There are always bottlenecks when you have a complex processing chain like this, and the throughput is ALWAYS limited by the slowest section.

In this case, PD can only process the video data as fast as it can access it, and if the processor and/or GPU seem underutilized, it may be that the transfer speed from your HDD/SSD is lower than it should be. It might be a video driver issue, or a Windows Device Manager/configuration issue, or an overclocking setting, or a UEFI setting, or the specific processing needs of your PD project, or ...

You didn't provide any real details about your system's hardware or configuration (which is why a DxDiag report and the exact PD17 version number are requested before starting a new post in the Read Me Before Posting sticky), and I think that would be the next step if you want to determine where the apparent underutilization might be coming from.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote There are always bottlenecks when you have a complex processing chain like this, and the throughput is ALWAYS limited by the slowest section.

In this case, PD can only process the video data as fast as it can access it, and if the processor and/or GPU seem underutilized, it may be that the transfer speed from your HDD/SSD is lower than it should be. It might be a video driver issue, or a Windows Device Manager/configuration issue, or an overclocking setting, or a UEFI setting, or the specific processing needs of your PD project, or ...

You didn't provide any real details about your system's hardware or configuration (which is why a DxDiag report and the exact PD17 version number are requested before starting a new post in the Read Me Before Posting sticky), and I think that would be the next step if you want to determine where the apparent underutilization might be coming from.

Updated original post with DxDiag and version info

Thanks very much for the update. I see that there's a slightly newer driver for your Radeon 560 (25.20.14011.9004 vs ...5005), which you can download from here.

Also, you seem to have the Win10 Fall Creators Update installed, but not any of the KBs that would have bumped up your version beyond 17763.0001. Are either of these things the cause of the issue? I don't know, but it seems like getting the new AMD driver and running Windows Update (make sure that the updates are successfully installed) might be helpful.

It looks like you have 2 HDDs (E:, F:) and 2 SSDs (C:, D:). You might try running a disk transfer benchmark on them all to make sure they're able to read and write at full speed, especially on the drive(s) your video clips are stored on and where they're being written to.

If you're working with high bit rate source clips, especially 4k or higher, you should stick with the SSDs and then transfer the completed vids to your slower HDDs for the long term.

Here's a site with benchmarks for your C: drive. Interestingly, your SanDisk D: drive seems to have a somewhat below average transfer rate, which could conceivably affect your video production, but not as much as using a spinning HDD.

See if any of these suggestions or tests turn up anything interesting.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote Thanks very much for the update. I see that there's a slightly newer driver for your Radeon 560 (25.20.14011.9004 vs ...5005), which you can download from here.

Also, you seem to have the Win10 Fall Creators Update installed, but not any of the KBs that would have bumped up your version beyond 17763.0001. Are either of these things the cause of the issue? I don't know, but it seems like getting the new AMD driver and running Windows Update (make sure that the updates are successfully installed) might be helpful.

It looks like you have 2 HDDs (E:, F:) and 2 SSDs (C:, D:). You might try running a disk transfer benchmark on them all to make sure they're able to read and write at full speed, especially on the drive(s) your video clips are stored on and where they're being written to.

If you're working with high bit rate source clips, especially 4k or higher, you should stick with the SSDs and then transfer the completed vids to your slower HDDs for the long term.

Here's a site with benchmarks for your C: drive. Interestingly, your SanDisk D: drive seems to have a somewhat below average transfer rate, which could conceivably affect your video production, but not as much as using a spinning HDD.

See if any of these suggestions or tests turn up anything interesting.

AMD drivers updated. Windows says there are no updates for me so I am not sure if that's a thing I can really change. I have a fresh install as of a few days ago.

As for drives, I doubt it is that. The video is reading from one SSD and writing to the other. I am only exporting 1080P, too.

I honestly think that it is either lack of optimization for AMD hardware. I think it also has something to do with it being a relatively simple project, as a more complicated project takes up 60-70% CPU and 70% GPU. Still, there is plenty of headroom. I used to have 100% utilization for both gpu and cpu on my previous system (intel 6700 and same gpu).

The screwed up part is that export times are actually slower on my new cpu (at least with simple workloads) despite higher clockspeeds, faster memory and way more cores. To me, that just screams lack of optimization.

My experience with HA for my old AMD R9-270 card, if it activates HA it seems that the video card takes over and CPU works slack about 40%.
If HA is disabled, it seems CPU works at 100%
In my case I have to use driver more than 1 year ago to have HA.
Even so only for H.264 (p) and XAVC S (p)
If HA is activated my render is about 25% faster.
I watch CPU work by Windows Task Manager / Performance XEON-E5-2680 v4 / Mem. 16GB DDR4
M.2 NVME 512Gb / 2-SSD Sata3 1TB
AMD RX570 / Display Philips 272V8
Windows 11_64Pro / PD22/365

Quote
As for drives, I doubt it is that. The video is reading from one SSD and writing to the other. I am only exporting 1080P, too.

There is no reason to wear out the SSD with video files. Look in the Task Manager > Performance and see the access speed of your storage files. In my case, they are like 1/10 of what my HDD can do, using SSD for that is not gonna change anything. I even tried a RAM disc and the read/write speed didn't change, because the bottle neck is somwhere else.

I actually had a topic like this a while back and without great results. I think that the fault lies in latencies of the software. Video editing is somehow a bastard, because the hardware acceleration is not done by the GPU cores, but by the dedicated ASIC included in the GPU.
The PCI Express bus becomes a bottle neck because multiple transfers from CPU memory to GPU memory and back.

AMD provides a way that developers could use partially the pre-programmed ASIC and partially the cores (hybrid mode), for better encoding results. I am sure that Cyberling does not use that feature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Coding_Engine#VCE_3.4

More about the Heterogeneous System Architecture that is supposed to improve those latencyes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterogeneous_System_Architecture

Quote

There is no reason to wear out the SSD with video files. Look in the Task Manager > Performance and see the access speed of your files. In my case ethey are like 1/10 of what my HDD can do, using SSD for that is not gonna change anything. I even tried a RAM disc and the read/write speed didn't change, because the bottle neck is somwhere else.

I actually had a topic like this a while back and without great results. I think that the fault lies in latencies of the software. Video editing is somehow a bastard, because the hardware acceleration is not done by the GPU cores, but by the dedicated ASIC included in the GPU.
AMD provides a way that developers could use partially the pre-programmed ASIC and partially the cores (hybrid mode), for better encoding results. I am sure that Cyberling does not use that feature.

I don't export to ssd normally. I did it now for testing purposes but under normal circumstances, I export to HDD.

Quote

There is no reason to wear out the SSD with video files. Look in the Task Manager > Performance and see the access speed of your storage files. In my case, they are like 1/10 of what my HDD can do, using SSD for that is not gonna change anything. I even tried a RAM disc and the read/write speed didn't change, because the bottle neck is somwhere else.

I actually had a topic like this a while back and without great results. I think that the fault lies in latencies of the software. Video editing is somehow a bastard, because the hardware acceleration is not done by the GPU cores, but by the dedicated ASIC included in the GPU.
The PCI Express bus becomes a bottle neck because multiple transfers from CPU memory to GPU memory and back.

AMD provides a way that developers could use partially the pre-programmed ASIC and partially the cores (hybrid mode), for better encoding results. I am sure that Cyberling does not use that feature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Coding_Engine#VCE_3.4

More about the Heterogeneous System Architecture that is supposed to improve those latencyes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterogeneous_System_Architecture

Anything I ever read says an SSD does make a difference when writing video files via a video editor. So it would make me wonder about the software if you're saying burning to an ssd is not going to improve speed. Almost everything I am told here conflicts with every video editing article I come across, which say you should have a lot of RAM, write to an SSD, have a good gpu, etc...

There's some bug with the forum software, apparently where the bbcode is emssing up. tried to fixz it, but nothing seems to work. Notice on the post above mine it has a closing tag showing up as well.

Quote
Anything I ever read says an SSD does make a difference when writing video files via a video editor. So it would make me wonder about the software if you're saying burning to an ssd is not going to improve speed. Almost everything I am told here conflicts with every video editing article I come across, which say you should have a lot of RAM, write to an SSD, have a good gpu, etc...

Why believe stories repeated over and over. Do your own testing - convert an HD movie and on a separate window keep the task manager open, to monitor usages.

This is my OS/Programs SSD, no significant activity during encoding.




This is my Video work drive (RAID5, 3 HDD), barely breaks a sweat at 3MB/s.

Double post. Please ignore.

Quote Why believe stories repeated over and over. Do your own testing - convert an HD movie and on a separate window keep the task manager open, to monitor usages.

This is my OS/Programs SSD, no significant activity during encoding.
'''
This is my Video work drive (RAID5, 3 HDD), barely breaks a sweat at 3MB/s.

Doing the testing yourself is a good idea, but context also matters.

If you're only needing 3Mbps, that implies that you're either using low resolution clips or you're doing some heavy processing on each frame, which reduces the transfer rate needed to keep up with the CPU/GPU.

HDDs can typically transfer around 100Mbps, and if your project is pulling from 3 or more HD clips or a couple of 4k clips at the same time, you'll be seriously throttled. Any work with very high bit rate clips like HD AVIs requires SSDs, like this project where the transfer rate is actually fairly low because the GPU is maxed out:



YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote

HDDs can typically transfer around 100Mbps, and if your project is pulling from 3 or more HD clips or a couple of 4k clips at the same time, you'll be seriously throttled. Any work with very high bit rate clips like HD AVIs requires SSDs, like this project where the transfer rate is actually fairly low because the GPU is maxed out

Even in that crazy scenario a decent RAID HDD system is more than sufficient. Personally I have three HDD in RAID 5 for both speed and redundancy.

Quote Even in that crazy scenario a decent RAID HDD system is more than sufficient. Personally I have three HDD in RAID 5 for both speed and redundancy.

Yep, that would work too, although you do need to have the additional space and power for 3 spinning platters.

It's good to have choices, though!

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

sonic, that does not make sense for me to buy a program to test it.... I obviously want to know beforehand which program to buy. My point is if it's making no dfiference, this software would clearly not be doing much to make good use of a good system/ The point wasn't whether or not you're correct, the point was the software must not be very good to use if you're correct, as an SSD speeds thigns up nicely with other software. And pretty much my only choices seem to be PD and Resolve.... and PD is clearly behind the times if a good gpu doesn't help, a good SSD doesn't help, a good CPU doesn't help.... but then Resolve isn't compatible with certain files, such as mp4, I believe, and most of the other consumer software doesn't have burning to BR or is very slow.... So it feels like there is no good choice.

That all being said, it looks like optodata is rpetty much saying it's case-dependent. All I am saying is if I buy a program I want it to make use of my good specs where I don't feel I wasted my money getting a good cpu, gpu, and SSD. I already went overboard, as it is, by gettign a 2700x, gtx 1070 ti, and 32gb RAM when I don't game, but I sure want to make the most of it with editing software, which is part of why I ahve considered resolve. (evben thougn that program doesn't make as much use out of CPU as most programs do... it does make good use out of a good gpu.)

Quote sonic, that does not make sense for me to buy a program to test it.... I obviously want to know beforehand which program to buy. My point is if it's making no dfiference, this software would clearly not be doing much to make good use of a good system/ The point wasn't whether or not you're correct, the point was the software must not be very good to use if you're correct, as an SSD speeds thigns up nicely with other software. And pretty much my only choices seem to be PD and Resolve.... and PD is clearly behind the times if a good gpu doesn't help, a good SSD doesn't help, a good CPU doesn't help.... but then Resolve isn't compatible with certain files, such as mp4, I believe, and most of the other consumer software doesn't have burning to BR or is very slow.... So it feels like there is no good choice.

That all being said, it looks like optodata is rpetty much saying it's case-dependent. All I am saying is if I buy a program I want it to make use of my good specs where I don't feel I wasted my money getting a good cpu, gpu, and SSD. I already went overboard, as it is, by gettign a 2700x, gtx 1070 ti, and 32gb RAM when I don't game, but I sure want to make the most of it with editing software, which is part of why I ahve considered resolve. (evben thougn that program doesn't make as much use out of CPU as most programs do... it does make good use out of a good gpu.)

I am sorry, buying a GTX1070Ti just for video editing is a total waste of money. Those cores will sit idle 99.9% the time, encoding is not using them. There is a separate ASIC that does decoding/encoding, and that's the same in all the 10xx series, except the 1030 that has the encoding part canceled.
So a GTX 1050 is doing the exact same job as that 1070Ti in video editing. This is more about that nvidia ASIC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_NVENC

And the same about the AMD one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Coding_Engine

Same with SSD, in most of the editing is just a waste. Sure, you can push the "enveope" a little bit but is nothing two HDD in RAID 1 (or higher) can't handle.
A good CPU helps to a point. But after that you will hit other bottlenecks, like RAM memory (number of channels), PCIe latencies... I have mentioned this aspect too since PD14 probably, tested various other editors and believe me, that are all the same or even worse.

Quote


I am sorry, buying a GTX1070Ti just for video editing is a total waste of money. Those cores will sit idle 99.9% the time, encoding is not using them. There is a separate ASIC that does decoding/encoding, and that's the same in all the 10xx series, except the 1030 that has the encoding part canceled.
So a GTX 1050 is doing the exact same job as that 1070Ti in video editing. This is more about that nvidia ASIC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_NVENC

And the same about the AMD one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Coding_Engine

Same with SSD, in most of the editing is just a waste. Sure, you can push the "enveope" a little bit but is nothing two HDD in RAID 1 (or higher) can't handle.
A good CPU helps to a point. But after that you will hit other bottlenecks, like RAM memory (number of channels), PCIe latencies... I have mentioned this aspect too since PD14 probably, tested various other editors and believe me, that are all the same or even worse.

Same thing just happened to me. Upgraded from 14 to 17 now getting @20% cpu utilization on all eight threads. Pathetic.