Thanks for the DxDiag results, They show a couple things that should be looked into, and your description of how you've been trying to deal with the problems is also something I'd like to try and untangle.

First, the DxDiag results show that you're using a video driver for your nVidia GT 1030 that's over a year old. However, that card doesn't have the video encoding hardware that PD requires (called NVENC) so it isn't being used for producing at all. You can update the driver anyway, but it probably won't have any effect on how PD is working.

Take a look at this chart. If you were to upgrade to any card with green shading on the right side, PD would be able to produce much faster than your CPU is able to do right now on its own.

The other thing that concerns me is the number of Windows Update-related failures shown in the last hundred lines of the results. It's not surprising to see PDR.exe there (BTW you do have the latest version of PD1, but the other errors point to problems with how well Windows is working.

Please follow the steps in this post to see if Windows can detect and repair any damage in its core files.

Once those are done, I think you should open an older project (if available) where you were accessing your media clips from their original locations. PD can't be confused since it only knows about the specific clips you've imported into each project, but it sounds like a nightmare for you to try and keep track of which files are where.

Generally speaking, it's better if your media clips are on a separate drive (and you have tons of free space on your D: and F: drives). There's no harm if they're on the C: drive, althugh PD would probably be able to access them a little bit faster if they're on another drive.

Many many thanks for looking into this for me. I so appreciate it! I now have a path forward to start trying to fix things.

• Seems like I may need a new video card to get the best out of PD so I'll definitely be looking into that.


• I will follow the steps you recommend to see if windows can repair any damage to he core files.


• With regard to the file locations, I want to eliminate all multiple copies and have the one source location which will probably be on my external F drive. I'm hoping that if I delete the other copies on C and D drives and any projects have files still linked to those areas, then I will be able to use the 'replace' function in PD to reset the file source to F drive only.


• I'm surprised to learn that PD will access media files faster if they're on another drive? That's why I made copies on C drive in the hope of reducing lag times by having the media files on the same drive as the PD software. Not being a techie, I guess I was completely wrong thinking this.

Thanks again for your time and advice, it is greatly appreciated and I will respond once I have treid your suggestions to let you know how I went.

kind regards, Graham

Hi again, have had a look at what you suggested and found the following;

• SFC/scannow result: "Windows Resource Protection found no integrity violations".


• dism/online/cleanup-image/scanhealth: "Option is unknown"

So seems like no joy with either of those scans although not sure why the dism scan didn't work? In any case, I think I need to get my video card updated. This may be an unethical question to ask so don't feel obliged to answer but but do you have any recommendations in this regard as there are quite a plethora of choices in the green shaded areas shown on that chart and I have no knowledge of this area at all.

Thanks again for your help.

Kind regards, Graham

The DISM scan didn't work because you need a space between the end of each word and the following slash, like this:

Quote dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth

It's a command, even though it looks like a folder path. Copy and paste the line above and it should work.

Nothing you've done so far would change how PD18 is operating, and if the DISM command doesn't find any issues, you may want to try the troubleshooter for Windows Update.

Many people ask what "the best" video card is here, and there isn't any one answer that works for everybody. In your case, even the least expensive green-shaded GeForce video card will bring you noticeable improvement when producing. The cards are listed roughly in order from oldest to newest, and from least powerful to most.

You also won't need to pay top dollar/euro for amazing game performance.

Generally, the lowest numbered card in a series (like RTX 2060/2070/2080) has all the benefits of the other cards in that series as far as PD is concerned, but won't deliver the gaming performance of the top end cards. That means you'll pay a lower price.

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°

Now its telling me I need an 'elevated command prompt' to run the dism. Kept trying until ended up at a prompt relating to something called 'Powershell'.

Did the dsim scan thing and got a response saying "No component store corruption detected".

Seems like my system is running OK (?) so I guess my video card is the source of all my problems so will look into a new card.

I'm thinking maybe the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti/1660 Super OC 6GB-GV-N1660SOC-6GD as this is about the limit of my budget.

One last thing, how do I clear the cache you mentioned in that other post?

Sorry to pester you with all this but I am forever grateful for all your assistance.

kind regards, Grahm

The elevated command prompt message was because you hadn't open the command window as an Administrator. I'm glad you ran the diagnostics and they came back clean, although that also means that we didn't find (or fix) anything with Windows that might have been causing PD to slow down.

Deleting the cache files was a step for the person in the other discussion to do. I don't think that's causing issues for you, but you can try deleting them if you like. Go to File and then create a New Project. From the Prefernces (gear) menu use the Manually Delete button and select all temporary clips. Next, delete them and then exit PD. Now launch PD again, and that same screen should show no more temp files.

If you get a GTX 1660Ti, it should really speed up your producing times and it can also help with some timeline edits while previewing. Make sure you have Hardware Acceleration options turned on from the Preferences menu. That might be enough to make PD work more smoothly for you

Thanks again. Did the cache thing and seems to have mostly worked although it told me that it couldn't delete all the files because some were in use, even though I'd selected 'New Project' which brought up a blank screen. Having said that, after closing and opening PD again then checking, all temp files were gone.

When I went to open the project I am currently working on however......still takes forever to open while it Updates Timeline Data. Perhaps its because it is trying to open up so much data? I have created 8 separate projects which I insert as nested projects into a 'master' project called 'Final Mix'.

I notice from the timeline info that two different mixes of the same nested projects appear - an older version and an updated version - and not always in sequence. I have deleted the older versions (by clicking the X next to the names) then resaved the master mix but when I re-open it, the older versions still appear in the timeline. Perhaps this has something to do with all my problems?

Graham

Quote Perhaps this has something to do with all my problems?

Oh my goodness - YES! You didn't mention anything about nested projects before, and whatever happened to cause so many duplicate nested projects to appear is the reason PD is soooo slllloooowwww to open your main project.

Rather than to try and untangle all of that, I stongly recommend creating a brand new "master" project and then import your sub (nested) projects one at a time. Please use the original subprojects (the ones using the media clips from your D: drive) and rebuild from the ground up.

Note that if you had made ANY changes to ANY of the nested projects in your current "master" project, none of those changes will be applied to the original subproject. You will either have to make the same changes after you import that subproject into your new master project, or save the edited subproject to keep the changes.

That will take special preparation, though, so follow these steps exactly for each nested project that you want to update:

1. From your current master project, click on the name of the nested project you want to update


2. Click anywhere on the nested project's timeline, then use Ctrl+A to select all content


3. Use Ctrl+C to copy all content to the clipboard


4. Go to PD's File menu and chose New Workspace


5. Use Ctrl+V to paste the copied contents onto the clean timeline


6. In the Media Library, right-click on an empty spot and chose Remove All Unused Content from the Library


7. Go to File | Save Project As... and chose either a new name or browse to the original project folder and overwrite that


8. Go to PD's File menu and open your original master project from the Open Recent Files menu and repeat these steps for the nest nested project

If you need to save changes to any nested projects like this, please do all of them before you create your new master project because PD will copy the contents of each nested project to the new project when you add it and doesn't ever check afterwards to see if the orignal nested project has been changed.

I will get right onto this! I have no idea how I managed to get two versions of the same project into my master project but I will follow the steps you outlined and rebuild from scratch. I really had no idea what files I was editing or changing due to the duplications but a good cleanout from scratch is what I suspected was required.

Sorry for not pointing this out sooner as it would have saved us both a lot of time I guess. In any case, you have armed with with the necessary know-how to start fixing my issues so you have my eternal gratitude. I'll let you know how it all ends up. I still intend getting a better video card though.

Cheers, Graham

Re nested projects . . .
whilst most editors allow this to some degree (often there's a nesting limit in the preferences), as you have found out it's a great way to slow things down. Also, if there is an issue within the nested proejct, almost guaranteed to cause a problem at render time and then - what caused it is a big problem.

If you are, or contemplating, nesting a project within another one, that nested project (call it nest x) is generally in a finished state. As a better practice, you are far better off rendering that nested project individually to a final file, and then re-using/importing it in the rendered state (nestx.mpg?) into your master as a clip part of your new project. You can edit it normally eg, trim, modify volume to go with a voiceover etc all without changing your rendered version. And you don't get unusual delays or errors . . .

Re nested projects . . .
whilst most editors allow this to some degree (often there's a nesting limit in the preferences), as you have found out it's a great way to slow things down. Also, if there is an issue within the nested proejct, almost guaranteed to cause a problem at render time and then - what caused it is a big problem.

If you are, or contemplating, nesting a project within another one, that nested project (call it nest x) is generally in a finished state. As a better practice, you are far better off rendering that nested project individually to a final file, and then re-using/importing it in the rendered state (nestx.mpg?) into your master as a clip part of your new project. You can edit it normally eg, trim, modify volume to go with a voiceover etc all without changing your rendered version. And you don't get unusual delays or errors . . .

Hi David, good stuff to know so thanks! I didn't know about a nesting limit and assumed it was a standard way of doing things to avoid a messy 100 plus track list on screen. I've been double-clicking the nested projects while still within the master mix to apply edits to them then closing them again. Seems like this is the cause of all my issues. That, along with saving any edits under the same project name - which is where I suspect the double-ups are arising from?

As I am only working with still images (scanned photos) at this stage, I haven't been able to activate the SRVT thing at all (it remains greyed out) so I'm not sure that rendering is even working on my projects.

I will definitely look into saving my nested projects as mpgs and then doing no further work on them while nested in the master mix.

As a final vow to myself and all who have kindly offered me help, I will Read The Friggin' Manual before attempting anything new.

Cheers and thanks again, Graham