The returned laptop is a Dell Latitude 5520 Silver Laptop 15.6" 4K, i7-1185G7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, iRIS Xe. Looked to be great specs, but as soon as I opened my film within VPX8 and pressed play, the problems resurfaced.
Where is your comment, CubeAce? I only saw the beginning in an email notification... looked interesting.

@MCK

Hi.

I misread some of your specs and John had already answered while I typed.

The only other thing I can add is the Intel integrated graphics chip is used with an nvidia card. Otherwise VPX can't take advantage of the Intel quick sync system. Look at the page and see how many editing systems rely on that. It is not only Magix. Why system builders have not caught on I have no idea.

Ray.

@MCK

Hi

The returned laptop is a Dell Latitude 5520 Silver Laptop 15.6" 4K, i7-1185G7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, iRIS Xe. Looked to be great specs, but as soon as I opened my film within VPX8 and pressed play, the problems resurfaced.

I imagine it is because the machine only enables an Nvidia card and can not access the Intel iGPU as JohnEB has alluded to in his note, or maybe the Intel Iris Xe graphics are not compatible with VPX.

Peter

@MCK

I think it also important to realise that as a project gets complex enough and of a higher resolution and frame rate that another part of the system can also cause problems such as bottlenecks caused by either drive speeds not being enough or not having sufficient inboard cache (on spinning disks) to transfer data quick enough. Any machine can be pushed into these problems when loaded with enough data that has to be processed all at once. I have run 4K projects with more than 14 tracks and often have to resort to using proxy files and additional rendering to get a smooth playback if I have say a main background with four picture in picture videos playing, all with added effects such as colour correction or speed changes along with frame size changes, fades etc.

Ray.

@MCK

VPX8?

Yes, VPX8

@MCK

Hi.

If you are using the same hardware as you had when you purchased VPX 8 you should not be considering upgrading or changing to a newer program at all as the newer versions of any new software of this nature need much more processing power all around than they once did. It's very doubtful your hardware could keep up unless it has been upgraded. Are you still on Windows 7?

[Edit] Sorry did not notice your signature.

Ray.

@MCK, @Scenestealer

Hi

. . . . Dell Latitude 5520 Silver Laptop 15.6" 4K, i7-1185G7, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD . . . .

I cannot find this model with 4K screen, 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

Did you not find that the VPX interface text, icons etc were very small on a 4K on a 15.6" screen?

. . . . I imagine it is because the machine only enables an Nvidia card and can not access the Intel iGPU as JohnEB has alluded to in his note, or maybe the Intel Iris Xe graphics are not compatible with VPX. . . .

I would suspect the Iris Xe as well, despite it supporting QSV and theoretically being better than a UHD 630.

John EB

The sellers had modified the laptop.

Mark

"If you are using the same hardware as you had when you purchased VPX 8..."

I was using a desktop when I bought VPX8. One day, circumstances permitting, I hope to return to a desktop. But for now it's laptop only and it does confuse me (not difficult) that several high-spec laptops have proved insufficient to handle VPX8. There's not a huge amount going on within the project: 4k footage with the occasional FX; Reallusion animation, some in 4k and some in full HD; SFX... that's about it. Dare I ask. but... could the problem be VPX8 rather than the hardware? Just a thought.
MARK

@MCK

Hi Mark.

There are a few other video editors that just require grunt from a CPU, relying on the number of cores and speed of the processor to crunch most of the rendering in software, but most of the others also incorporate the Intel quick sync feature into their programs and use a combination of both an Intel GPU and nvidia and sometimes AMD cards to increase performance. Had you followed my earlier link on the topic you would have seen the list of majority of programs that do this in one form or another. While all will play back and export without such help, the export speeds and smoothness of playback can become problematic at best. While VPX may not be the smoothest of the bunch, as far as I can tell so far judging from other forums of other products, VPX is the least likely to crash or lose alterations while editing.

Personally I have never been a lover of laptops or portables for serious hard core processing of any type. They are difficult if not sometimes impossible to upgrade. Often have shorter lifespans if they heat up under load and difficult to find a second monitor to match up to for additional real estate with identical performance.

As my phone suffices as a portable machine for day to day computing needs I really only need one additional machine to do more serious work on.

Please remember that new versions of programs have to keep a pace with new cameras and their needs. So new programs often need newer hardware to run effectively with the footage they provide. Also, now that Windows 10 is an always progressively updating operating system things will change over time and older hardware may no longer work effectively. The electronics industry has a way to keep people upgrading whether we want to or not so it's unfair to pick on one provider. They have to keep pace as well if they expect to entice new custom.

Ray.

Thanks Ray. This is a very interesting post.
VPX8 saw me through the editing of version one of my film in 2017. But that was on a desktop.
I rather like VPX; it's intuitive, well laid-out and reasonably priced.
Would it be worth my while downloading a trial version of the latest version of VPX and seeing if there's a difference?

Mark

@MCK

Hi

. . . . There's not a huge amount going on within the project: 4k footage with the occasional FX; Reallusion animation, some in 4k and some in full HD; SFX... that's about it.  . . . .

With 4K video, in any format, there is a great deal going on in terms of how much, as @CubeAce, calls it, 'grunt' required from both the CPU's and GPU's.

Compared to Full HD 1920 x 1080, you are dealing with 4x the number of pixels, whic on ots own results in significant extra load on the CPU/GPU's, before adding any effects etc .

There are many effects that are dependant on the CPU only to process them, this includes previewing as well as export, I have seen this for titles, images, and image collages, some visual effects eg Blur, sharpness, colour correction.

Others effects will use an iGPU and/or additional GPU, if a one is available and benefit from increased rendering speed.

Export settings, in particular - Calculate video effects on the GPU - can sometimes speed up the export other times slow it down - it all depends on the combination of various effects, mix of images/video, collages/PIP etc - there appear to be no hard and fast rules where you can say this will work for this movie, and not for another.

Effects such as Noise reduction, and Gaussian blur - can reduce even a fast computer to a crawl, eg exporting a video clip with Neat Video noise reduction only applied, and using a fast GPU, can have the export framerate in low single figures ie < 8 fps for 4K video, in my experience more typically ~5 fps if the noise is bad. I pre denoise the video separately and import the denoised video rather than rely on it in program.

. . . . Dare I ask. but... could the problem be VPX8 rather than the hardware? . . . .

No - IMHO - the problem is a combination of the video resolution, images if present, FX being applied, and possibly the format/resolution of the Reallusion files you are creating for use in VPX.

You may find the newest version of VPX is better than VPX 8 on older hardware as it has a new more effieint engine

HTH

John EB

@MCK

There is certainly no harm in trying Mark.

I've never really tried trial versions preferring to study the specs and features of a program before deciding what to buy.

I started with Movie Edit Pro Premium 18 and renewed each year. (like everyone else just looking and new to video editing I misjudged the requirements by a lot and had to upgrade my hardware) Then when I saw a Humble Bundle which included a full copy of Video Pro X 11 for under £30 pounds so I bought that knowing roughly what I was buying into. It's a fully functional and registered copy but no third party effects I thought it would be good to see how much difference there was. When I found out after downloading it that all the MEP third party plugins had ported across with no additional registering needed I was amazed. Even more amazing is I get regular invites to upgrade at the reduced price, so a very cheap way into VPX. Personally I'm happy with VPX11 although I'm told playback is smoother in 12.

The history of the updates for VPX is here so you can work out what has changed.

I still do the majority of my initial editing in MEP 2021 as the newer version of the infusion engine seems to give a smoother playback but I will try opening such a project in VPX later to tweak it if needed and save that project under a new name.

I don't call myself a fan of any software so not someone that tends to judge if someone else says they prefer X over Y. Different people think differently and work differently so I feel I have to have an open view on other people's views and react accordingly.

Ray.

This might be irrelevant, but I have noticed that when I open VPX8 and press play for the first time, playback is choppy. I then deactivate, and immediately reactivate, the lightning symbol and there is an instant (but not total) improvement. Does this mean anything?

Mark

@MCK @johnebaker

This is more John Bakers department than mine but when it happens to me it is normally caused by the data from the disk the project is loaded onto being loaded into ram before it is played. It happens on my slower drives or when a lot of data from multiple tracks have to be played at once. It only happens on the first play through. After that the ram seems loaded and plays without a hitch. My hard drives are getting old now and really I either need to get a larger additional M2 NVMe drive or a hard drive with a larger inboard cache. External USB drives can be even worse in my experience.

The 'hiccup' happens when the disc maxes out as shown above.

Ray.

@MCK @CubeAce

I second what Ray has said, so a look at the performance tab of Task Manager will show what disc activity is occuring. It also may be possible that your anti virus is carrying out some scanning of the projects files as they are loading.

The Infusion engine 2 in VPX12 is an improvement on the earlier version of VPX11 in that it uses the discreet Nvidia GPU for decoding H.264 in the timeline preview whereas the VPX11 engine could only get the decoding benefit with H.265.

The big boost in VPX12 is most noticeable in preview of multiple P in P high res video tracks.

Peter

@MCK, @CubeAce, @Scenestealer

Hi

. . . . I have noticed that when I open VPX8 and press play for the first time, playback is choppy. I then deactivate, and immediately reactivate, the lightning symbol and there is an instant (but not total) improvement. Does this mean anything? . . . .

The immediate effect of the off/on of the Lightning symbol is probably the video cache being cleared - you can check this by also using Edit, Empty undo and cache memory and see if this also results in better playback.

John EB