MEP 17 only accessing one CPU core, not all four...why??

Former user wrote on 8/27/2011, 11:26 AM

Hello, I am using MEP 17 HD (not plus).

Windows 7 64 Bit OS
ASRock N68C - S UCC motherboard
AMD Phenom 11 X4 955 black edition AM3 CPU
4GB 1333mhz RAM
1Gb ATi Radeon HD 5570 graphics card
500Gb Samsung Spinpoint F3 7200rpm sata II

This is a new system, and from installation I have been having problems with MEP 17 accessing all of the cores of my CPU.
I have upgraded the BIOS which seemed to help a little bit.
When I play a project movie (mostly HD content), it will run along fine for the first 1:30 or so. Then the MEP 17 CPU monitor will say 'CPU 100%', while Windows task manager will say 'CPU 25%'. When this happens the playback becomes very stilted and editing becomes virtually impossible as there is so much lag to do any function, like stop or start playback for example.

Are there any settings in BIOS, Windows or MEP 17 which might help this? i.e. Forcing all cores to be dedicated to the active program for example?

Any advice would be gratefully recieved!!

I upgraded the BIOS after I installed MEP 17, so might it help to re-install MEP 17 under the new BIOS environment??
The sound is also affected when this problem happens, so would it be beneficial to update the audio driver??, or indeed any drivers (SATA etc) which may be affecting the environment?, i.e. un-install MEP 17, update all of the available drivers/settings, then re-install MEP 17??

Many Thanks for your time and your help!! : )

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 8/28/2011, 6:32 AM

I presume that other software is using more than one core when necessary.

Normally the number of cores used is handled by Windows. If a multi core aware program requests more cores then Windows handles this For some reason MEP is recognising only one core.

See this for details of how to check.

The minimum PC spec for HD editing is Intel® Core™ 2 quad processor with 2.83 GHz (Intel® Core™ i7 recommended). No mention of AMD!

This would suggest MEP is optimised for using the Intel multimedia functions within the CPU (what used to called MMX when first introduced) and therefore by inference will not work the same on an AMD quad core.

Try changing these settings and the cache options to help improve playback

Maybe Ralf can clarify this for us.

John

Former user wrote on 8/29/2011, 4:20 AM

Hi

I presume that other software is using more than one core when necessary.

Normally the number of cores used is handled by Windows. If a multi core aware program requests more cores then Windows handles this For some reason MEP is recognising only one core.

See this for details of how to check.

The minimum PC spec for HD editing is Intel® Core™ 2 quad processor with 2.83 GHz (Intel® Core™ i7 recommended). No mention of AMD!

This would suggest MEP is optimised for using the Intel multimedia functions within the CPU (what used to called MMX when first introduced) and therefore by inference will not work the same on an AMD quad core.

Try changing these settings and the cache options to help improve playback

Maybe Ralf can clarify this for us.

John

Hi John...thanks for replying to my question, that is very kind of you!!

I think i may have found a / the solution!!

When I upgraded the BIOS, which itself said included 'improved multi-core support', I was half way through a project editing from a 2 hour MP4 file. This was the file which was causing me problems. I did reinstall MEP at this point.

It seems either the data file that MEP makes (.AVD ?) from the video file when importing may have been 'locked into' the old setup?? and wouldn't recognize the new BIOS environment??

I was also suspicious that it may have been the .MP4 format itself.....maybe it causes problems if you are on an odd field/frame with that format??

So I exported what I had already edited as a HQ WMV file, and re-encoded my source MP4 also as a HQ WMV file and began editing again. I didn't have any of the problems and finished the project perfectly!! so i am happy now!! : )

(as a point of interest the WMV version was a bigger file size than the MP4, so it can't be down to data rate as the WMV would be higher??)

Hopefully now with new projects it won't happen anymore, and if it does i can just re-encode the MP4 files to WMV.

My only other worry now is the new WebM format. I edit stuff for fun on youtube - user/thesunreport - and download my source material through a site called keepvid, which seems to be now phasing out MP4 files in exchange for the WebM format.

Do you think MEP will ever get a codec for straight editing with WebM? or will it be a case of re-encoding to WMV before use?

Thanks again for taking the time to answer my question John, and rest assured that one way or another this editor will continue to edit!! xD

cheers!! : )

johnebaker wrote on 8/29/2011, 12:45 PM

Pleased your up and running properly.

Cheers

John

Scenestealer wrote on 8/31/2011, 6:20 PM

Hi Former member

I assume from the fact that you had an AVD file present, that you imported the material in an older version of MEP then tried to edit it in MEP17. This is not recommended as MEP17 does not use/create AVD files and this can cause conflicts and performance issues. You need to re import the source material via MEP17 and delete the original and reference AVD.

The fact that the WMV worked okay after exporting and importing to the project is because it was not referring to the original import AVD reference file. A work around, if you like, but with drawbacks ie. larger file, transcoding losses, etc.

That's my pick on why you could have had a problem anyway.

Cheers