Spec's For MEP 2021 And The Ability to Use Them

CubeAce wrote on 10/4/2020, 2:46 PM

Another boredom Project from me prompted by the amount of people having problems with MEP 2021 and the Infusion Engine Two variant.

So this is me trying my best to come to grips with the seemingly contradictory (to my way of thinking) information on what MEP needs to complete a project as specified by the somewhat sketchy specs posted around the information pages of the MAGIX website in regards to MEP 2021.

So let's start with the Magix main web page regarding specs. Intel Graphics 520 8GB ram for 8K Editing along with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 4GB VRAM graphics card. or NVIDIA 1050 (unspecified) card for lower resolution projects. It also makes other references seen in the image below.

So I have a few problems already. Working below 8K seems straightforward but we have already seen some nvidia cards that should work on paper that don't seem to.

So what about 8K? The page says, GTX 1060 4GB VRAM but I can only find 3GB and 6GB cards, so which one is needed?

Also will an Intel Graphic HD520 still hold up on an 8K project?

Looking at the general blurb about Infusion Engine 2 I find this.

No mention of Intel HD 520 and we are back to them quoting the lower spec nvidia card. What?

So how to find out? I don't have any 8K footage to test out but what about making an 8K project to upscale to using 4K content?

OK so the project will be using 4K files so I don't expect any playback issues but will it upscale the output to 8K?

I'm not expecting any additional benefits to image quality but the resulting file could be used for further testing afterwards to work with an 8K native file for stress testing my system.

If I'm wrong at this point in thinking this please point that out to me with the reasoning why.

So I set up a project to be 8K 50fps.

And try to export it as an 8K file.

The first problem I came across in my ignorance was the HEVC option was the only one that offered the correct frame size and frame rates.

Even then I had a few problems. Ticking Calculate video effects on GPU caused the export to stop and shut down within seven or eight seconds whereas ticking Hardware encoding was fine. Was the shutdown of the export caused by my nvidia card not having enough vram at only 4GB? I don;t know. Anyone with more can try this for themselves if they can to see whether it works for them or not. Although I had an export shutdown, it did not shut down MEP or cause any corruption.

Once it got going it was fine but what a stress test for my system this has become. If you wondered why MEP doesn't seem to be using all of your systems resources up it could be because some is left in reserve for 8K projects.

Because I could not tick 'Calculate video effects on GPU', I was expecting a CPU hit. I wasn't wrong.

With Graphical text running at the beginning I have seen usage of the Intel HD 620 Graphics in use but still with a huge CPU hit.

Once the text section passes it settles down to not using either GPU at all and the CPU hit is higher.

But at least it is exporting, but is it really not taking advantage of the nvidia card?

I think it is but how I'm not sure. Certainly there is a lot of vram usage going on.

And the normal ram usage is above the 8K specified even for a project of less than 3 minutes.

So as you may have gathered by now I'm still exporting the video as I type. (Another seven and a half hours to go.) The CPU and other components seem to be happy running at reasonable temperatures (less than 70c) even though the CPU is pulling up to 160w at times. (rated at 95w). It will take over twelve hours with a 'Best' export setting. I did one earlier which didn't stress the PC out quite so much using the 'Balanced' setting that took just over two hours.

Once I have the finished video I will load that into a new project to cut up and edit and see what happens for smooth playback and export times.

So how much of this is dependant on the nvidia GPU as well as the Intel one? I can't find that one out because my system will not export with the 'Calculate video effects on GPU' ticked.

I know it does no hardware encoding of the video but it would seem rendering 3D graphics which it does quite happily on lower resolution projects is what seems to be increasing the export time.

Ray.

Comments

CubeAce wrote on 10/5/2020, 5:07 AM

The final file rendered after 14 and a half hours.

The file plays back OK in Windows but does make my nvidia card work a bit playing it.

Eventual file size is 1.77GB and the file data is.

General
Complete name                            : I:\2020\Legoland 2020\100MEDIA\LegoLand Windsor II Upscaled to 8K V2 Best quality HEVC.MP4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : iso4 (iso4/hvc1)
File size                                : 1.77 GiB
Duration                                 : 2 min 50 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 89.3 Mb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2020-10-04 15:26:20
Tagged date                              : UTC 2020-10-04 15:26:20

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile                           : Main@L6.1@Main
Codec ID                                 : hvc1
Codec ID/Info                            : High Efficiency Video Coding
Duration                                 : 2 min 50 s
Bit rate                                 : 89.1 Mb/s
Width                                    : 7 680 pixels
Height                                   : 4 320 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 50.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.054
Stream size                              : 1.77 GiB (100%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2020-10-04 15:26:20
Tagged date                              : UTC 2020-10-04 15:26:20
Codec configuration box                  : hvcC

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC LC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID                                 : mp4a-40-2
Duration                                 : 2 min 50 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 192 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 3.97 MiB (0%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2020-10-04 15:26:20
Tagged date                              : UTC 2020-10-04 15:26:20

As expected there is no quality improvement to be had but the file is heavy duty enough to test out from within MEP.

I did expect to be able to use 'Calculate video effects on GPU', this time around as I wasn't upscaling the output, but alas no. It still stopped working but this time mediately from starting the export. It must have tried as a file was written to disk but only consisted of a few kilobytes. So it still has to be rendered only by the CPU with no help from either GPUs. I can only get it to render approximately one frame every two and a half seconds.

I don't know if the failure of not being able to use my GPUs is down to not having enough vram or not or whether there is some other reason. If anyone has a GPU that has more than 4GB of vram and wants to try, let me know and I'll send you my working file.

Playback is smooth within MEP as is scrolling up to times two speed at which point it starts to skip quite a few frames at a time. I am reading the file off of one WD Black drive and writing onto another WD black drive. Neither seems to be working that hard so I don't think that is the bottleneck.

So my conclusion for now is anyone wanting to edit 8K footage in MEP 2021 can if the system is beefy enough and the file is constant frame rate but be prepared for extensive export times.

Personally speaking I think the system would need more processing power than my setup to be reasonably usable.

Ray.

terrypin wrote on 10/5/2020, 10:24 AM

@CubeAce

Hi Ray,

A ratio of about 300 x real time. I’m mightily impressed with your tenacity.

Even given the hw and sw, that implies a one hour movie would take me over 12 days and nights to render!

Terry

CubeAce wrote on 10/5/2020, 11:30 AM

@terrypin

Hi Terry.

I'm anticipating people with phones that can record 8K will be sooner or later looking for a program to edit them on. I can feel a lot of complaints coming at some point.

Having said that Magix doesn't say anything about exporting, just the importing and editing capabilities which seems to be correct. Again from their website pages.

So does that mean it can only be exported using purely software or does it mean my 4GB nvidia card isn't man enough to cope as it handles 4K just fine. But not even the Intel GPU can seem to be pressed into service. Still I find it odd it seems to be using the nvidia vram.

To be honest, the current export speed is not really what anyone would call usable at this point unless there is a graphics card that can handle it. The one real reason I bothered to post this at all was to see if anyone had a card with 6GB or more of vram to try it out.

Ray.

johnebaker wrote on 10/5/2020, 11:31 AM

@CubeAce, @terrypin

. . . . A ratio of about 300 x real time. . . . that implies a one hour movie would take me over 12 days and nights to render! . . . .

Makes me wonder what the minimum hardware spec is going to be for h.266 (Versatile Video Coding - VVC) is going to be - it is even more power hungry.

John EB

CubeAce wrote on 10/6/2020, 4:38 AM

@johnebaker @terrypin

Hi John. Terry.

Just tried the same export in VPX 11 and the export time was just under 40 minutes. CPU still working like crazy with all cores. Still no help from the Intel GPU but the nvidia card was pressed into service. Still can't tick the 'Calculate video effects on GPU' without the function dropping out.

Ray.

Scenestealer wrote on 10/7/2020, 6:49 AM

@CubeAce @johnebaker @terrypin

Hi Ray

I think it is good that you raised this topic as the sales patter could be a lot clearer for those who are not familiar with the programs, however I do not think the information contradicts itself but is typical of the way they write - you need to know how it is supposed to work to be able to understand what they are saying in their brevity!

I tried your idea of creating your own 8K HEVC material from UHD and then bringing in the material and altering it then exporting it again using VPX12, as there seems to be little available that you can legally download for free.

Just creating the 8K project with an 11 sec AVC UHD 25P single clip pushed my Nvidia GTX1060 6GB VRAM usage up to 4.7GB. Exporting the unaltered clip with HW encoding to 8K HEVC 25P, pushed that up to 5.3GB VRAM with an additional 1.4GB of shared GPU RAM.

The upscale completed in 45 sec ie. 4x realtime - CPU 78% and Nvidia 40% usage on the video encode graph (which is the NVENC chip) and 5% on the decode (NVDEC) and same on the 3D graph. No activity on the Intel HD530 to speak of.

Bringing in the exported 8K file and re exporting it again unaltered showed similar measurements.

Adding some basic effects Contrast, HDR and Colour correction then exporting the new 8K HEVC file took 4 minutes now, and there was only 33% CPU usage and very little activity on either GPU - 4% on Nvidia Video encode graph and 1-2% on the decode and 3D, so not sure what was going on there although Nvidia Dedicated VRAM had risen to 5.6GB with 1.8GB shared GPU memory on top.

Ticking "Calculate VFX on GPU" caused export to quit as it did with you.

The 8K clip with effects played smoothly in the timeline with a 960 x 540 preview window and in full screen on the main Full HD monitor and was capable of smooth playback at 2x speed ie 50fps.

Have not tested yet going from 4K AVC to 8K AVC where it will not be able to utilise NVENC but it could be slow.

On the question of why there are problems on a lot of systems with the Infusion Engine 2 I should relate my experience whereby I was getting an effect similar to which some reported that they were seeing jerking as though some frames where being shown out of order or repeated. Prior to this testing - I found that in both MEP2021 and VPX12 that I was seeing this when running the preview monitor at full screen (double click) on my main monitor which I have had connected to the Display Port for the HD530. This was accompanied by the Nvidia card intermittently maxing out at 100% load. I was able to stop this by connecting my main monitor to the DP on the Nvidia card and my second monitor to the DVI on my motherboard. You would say straight away that the Intel GPU could not handle the extra RAM requirements of the bigger preview resolution but then why was the Nvidia load suddenly hitting max when the second monitor it was powering only had the media pool on it??

There's a lot we don't know......

Peter

CubeAce wrote on 10/7/2020, 8:05 AM

@Scenestealer @johnebaker @terrypin

Hi Peter.

First, thank you for making me smile with your first paragraph. 😆

I would personally say learn to speak advertising speak. For instance, saying 'water penetration is minimum' gives the impression of water resistance when applied to describing clothing but means little when applied to a basic cotton product. I'm always on the lookout for what they don't say.

You are correct, they do not say anything that is not true but use very careful and exact wording that could be taken an additional way to their meaning to give the impression that is does more than they suggest. Hence I added the relevant pages and highlighted the phrases they used. Those phrases are what made me think of trying it out for myself in the first place.

After reading your report I wish I had also now made my 8K project file using VPX. Still nice comparison.

I hadn't noticed the problem with the Intel powered monitor either as I normally have everything except the timeline editor on the nvidia powered screen so duly noted.

I do find interesting that your nvidia card did use more vram but still left a reasonable margin unused as with the case of normal ram usage and subsequently your CPU was not maxing out at 100% usage.

This is as far as I can tell from other reports from other people using different video editing packages, is different where a more powerful nvidia card is not making any significant difference. That it's the CPUs performance on their setups that is causing bottlenecks.

In one respect this is heartening to hear. Maybe a new GeForce RTX 3070 would be the way to go for such projects 😂.

Just out of interest I also tried at 6K and 5. whatever K it is, and still could not use the 'Calculate video effects on GPU' with 4K presently being the highest resolution that will work with.

As you say, there is a lot we don't know. There has also been no announcements / official feedback threads in the News section for the second iteration of the Infusion engine as there was for the first release which I find odd as there is no official place to give feedback where I feel it would be read by a magix staff member.

Ray.

johnebaker wrote on 10/7/2020, 8:44 AM

@Scenestealer, @CubeAce

There is also the assumption phase, that many people experience, when for example:

. . . Enjoy hardware acceleration for Intel, NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards . . . .

becomes 'MEP uses Hardware Acceleration for export' with nothing to back up that assumption - the detailed specifications are often not read or the detail skipped over.

@ Peter - I have my full screen preview monitor on the Nvidia and got similar results to yours,

John EB

CubeAce wrote on 10/7/2020, 8:59 AM

@johnebaker

Hi John.

Or possibly understanding the difference. I agree.

This I feel comes down to the differences between those producing the product and their sales teams.

As far as sales pitches go though it's better than maybe 'Import 8K with no problem but exporting may be more difficult'.

As a sales pitch it's not that inspiring. 😇

For now though VPX would seem the best choice for 8K editing and export.

Ray.