MP 7,1 New Mac Pro / Adobe Premiere / GPU / WTF?

[Crazycowproductions]

Hello. I purchased a brand new Mac Pro (Specs Below). Of course it came pre-loaded with Catalina. I’m working in Adobe Premiere 2019 (Not 2020 for obvious reasons). And noticing very poor performance issues. Timeline is choppy, slow exports, etc etc etc. I have also been monitoring the GPU usage in iStats monitor. On my other 2013 Mac pro (in Sierra) The GPU usage levels go up and down based on my work (as it should). The GPU in the new system just slowly builds and builds... and even when I close out the premiere software it stays built at a hight level (Photo attached) although never going over 50%. But since it never decreases in amount used. this leads me to believe that Premiere isn’t really doing anything at all with the GPU, and the usage of the GPU is arbitrary to the work. Operating in Open CL, Metal won’t even play stuff back. Anybody in a similar situation? Is this just a game of catch up Adobe is playing with the new Mac Pro and they are writing code to use the new system? Do I need to downgrade OS, is it an OS issue (Although downgrading to Mojave on a system shipped with Catalina is a whooooooole other thing)? Any tips? Thoughts?

 

[awkward_eagle]

Premiere Pro and After Effects perform poorly across the board, including the new Mac Pro. Even Windows systems I've used that are more powerful than the highest end config of the new Mac Pro run Premiere poorly. No amount of computing hardware can fix that. Adobe always says they'll catch up, but they never do. It's poorly written, extremely inefficient, and is unlikely to be fixed any time soon if ever.

If you want to take advantage of your new hardware, give Davinci Resolve Studio or Final Cut Pro a try, particularly when using ProRes with either. The paid version of Resolve can use multiple GPUs and works almost identically to the timeline interface of Premiere. Final Cut Pro still has the edge on performance because Apple does such a good job of optimization.

 

[bxs]

I'm about to do some testing using Adobe Premiere Pro 2020, DaVinci Resolve, and FCP X later today on my new MP7,1. Will post back later. My MP7,1 config is as below...

Hardware

• 3.2GHz 16‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
• 384GB (6x64GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
• Radeon Pro Vega II with 32GB of HBM2 memory
• 1TB SSD storage
• Afterburner
• Stainless steel frame with wheels
• Magic Mouse 2
• Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad - US English
• Accessory Kit

 

[Crazycowproductions]

Premiere Pro and After Effects perform poorly across the board, including the new Mac Pro. Even Windows systems I've used that are more powerful than the highest end config of the new Mac Pro run Premiere poorly. No amount of computing hardware can fix that. Adobe always says they'll catch up, but they never do. It's poorly written, extremely inefficient, and is unlikely to be fixed any time soon if ever.

If you want to take advantage of your new hardware, give Davinci Resolve Studio or Final Cut Pro a try, particularly when using ProRes with either. The paid version of Resolve can use multiple GPUs and works almost identically to the timeline interface of Premiere. Final Cut Pro still has the edge on performance because Apple does such a good job of optimization.

Dont want to switch software!! Been using Premiere for like 15 years. :/
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I'm about to do some testing using Adobe Premiere Pro 2020, DaVinci Resolve, and FCP X later today on my new MP7,1. Will post back later. My MP7,1 config is as below...

Hardware

• 3.2GHz 16‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
• 384GB (6x64GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
• Radeon Pro Vega II with 32GB of HBM2 memory
• 1TB SSD storage
• Afterburner
• Stainless steel frame with wheels
• Magic Mouse 2
• Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad - US English
• Accessory Kit

Similar setup on my end, minus the ram (I have 192). I'm seeing that my system rarely uses more than 32 gig. (argh)

 

[high heaven]

Well...

Adobe is pretty well known for poor optimization and it won't be fixed as long as they remake their own software completely. Mac isn't Adobe friendly especially lacks Nvidia GPU.

Even you built the best computer just for Adobe, it wont gonna perform much better. Just face it: Adobe sucks but we have no other choices.

 

[awkward_eagle]

Mac isn't Adobe friendly especially lacks Nvidia GPU.

I run windows systems that are more powerful than a maxed out mac pro and even with nvidia they're not as great as you'd think. I liken them to a really fast sports car that breaks down a lot.

 

[chfilm]

I'm about to do some testing using Adobe Premiere Pro 2020, DaVinci Resolve, and FCP X later today on my new MP7,1. Will post back later. My MP7,1 config is as below...

Hardware

• 3.2GHz 16‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
• 384GB (6x64GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
• Radeon Pro Vega II with 32GB of HBM2 memory
• 1TB SSD storage
• Afterburner
• Stainless steel frame with wheels
• Magic Mouse 2
• Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad - US English
• Accessory Kit

brace yourself to be underwhelmed by Premiere
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Hello. I purchased a brand new Mac Pro (Specs Below). Of course it came pre-loaded with Catalina. I’m working in Adobe Premiere 2019 (Not 2020 for obvious reasons). And noticing very poor performance issues. Timeline is choppy, slow exports, etc etc etc. I have also been monitoring the GPU usage in iStats monitor. On my other 2013 Mac pro (in Sierra) The GPU usage levels go up and down based on my work (as it should). The GPU in the new system just slowly builds and builds... and even when I close out the premiere software it stays built at a hight level (Photo attached) although never going over 50%. But since it never decreases in amount used. this leads me to believe that Premiere isn’t really doing anything at all with the GPU, and the usage of the GPU is arbitrary to the work. Operating in Open CL, Metal won’t even play stuff back. Anybody in a similar situation? Is this just a game of catch up Adobe is playing with the new Mac Pro and they are writing code to use the new system? Do I need to downgrade OS, is it an OS issue (Although downgrading to Mojave on a system shipped with Catalina is a whooooooole other thing)? Any tips? Thoughts?

What you screenshotted is the GPU memory, not the GPU processor I think, and that's why it slowly fills up like this, at least that's what I'm observing on my system.

The GPU does absolutely NOTHING when working with premiere, some minor spikes sometimes during export but that's it.

I just want to move to resolve at this point, it's so frustrating.
Right now I'm working in After Effects on a 4k project with heavy keying and noise reduction involved and it's sooo unbearably slow, I feel like I'm still on my 2013 trashcan, absolutely nothing has changed, except the final render times but only thanks to the 100 $ render garden plugin that I had to purchase, otherwise after effects wouldn't tap into all my 16 cores at all. So mad at Adobe..
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Dont want to switch software!! Been using Premiere for like 15 years. :/
[automerge]1581035644[/automerge]


Similar setup on my end, minus the ram (I have 192). I'm seeing that my system rarely uses more than 32 gig. (argh)

After Effects actually eats my Ram for breakfast. When I'm rendering my current project, it fills up about 165 gb. It's insane, I wonder if I had more than 192gb, it would probably take up even more!!

 

[jasonmvp]

I just want to move to resolve at this point, it's so frustrating.

Come for the quicker NLE.

Stay for the cookieeeeeees.

 

[XNorth]

Your only options for the best editing experience on macOS are FCPX and Resolve. There really is no way to improve Premiere performance until Adobe decides to optimize it for MacOS. Switching from Premiere to Resolve is not that big of a transition. Using Premiere on the Mac Pro is like having a supercar that’s limited to 30 mph.

 

[darthaddie]

Don't expect anything from Adobe. Totally unrelated, but Photoshop loses 5-10% performance with every release. Then it gains some with a major release, then goes downhill again. lol

 

[jasonmvp]

It really is too bad what's happened with Premiere (specifically). I've 100% switched over to Resolve for all of my NLE work. The responsiveness of the app is lots quicker and snappier. And it manages to shave a little time off of the hardware accelerated h.265 output, too. Just a little, like a few seconds here or there. But it's something.

If I had a gripe about it: it's that the audio editing aspect of it isn't fantastic. Fairlight is "OK" for a video editor to use. But it's not Audition. Not even remotely close to Audition. Whenever I do V/O work in Premiere, I'd always punt my recorded track over to Audition, touch it up, and send it back. I haven't quite figured out the same or similar workflow with Resolve; IOW can I press the recorded V/O out separately into a temporary WAV file, manually load it into Audition, and then send it back? Not sure. Haven't quite gotten that far yet.

 

[Crazycowproductions]

but only thanks to the 100 $ render garden plugin that I had to purchase, otherwise after effects wouldn't tap into all my 16 cores at all. So mad at Adobe..

Tell me more about this plug in?
[automerge]1581100372[/automerge]

What you screenshotted is the GPU memory, not the GPU processor I think, and that's why it slowly fills up like this, at least that's what I'm observing on my system.

The GPU does absolutely NOTHING when working with premiere, some minor spikes sometimes during export but that's it.

I hear what your saying, but when operating on my 2013 mac pro that has a (AMD FirePro D500 3072 MB) You can see the iStats monitor go up in down based on timeline and keystrokes... in the new MacPro it just says the same... so it deff USED to do something. I wonder if they will put the ProVega in the list and it will be solved?

This is what is currently in the Adobe list of GPU:

Windows OpenCL

• AMD Radeon Pro SSG
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 4100
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100
• AMD Radeon Pro W4100
• AMD FirePro W5100
• AMD FirePro W7100
• AMD FirePro W8100
• AMD FirePro W9100
• AMD FirePro W7000
• AMD FirePro W8000
• AMD FirePro W9000
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 4130
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 4150
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 4170
• AMD FirePro W6150M
• AMD FirePro W7170M

Mac Metal

• AMD FirePro D300
• AMD FirePro D500
• AMD FirePro D700
• AMD Radeon R9 M290X
• AMD Radeon R9 M380
• AMD Radeon R9 M390
• AMD Radeon R9 M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro 560
• AMD Radeon Pro 570
• AMD Radeon Pro 575
• AMD Radeon Pro 580
• AMD Radeon Pro M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64
• Intel® HD Graphics 6000
• Intel® Iris™ Graphics 6100
• Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics 6200
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48

Integrated Graphics Chipsets

• Intel® HD Graphics 5000
• Intel® HD Graphics 6000
• Intel® Iris Graphics 6100
• Intel® Iris Pro Graphics 6300
• Intel® Iris Pro Graphics P6300
• Intel® Iris Graphics 540/550
• Intel® Iris Pro Graphics 580
• Intel® Iris Pro Graphics P580
• Intel® Iris™ Plus Graphics 640/650

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Has anyone noticed better performance on Mojave, over Catalina? Any succesfull down-converts from factory shipped Catalina Lina Machines to Mojave? Better Performance in Premiere?

 

[bsbeamer]

Has anyone noticed better performance on Mojave, over Catalina?

Purely for Adobe Premiere CC 2020? Yes, Mojave with RX580 is "better" than all tests are with Catalina and AMD 5XXX series. Difficult to isolate CPU advantage of MBP16,1 vs. Mojave advantage, but for GPU METAL accelerated tasks it is very clear "something" is not quite right. Personally believe once the AMD 5XXX drivers are addressed (likely around when W5700X is released) things will improve greatly. If you have the option to stick with Mojave, would really recommend until 10.15.4+ is available.

 

[chfilm]

Tell me more about this plug in?
[automerge]1581100372[/automerge]


I hear what your saying, but when operating on my 2013 mac pro that has a (AMD FirePro D500 3072 MB) You can see the iStats monitor go up in down based on timeline and keystrokes... in the new MacPro it just says the same... so it deff USED to do something. I wonder if they will put the ProVega in the list and it will be solved?

This is what is currently in the Adobe list of GPU:

Windows OpenCL

• AMD Radeon Pro SSG
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 4100
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100
• AMD Radeon Pro W4100
• AMD FirePro W5100
• AMD FirePro W7100
• AMD FirePro W8100
• AMD FirePro W9100
• AMD FirePro W7000
• AMD FirePro W8000
• AMD FirePro W9000
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 4130
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 4150
• AMD Radeon Pro WX 4170
• AMD FirePro W6150M
• AMD FirePro W7170M

Mac Metal

• AMD FirePro D300
• AMD FirePro D500
• AMD FirePro D700
• AMD Radeon R9 M290X
• AMD Radeon R9 M380
• AMD Radeon R9 M390
• AMD Radeon R9 M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro 560
• AMD Radeon Pro 570
• AMD Radeon Pro 575
• AMD Radeon Pro 580
• AMD Radeon Pro M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64
• Intel® HD Graphics 6000
• Intel® Iris™ Graphics 6100
• Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics 6200
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48

Integrated Graphics Chipsets

• Intel® HD Graphics 5000
• Intel® HD Graphics 6000
• Intel® Iris Graphics 6100
• Intel® Iris Pro Graphics 6300
• Intel® Iris Pro Graphics P6300
• Intel® Iris Graphics 540/550
• Intel® Iris Pro Graphics 580
• Intel® Iris Pro Graphics P580
• Intel® Iris™ Plus Graphics 640/650

[automerge]1581100521[/automerge]
Has anyone noticed better performance on Mojave, over Catalina? Any succesfull down-converts from factory shipped Catalina Lina Machines to Mojave? Better Performance in Premiere?

My theory is that the new GPU is just so powerful, that the little bit of usage that premiere generates barely shows up in that graph... try exporting a timeline to h265 with hardware acceleration, that was about the first time I saw the GPU actually doing something when I was using Premiere. I had a 4K timeline and exported to HD.

About the rendergarden plugin, I can highly recommend it, I use it for almost all my afx exports now, as it works absolutely flawlessly and cuts render times by more than half, and loads all cores up to 98%!!
It looks a bit intimidating at first with terminal windows and stuff but it’s really super easy, all you have to do is add something to the render cue like usual, then click “plant seeds” instead of “render” in the rendergarden script window Inside afx, confirm, and then it’ll just do the rest for you but with full render power!

RenderGarden | Mekajiki

www.mekajiki.com

I really don’t get why adobe doesn’t simply buy companies like this and properly implements their features.

 

[awkward_eagle]

My theory is that the new GPU is just so powerful, that the little bit of usage that premiere generates barely shows up in that graph...

If you’ve ever used FCP with lots of effects applied, or Davinci Resolve Studio with a complex grade with lots of effects, you’ll quickly see that Premiere taps out pretty early.

 

[chfilm]

If you’ve ever used FCP with lots of effects applied, or Davinci Resolve Studio with a complex grade with lots of effects, you’ll quickly see that Premiere taps out pretty early.

Dont understand what you're trying to say - I think we agree, I know that Resolve and FCP make better use of the GPU and I'm saying that Premiere in the meantime just let's it sit idle most of the time..

 

[awkward_eagle]

Dont understand what you're trying to say - I think we agree, I know that Resolve and FCP make better use of the GPU and I'm saying that Premiere in the meantime just let's it sit idle most of the time..

Sorry. It was just a bad articulation of me agreeing with you.

 

[Crazycowproductions]

Anyone have a successful down-converts from factory shipped Catalina Machines to Mojave?

 

[Snow Tiger]

Anyone have a successful down-converts from factory shipped Catalina Machines to Mojave?

That's actually not recommended by Apple , even if technically possible . It's just a bad idea to install an OS version that predates the date of manufacture of the Mac .

 

[Virtuoso]

About the rendergarden plugin, I can highly recommend it, I use it for almost all my afx exports now, as it works absolutely flawlessly and cuts render times by more than half, and loads all cores up to 98%!

It really helps - I ran a test yesterday with a 30s 4k project using Stardust and AE alone took 28 minutes to render and used only ONE core. Switching to Render Garden*, the same project took 3m28s!!

Edit: Holy **** - I just ran a render that took 10hrs 55mins on my 4GHz 4-core iMac and it took 1hr 53mins on the new 16 core Mac Pro. This is shaping up to be a real game changer!

*NB - it doesn't get on with plugins that use GPU acceleration, specifically Video Copilot (Element etc) and Neat Video.

 

[chfilm]

It really helps - I ran a test yesterday with a 30s 4k project using Stardust and AE alone took 28 minutes to render and used only ONE core. Switching to Render Garden*, the same project took 3m28s!!

Edit: Holy **** - I just ran a render that took 10hrs 55mins on my 4GHz 4-core iMac and it took 1hr 53mins on the new 16 core Mac Pro. This is shaping up to be a real game changer!

*NB - it doesn't get on with plugins that use GPU acceleration, specifically Video Copilot (Element etc) and Neat Video.

For me it works perfectly fine with Neat Video 5 - what issues are you seeing? I just wish this was integrated into AE by default, I dont like managing these terminal windows - but still, it works remarkably stable and reliable, so I use it for almost every render now, it's really cool to see the machine really go to work. Wish Premiere would do the same by default, and that the actual UI while working in AE would also benefit more from the underlying power.

 

[Virtuoso]

For me it works perfectly fine with Neat Video 5 - what issues are you seeing?

That's good to hear - I haven't tried it yet but the Makajiki website says this...

"Plug-ins that heavily rely on the GPU can not run multiple instances (Gardeners) at the same time due to the GPU over-saturating. These projects can render with a single Gardener, but this prevents RenderGarden speed ups on a single computer. Note that these GPU heavy projects can still see a RenderGarden benefit when used in a multi-machine render farm setup, assuming each render node has a single Gardener and compatible GPU. And on a single workstation they can be used with one Gardener which still gives you add functionality over AE including background rendering and post-render actions. The following GPU plug-ins have been reported as problematic and are officially not supported (i.e. use at your own risk):

NeatVideo
VideoCoPilot"

 

[De4our]

Premiere user with a 2019 Mac Pro here,

Any chance there's a way to take advantage of rendergarden for Premiere projects? I don't use After Effects very often so I wasn't sure if there was a "trick" to open a full Premiere sequence in After Effects to take advantage of the rendergarden plugin...?

Coming from my 2013 Mac Pro (12 core, 64gb, D700s) I see almost no performance improvements in my workflow save for a small playback improvement for R3D's, which is probably just a result of my 2019's 16 core processor having more cores. It's infuriating how inefficient Premiere is, watching my iStats show barely any CPU or GPU use for a simple transcode that inexplicably takes an hour.

Also, having refused the upgrade to Catalina on the 2013 MP, and Mojave glitching my D700s, I've been using High Sierra for a few years now. Now that I'm forced on to Catalina, I'm very sure it's markedly slower than High Sierra, probably slower than Mojave but I wouldn't know.

 

[bsbeamer]

Any chance there's a way to take advantage of rendergarden for Premiere projects?

Only through DynamicLink and in limited capacity. It's REALLY not worth the hassle and aggravation to setup for Premiere Pro renders in that manner.

 

[Crazycowproductions]

Premiere user with a 2019 Mac Pro here,

Any chance there's a way to take advantage of rendergarden for Premiere projects? I don't use After Effects very often so I wasn't sure if there was a "trick" to open a full Premiere sequence in After Effects to take advantage of the rendergarden plugin...?

Coming from my 2013 Mac Pro (12 core, 64gb, D700s) I see almost no performance improvements in my workflow save for a small playback improvement for R3D's, which is probably just a result of my 2019's 16 core processor having more cores. It's infuriating how inefficient Premiere is, watching my iStats show barely any CPU or GPU use for a simple transcode that inexplicably takes an hour.

Also, having refused the upgrade to Catalina on the 2013 MP, and Mojave glitching my D700s, I've been using High Sierra for a few years now. Now that I'm forced on to Catalina, I'm very sure it's markedly slower than High Sierra, probably slower than Mojave but I wouldn't know.

SAME!!! This is so sad, My new $15K 16-core super machine 2019 MP is just sitting there unused, and I'm finding myself working off my old 2013 6-Core....