post a sample project to try for a better guess on how a different GPU would affect your exact needs. I've got several Nvidia GPU's (580, 650, 750ti, 960, 970…) and could give you a good feel for your timeline if it's worth the additional investment for you.

50 minutes encode for 1080p for a 3-4 minute source of 1080p appears really out of line for color corrections to me, more in line with stabilizer corrections.

Oddly, many have also found that it also depends on which app does the color corrections. For instance, on my PC an increase in 10 of contrast on a video in PD (Fix /Enhance > Color Adjustment) vs a 10 contrast increase applied in ColorDirector has a significant effect on encode times. Why this effect, I'm not sure, other than it might be two very different generations of code development. Visually I've had a tough time seeing any difference between the two produced clips.

Jeff

Jeff,

Quote:
Oddly, many have also found that it also depends on which app does the color corrections. For instance, on my PC an increase in 10 of contrast on a video in PD (Fix /Enhance > Color Adjustment) vs a 10 contrast increase applied in ColorDirector has a significant effect on encode times. Why this effect, I'm not sure, other than it might be two very different generations of code development.

Which contrast increase did you find to be faster ? The code in PowerDirector or in ColorDirector ? MSI X99A Raider
Intel i7-5820k @ 4.4 GHz
32GB DDR4 RAM
Gigabyte nVidia GTX 960 4GB
480 GB Patriot Ignite SSD (boot)
2 x 480 GB Sandisk Ultra II SSD (striped)
6 x 1 TB Samsung 860 SSD (striped)

2 x LG 32UD59-B 32" 4K
Asus PB238 23" HD (portrait)

Quote: Hi

I am a DirectorSuite user and want to reduce my render times. I typically work with footage from my iPhone 6 (1080p), GoPro Hero 4 Black (2.7k) and occasionally a Canon PowerShot D20 (1080p). My output is usually 1080p H.264 AVC MP4, although in the future I might start targeting 2.7k and 4k.

Often I use ColorDirector with PowerDirector and the render times can be 50 minutes for a 3-4 minute video.

My hardware is:

• Intel i7-4790K


• 32GB RAM


• Nvidia GTS 450


• 3 x monitors


• 250GB SSD OS drive


• 3TB HDD storage drive

The GTS 450 is an old graphics card but faster than the integrated graphics.

Will getting a new GPU speed up rendering? If so, what would be a good one to get?

To be honest, I've monitored the stress that rendering videos in PD puts on my GPU, and its dissapointingly negiigible. Around 4%. I'm not sure why, because PD is supposed to take advantage of your GPU to quicken the process, but it just doesn't do it. I'm using an R9 270X.

That said, if you're still using a GTS 450, you're definitely due for an upgrade, mate. FX 8350 Black Edition
R9 270X 4GB
Hyper X Fury, 8GB
Western Digital, 1T Caviar Blue, 2T Green

Quote:
To be honest, I've monitored the stress that rendering videos in PD puts on my GPU, and its dissapointingly negiigible. Around 4%. I'm not sure why, because PD is supposed to take advantage of your GPU to quicken the process, but it just doesn't do it. I'm using an R9 270X.

It depends on your project and whether you use some effects that run only on the CPU. If you do, then the CPU often becomes the bottleneck. If you just have a clip on the timeline and are just compressing it with the GPU, you should see higher GPU utilization, and your GPU should speed up the compression. MSI X99A Raider
Intel i7-5820k @ 4.4 GHz
32GB DDR4 RAM
Gigabyte nVidia GTX 960 4GB
480 GB Patriot Ignite SSD (boot)
2 x 480 GB Sandisk Ultra II SSD (striped)
6 x 1 TB Samsung 860 SSD (striped)

2 x LG 32UD59-B 32" 4K
Asus PB238 23" HD (portrait)

After a long wait and some frustrating correspondence with Cyberlink, I eventually got a response to my support ticket on this topic:

Dear John,

Thank you for contacting CyberLink Support. We really apologize for misunderstanding the issue in our previous response. Regarding your concern, I would like to inform you that as there is only rough system information provided, we can’t identify the VGA driver installed currently. Meanwhile, there is no mention about the file formats are going to be rendered. We can only make a general suggestion. The VGA installed in the PC now is Nvidia GTS 450. nVidia VGA supports only H.264/H.265 profile hardware encoding. It is a hardware specification. That means if you are going to render the profile other than H.264 in the PC, you can’t render the video by GPU. Per searching the information of GTS 450 from internet, GTS 450 should only support nVidia CUDA encoding, which is disabled in nVidia driver version v340.43 or later. If the driver version is newer than v340.43, which we don’t have the information, the hardware encoding for H.264 will also be disabled due to the VGA driver doesn’t support it anymore. In this case, you can keep using GT450 and roll back the VGA driver earlier than v340.43 to render the video by GPU, or you can purchasing a new VGA card (Kepler or newer architecture), which support nVidia new technology NVENC. In some newer nVidia VGA models, which support NVENC, also support H.265 profile hardware encoding. ColorDirector 4 supports both CUDA and NVENC technology when the VGA driver and hardware supports it. To get the detail VGA card specification, I would suggest you to contact nVidia to get the information.

Akhilesh
CyberLink Support

I was unable to get a clear idea of whether a new GPU would help my scenario, so I gave up and just bought a new GPU anyway.

I got an Nvidia GTX 970, 4GB DDR5 and installed it. I ran several benchmarks and for 3D graphics the new GPU is up to 10x faster. However, the important test for me was to see whether my rendering time would come down....

Well as others who suggested above (and I had my own doubts too), it didn't make a difference.

The only change that I've been able to make which successfully brings down render times is to overclock the CPU. I've tried increasing the speed by 40% & 60% and it shaved several seconds off.

I've been testing with a 20 second sample project with a 1080p30 video, fading transitions, a title and using ColorDirector for adjustments to saturation, constrast, vibrancy, etc, and noise reduction & sharpening.

The Results:

Configuration	Render Time (average from 3 runs)
Intel HD Graphics 4600	0:4:40
Intel HD Graphics 4600 with Intel Quick Sync Video	0:4:38
Nvidia GTS 450	0:4:35
Nvidia GTX 970	0:4:35
Nvidia GTS 450 & CPU overclocked 40%	0:4:25
Intel HD Graphics 4600 & CPU overclocked 60%	0:4:14
Nvidia GTS 450 & CPU overclocked 60%	0:4:11

So with my experiences and testing, I've concluded that the most reliable way to get a performance gain with PowerDirector 14 and ColorDirector 4 together, is to get a faster CPU and overclock for additional gains. GPUs will make a little bit of a difference, but not much and probably not really worth the expense. Short answer - money is best spent on the best CPU you can afford.

I hope this is helpful to anyone else contemplating buying a GPU for video editing purposes.

Is it worth buying a new GPU to reduce render times in PowerDirector?

A question that has been discussed many times here. Cyberlink doesn't make it very clear as to which GPU and what PD settings where GPU will be utilized in rendering. Add to this mix new GPU drivers or techonology that can render PD useless.

I'm hesitant to upgrade to PD14 simply because it may no longer support my GPU and I'm certainly not going to buy a new GPU just so PD14 works. As it is now with PD13, I can no longer update my GPU drivers because PD13 doesn't support the new AMD drivers. Intel i7 4770k, 16GB, GTX1060 3GB, Two 240GB SSD, 4TB HD, Sony HDR-TD20V 3D camcorder, Sony SLT-A65VK for still images, Windows 10 Pro, 64bit
Gary Russell -- TN USA

QUOTE:

I've been testing with a 20 second sample project with a 1080p30 video, fading transitions, a title and using ColorDirector for adjustments to saturation, constrast, vibrancy, etc, and noise reduction & sharpening.

-------------



That makes it near impossible to find out which process is eating up all that time.
Try one item, like sharpening, at a time

Then the drivers are a factor too.

Eugene 73s, WA6JZN ex DL9GC
CYBERLINK PLEASE ADD UHD BLU RAY BURNING SOFTWARE
PD14,
Win10,64bit.CPU i7 6700,16GB ,C= 480 GB SSD ,GPU GTX1060 6GB 1 fan. Plus 3 int, 4 ext HDD's for video etc.LG WH16NS40 reads UHD.
4K 24" ViewSonic monitor.Camera Sony FDR-A

I do wonder id open CL works with colordirector or with the fix/enhance since I have an amd card.

Quote: I do wonder id open CL works with colordirector or with the fix/enhance since I have an amd card.

No, not color correction or fix/enhance features to my knowledge, not a function of which GPU brand or iGPU. PhotoDirector does to my knowledge.

Jeff

Jeff - Thank you for the followup.

tomasc