@Ralph_S

Hi

Have you tried resizing and dragging the individual panes around to get what you want - this is my preferred layout and if I need to see all tracks I click the indicated icon - there is one small gotcha with this - you must click the same icon to go back before you use another pane (other than the preview monitor).

How you arrange yours depends on your workflow. I prefer the Preview monitor full screen so when creating collages or Picture in Picture add ing effects etc, I can see clearly what I am getting and can drag elements to the approximate positions and make accurate adjustments using the effects controls once I am happy with the layout.

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John.

Which GPU is powering the full frame monitor view and are you not getting any juddering in playback with this at 4K?

I notice you are only displaying a single track in use. How many tracks can you run before encountering problems. Does having sound and video on one track help?

Ray.

@Ralph_S

My main setup:

I also have a single screen setup emulating MEP - no Project Temp Folder or Source Monitor.

I presume that you know that you can save the screen setups under the top menu, Window, Windows arrangement. The first one is assigned F10, the second F11, third F12, so you can quickly switch setups.

I notice that I'm one of the few to more actively use the Project Temp Folder.

John CB

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . . Which GPU is powering the full frame monitor view and are you not getting any juddering in playback with this at 4K? . . .

The RTX 2060 and only on a really complex collage and some effects like Denoising with NeatVideo apart from little problem.

I may persist more with the letting Windows decide option for VPX as now I have finished the video element of the big project started in MEP, I will be using VPX more.

. . . .  notice you are only displaying a single track in use. How many tracks can you run before encountering problems. Does having sound and video on one track help . . . .

Depends on what I am doing - the above image was for demo only. With the project I exampled in this topic, the playback is smooth all the way and when it hits the 3 collages, which are 4 x 4K videos in each, the RTX does perform better - it barely breaks into a sweat - with the UHD it has minor disturbances.

John EB

@johnebaker

Thanks for that info John.

Then there does seem to be an advantage to having an nvidia card with more grunt as I can't get smooth playback on using a single track of 4K footage on transitions using either monitor.

Typical playback of 4K full sized monitor. No proxy files or preview rendering.

Ray.

@Ralph_S

Hi Ralph.

I don't use VPX on a laptop but most people here I think run two screens from desktops and put one monitor to run with the Intel GPU and the other on an nvidia output. I'm not sure whether that would be a contributing factor or not. Either way I think you need to use the multi monitor view. You can drag individual parts of VPX out of the main program which should not be stretched across the two screen but placed on one screen. Then drag components of the program onto the next window. If you are trying to use either VPX editing monitor at full screen size this is a huge strain on any system and I wouldn't recommend doing it other than to check the picture quality when the screen is static if you work at resolutions above HD.

This would be my typical screen layout for two monitors.

Ray.

Ray,

Thanks for the input. This is interesting. How do you target which GPU output goes to which screen?

@Ralph_S @johnebaker

Hi Ralph.

On a desktop machine there is a port from the motherboard that is a direct output from the Intel GPU. The graphics card will have at least one output to connect to the other monitor.

On a laptop there is normally only one additional monitor port. I have never had to try to assign a graphics card to a port on a laptop as if I were using a laptop for editing I would be out and about and the editing would be to a deadline so I wouldn't be using two screens. So I've added John baker to this reply to grab his attention. He has more experience using MEP and VPX with laptops as work stations so should be able to help. This has to be either a Windows setting or a bios one I think. I don't think it can be done within VPX.

Wait about ten hours and john should be up and about by then.

Ray.

@Ralph_S

Hi

On a laptop where there is an Intel processor with built in GPU and a Nvidia chip, as opposed to a graphics card for the PC, and both are enabled in the BIOS, the Nvidia is usually used to drive the laptop screen and the external monitor is driven by the Intel GPU.

The only way to check is to look at the performance graphs in Task Manager while exporting a project to h.264 encoded AVCHD or MP4 if you see activity in the 3D graph - see image below - then it is being used for hardware acceleration.

@CubeAce

. . . . Wait about ten hours and John should be up and about by then . . . .

😂😂😂 - been up 3 hours already!

John EB

@johnebaker @Ralph_S

Hi John, I was allowing for a Sunday lie in. 😂😇😉.

Also I wasn't sure about laptops. I have never really owned a powerful one and normally use my wife's hand-me down while she gets my ex contract smartphones.

Now I have that bit of info is it not also correct that if both are active they should both show up in VPX?

What I didn't know was whether the second GPU would be routed the monitor output socket or not. I could not take that as a given fact. Normally such ports have their own port connected directly to the card but is that the case on a laptop? Does it have a port on it's card or integral on the motherboard? If the second option, how is it routed? Can't find any such info on the Dell site. (surprise surprise).

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

Whether the iGPU is routed to the external connecter/HDMI port depends a lot on whether the manufacturer disables the iGPU permanently or not.

If you have a monitor or headless ghost connected to the external or HDMI port and the iGPU is not disabled, then it should, in theory, appear in the Video Mode options, again this may depend on what the manufactruers have done internally with the monitor detection, particularly if the laptop is designed for gaming.

I do know that a lot of gamers have complained about the reverse situation ie they plugin a bigger monitor to the gaming laptop and the iGPU takes over and they have to disable the iGPU so the ext monitor runs on the NV GPU.

John EB

@johnebaker

Thanks for the additional information John.

It's never straightforward is it? 😆

Ray.

@CubeAce

Then there does seem to be an advantage to having an nvidia card with more grunt as I can't get smooth playback on using a single track of 4K footage on transitions using either monitor.

Are you talking about VPX or MEP? If VPX11 then you can not compare with JohnEB who is running VPX12 which is using the performance boost of decoding on the Nvidia card via the Infusion Engine 2 during playback.

You often show the screenshot above drawing attention to the Video output to external device selection - I hope you appreciate that what is selected there is largely irrelevant to the 2 screen multimomitor arrangement as it uses a different pipeline in the program for display at full res. to say a broadcast calibrated monitor or a digital recorder or VCR. This would probably a third monitor in a professional movie edit suite.

Peter

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter.

It doesn't matter which program I'm running. It's not smooth on MEP 2021 either with a full window display irrespective of which monitor I place it on. The performance of which is roughly the same on VPX 11. It's fine in both programs until I cover the screen to more than a quarter size of the available screen space of either monitor. Any larger and I start to get a less smooth playback.

As to the screenshot I often put up. If both GPUs are enabled, shouldn't they appear in that window? Is that not an easy way to check?

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . .  If both GPUs are enabled, shouldn't they appear in that window? Is that not an easy way to check? . . . .

Unfortunately not - it is the subtle difference between being disabled/enabled and detected to be taken into account here. A disabled GPU can still be detected by Windows, it just cannot be used by any programs.

John EB