Buying hardware especially 'video cards' is exciting. These new video cards seem to offer so much for little money. That said... as far as powerdirector goes I'm afraid you will see very little benefit (if benefit at all). So unless you are a gamer or use other applications that will milk these new video cards, you money is better spent (or in your case better saved) in a better CPU... as powerdirector heavily relies on the cpu. 4790K / Asus Z97i-Plus / 16gb (2-8gb)crucial @1866 Mhz / Samsung ssd 840 pro 250gb / Samsung 850 evo 250gb M.2 / 2-4tb HGST 7200rpm raid 1 / Nvidia GTX 1070 founders) / corsair RM650 PS / LG BD-RE

welcome.

question-

Quote: ...

upgrading my video card. Editing can be choppy and tends to stall or hang at times which can get irritating rather quickly. I've had my eye on the new RX 480 and GTX 1060, but will either of these make my editing experience that much smoother? ...

-Nick Welker

answer -

Quote: ... read only a small portion of work load can be placed on the GPU ...

-Nick Welker

Quote: ... as far as powerdirector goes I'm afraid you will see very little benefit (if benefit at all)...

if you just want to upgrade the video card then my recommendation is GTX 1060 X 6GB which will do

10/12 bit 4.2.2. if you are upgrading the CPU then minimum will be Skylake for

Quote: ... money is better spent (or in your case better saved) in a better CPU...

as powerdirector heavily relies on the cpu...

also if you're planning to do 4K later...



see Quick look at GTX1070 Encode Performance with PD14 - http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/48751.page#255806

and Speed rendering tests: NVidia and Skylake GPU - http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/46535.page



like where you're at & want to stay 8 bit 4.2.0 then

GTX960 Performance Comparisons - http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/46135.page#238842

don't forget to click on the ' Click here to access the data sheet. '

note- PD utilizes less than 1GB GPU memory!



even you've done your part, you'll still see ' choppy and tends to stall or hang at times which can get irritating rather

quickly... '

Quote:

... As reported in

many other performance assesments, until timeline scrubbing is changed within PD, from what I have seen high end cards

provide little relief for fluid timeline playback of compressed codecs for either complex timelines or multicam playback...

so going with GTX 1060 x 6GB...

Quote:

... The main benefit of such cards comes from those who wish to use the GPU hardware encoder vs the CPU software encoder


with PD14 for significant improvement in encode times...

end.

Quote:

Below are my current specs:

-XFX HD6950 2gb (Catalyst 15.7.1, Driver 15.20.1062.1004) (OpenCL is checked)

-FX 8350 (stock no oc)

-16 gigs corsair vengeance

-GA-990XA-UD3

-1 SSD with my os and powerdirector installed (also have shadow files enabled on this hd)

-3 WD 1TB hardrives with the raw video files. (90% of files being edited are in .mov format)

-Windows 10 64

your setup is similar to my setup for desktop wise...

i still have w7pro 64 because upgrading to wx slowed my comp's overall speed that i've reinstalled w7!

same reason that now i have a dual boot OS(w7 & wx) on my Dell XPS...

feel Anja the Dane's pain here -

Performance issues PDR14 after upgrade to WIN10 - http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/49330.page



so i repeat,

"Should I upgrade my video card?" to 'The main benefit of such cards comes from those who wish to use the GPU hardware

encoder vs the CPU software encoder with PD14 for significant improvement in encode times - JL_JL

then recommend out of two video cards you've chosen - nVidia's GTX 1060 X 6GB!

and cross your fingers for PD15.



oh happy happy joy joy

PepsiMan

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

Yashica Electro 8 LD-6 Super 8mm
Asrock TaiChi X470, AMD R7 2700X, W7P 64, MSI GTX1060 6GB, Corsair 16GB/RAM
Dell XPS L702X i7-2860QM, W7P / W10P 64, Intel HD3000/nVidia GT 550M 1GB, Micron 16GB/RAM
Samsung Galaxy Note3/NX1

Power Director will definitely benefit from a new video card. The new ones have integrated a hardware ASIC that can do video decoding and encoding at high speed, independent of the other processes in your PC. Power director knows how to use that hardware. Is not OpenCL or CUDA, is a totally separated piece of that silicon.

That being said the best video cards for that purpose are GTX960 or GTX1060. They have the newest generation of that decoders/encoders, GTX1060 being slightly faster for 4K material.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_NVENC

Quote: Buying hardware especially 'video cards' is exciting. These new video cards seem to offer so much for little money. That said... as far as powerdirector goes I'm afraid you will see very little benefit (if benefit at all). So unless you are a gamer or use other applications that will milk these new video cards, you money is better spent (or in your case better saved) in a better CPU... as powerdirector heavily relies on the cpu.

That's totally false. It might be correct for other software (like Adobe Premiere), but not for PD. I guess you don't really own a copy of PD but you like to give advice anyway?

"Editing can be choppy and tends to stall or hang at times which can get irritating rather quickly."

@ Sonic I don't think a video card will help his cause. I currently have hardware acceleration disabled because the blurays play better or simply 'play' in more devices. Making sure the system works as intended should be top priority

I think production or production rendering speed is not as important compared to having a more stable more pleasant editing experience... or a 'faster' more responsive editing experience... to which case a better CPU will help him 100 times more than a new GPU. 4790K / Asus Z97i-Plus / 16gb (2-8gb)crucial @1866 Mhz / Samsung ssd 840 pro 250gb / Samsung 850 evo 250gb M.2 / 2-4tb HGST 7200rpm raid 1 / Nvidia GTX 1070 founders) / corsair RM650 PS / LG BD-RE

Quote: Power Director will definitely benefit from a new video card. The new ones have integrated a hardware ASIC that can do video decoding and encoding at high speed, independent of the other processes in your PC. Power director knows how to use that hardware.

Does PD know how to use that hardware? I'd like to see some more proof. I'll offer the following based on my observations.

For me and GPU encoding, yes, partially would be my answer. Many anomalies that always need to be worked through. Surely not simply use and be happy. One of many such anomalies here http://forum.cyberlink.com//forum/posts/list/47262.page#247255 and many others from Create Disc issues to anomalies with other produce profiles. Another here http://forum.cyberlink.com//forum/posts/list/49306.page#259051 where a user thinks unselecting hardware encoding is the answer to the black screen BD playback, yes it's a workaround. But why have the card then? Yes, this behavior is also GPU driver version dependent, but should it be if PD CL Dev is working with Nvidia? Many workarounds common knowledge for those editors that have put in the effort to understand how it affects their productions.

For timeline GPU decoding during playback editing or MC editing, no is my typical experience. For media library playback GPU decoding, yes is my experience, but what real value is playback from the media library during editing? Details of such issues shown many times by many, a good visual here http://forum.cyberlink.com//forum/posts/list/25/45503.page#236759

Always glad to be shown wrong, just post data that can be replicated if desired. So bottom line I'd agree, for most people, a better CPU is often more productive for timeline scrubbing/editing/playback. However, I also do lots of quick turnaround productions and for that the GPU encoder can be a huge savings as others have found as well.

PD15, hopefully a much needed anomaly/bug fix vs new Fx icons.

Jeff

I am not burning Bluray, I am not into a commercial endeavour (PD is not licensed for that anyway). All my files are progressive videos, stored on a HDD (RAID) and streamed over my network (1Gbps=125MB/s) or viewed locally.
So yes, for me GPU is working and worth having.



Maybe instead of stating "GPU is not gonna do anything", or "powerdirector heavily relies on the cpu" (that are false as general statements), you guys can ask the OP if he plans to burn any BD's in interlaced mode and explain that in that specific case he might have issues.



PS: I thought that GeForce cards NVENC have the interlaced encoding capabilities disabled and only Quadro can do that. Or that was for old CUDA-based encoder?

Quote: I am not burning Bluray, I am not into a commercial endeavour (PD is not licensed for that anyway). All my files are progressive videos, stored on a HDD (RAID) and streamed over my network (1Gbps=125MB/s) or viewed locally.
So yes, for me GPU is working and worth having.



Maybe instead of stating "GPU is not gonna do anything", or "powerdirector heavily relies on the cpu" (that are false as general statements), you guys can ask the OP if he plans to burn any BD's in interlaced mode and explain that in that specific case he might have issues.



PS: I thought that GeForce cards NVENC have the interlaced encoding capabilities disabled and only Quadro can do that. Or that was for old CUDA-based encoder?

He is asking for our opinon at the same time that he is stating his frustration with the program... maybe you should learn how to read instead of becoming a fanboyish defendor of graphic cards. There are programs out there that utilize graphic cards more to their full potential. The truth is that powerdirector is not one of them and this is consistent with everyone's testing and experience with the program. You were still given the benefit of the doubt and asked to provide evidence to the contrary. Instead of reacting with the same courtesy, you rant like you know some nonexitent secret and try to make a case with pointless blabber like powerdirector isn't commercially licensed and that you don't burn blurays. That's the thing when you try and help someone... it isn't just about you. You use your experience as a point of reference and try to give the best 'advice' that may be of some use to someone else's problem. With the info nwelker gave (and we need more info if we are gonna be troubleshooting... but he is not asking that) it is evident he is having stability issues that are less likely solved by a new graphics card. I think everyone else sees that except you. 4790K / Asus Z97i-Plus / 16gb (2-8gb)crucial @1866 Mhz / Samsung ssd 840 pro 250gb / Samsung 850 evo 250gb M.2 / 2-4tb HGST 7200rpm raid 1 / Nvidia GTX 1070 founders) / corsair RM650 PS / LG BD-RE

Quote:
PS: I thought that GeForce cards NVENC have the interlaced encoding capabilities disabled and only Quadro can do that. Or that was for old CUDA-based encoder?

No, not generically true. To my knowledge a given version of PD had some features disabled but since then CL has enabled. CL also had issues using hardware encoding in create disc, and then enabled there too in a patch. Try it with your 960, pretty simple check. I have interlaced formats available for NVENC on my 960.

SoNic67, your general use appears to be encoding and playback, for which it can and is a great piece of hardware no doubt. I think the OP main issue was "Editing can be choppy and tends to stall or hang at times which can get irritating rather quickly. " As such, a better CPU or use of intermediate codec or PD shadow files about the only thing one can do to provide some relief with the current PD14 that I'm aware of. A better GPU (above a basic mid range) does not currently help with that issue.

For those that want to advocate a 6GB GPU for PD editing, simply post some data of PD using anything near 6GB VRAM, I'd really like to see it. Gaming, certainily, a totally different GPU use case. A higher end card for PD14 encoding benefit simply comes with significant VRAM, not that PD can/does use it.

Jeff

Well, if nvidia would sell just the NVENC ASIC on a card, then I would say that is a good buy.
Until then I need to buy the full 960 (2GB here) or the 1060 (6GB wasted on PD).

And yes I do mostly cutting, pasting, encoding. Minimal effects, no color grading.

LE: I play Fallout4 too, so the video card is not really wasted here

Quote: 1060 (6GB wasted on PD).

Zotac has a 3GB mini version for only $199US now on Amazon that I've been looking at. I'm not a gamer. Just need fast rendering of MP4. 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

Thanks for the 1060 info. That looks like a better deal than the 960.

Thanks everyone for the help, very much appreciated! It looks like the verdict is a newer video card won't really increase editing performance. Instead it likely will speed up rendering times (which I'm not worried about right now). I will keep my eyes open for deals and if the right one comes by this fall I might jump on a 1060. As for a new CPU, my plan is to wait until ZEN is released and then decide if I want to continue to be an AMD guy or jump on the Intel bandwagon

And who knows, maybe a PD15 release will help with some of my issues

Nick

Quote: Another here http://forum.cyberlink.com//forum/posts/list/49306.page#259051 where a user thinks unselecting hardware encoding is the answer to the black screen BD playback, yes it's a workaround. But why have the card then? Yes, this behavior is also GPU driver version dependent, but should it be if PD CL Dev is working with Nvidia? Many workarounds common knowledge for those editors that have put in the effort to understand how it affects their productions.

Jeff

I'm the user Jeff mentioned here and I couldn't agree more with what he said. PD CL Dev should be working alongside NVIDIA and AMD to ensure PD makes the most of each companies GPUs.

Speaking personally, I shoot in 1920x1080 28mbps 50p using m2ts files. I can use my GPU to render my productions into MP4 1920x1080 16mbps files to stream on my Apple TV but I cannot use my GPU (even though the option is available) when creating a 1920x1080 h.264 24mbps 50i blu-ray as it will not play on my BD player. It will only work if I turn the HA option off prior to burning.

It's very frustrating.

Andrew Alienware Aurora ALX R4 - Intel i7-4820 4.2 GHz - 32GB DDR3 RAM - Crucial 512GB SSD - 1TB Seagate HDD - 3TB WD Green HDD - 4TB WD Green HDD - MSI NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB

Sony HDR-PJ810 and HDR-PJ530

Why, oh why, you insist on that ancient interlaced format?

Because my family own older BD players that will not play 50p blu-rays. I make 50p blu-ray for myself however.

Andrew Alienware Aurora ALX R4 - Intel i7-4820 4.2 GHz - 32GB DDR3 RAM - Crucial 512GB SSD - 1TB Seagate HDD - 3TB WD Green HDD - 4TB WD Green HDD - MSI NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB

Sony HDR-PJ810 and HDR-PJ530