Adobe Premiere - GPU not working

[MrTawful]

Hello,

I'm new to the forum. I bought Surface Book performance with GPU, 16GB ram and I use it mostly for video editing. Everything, usually, was working smoothly and I could render a HD video of 10 minute length in around 10-20 minutes. When rendering GPU would turn on and you could feel the heat going out of the keyboard. However, recently I have noticed that GPU is not turned on when rendering. The render is super slow and takes around 40-60 minuted for a simple HD video of 10 minutes. I can't feel any heat coming from the GPU.

I checked the nvidia control panel to see, if it's turned on for Premiere, but it is ON.

Anybody had a similar issue? What to do? This is really annoying. Note that the GPU works with games.

Thanks.

 

[starstreak]

Err... If Premiere was updated check preferences. If it's like Photoshop, there is a GPU option that needs to be enabled. Also, dunno if it matters, but make sure you're plugged in if possible and you're computer is set to performance mode(whatever the mode is called) and not battery mode or something.

 

[wynand32]

I wanted to bump this one. I've discovered that apparently, Adobe has removed support for switchable GPUs in Premiere Pro 17 (and later versions of Premiere Pro 15). Apparently, they're claiming issues with switchable graphics and simply won't initialize a dGPU in such systems no matter how you configure things -- other than turning off the integrated GPU completely, which of course we can't do on our Surface Books.

In fact, I'm looking for a good video editor that will support switchable graphics. I also use Cyberlink's PowerDirector, and that too doesn't support dGPUs in switchable graphics setups.

 

[jnjroach]

If you set the dGPU has default in the NVIDIA Control Panel does it work? I know that this will make detaching very difficult though...

 

[wynand32]

Unfortunately, no, setting the dGPU as the default makes no difference.

Edit: Actually, I did some additional testing (with the Nvidia settings at the default auto-switch and Premier Pro set to use the dGPU), and I think it actually is doing something. I did an encode from an AVI file to MPEG4, and with the MPE set at CUDA, the process took less than 2 minutes. With the MPE set at software-only, the process took > 12 minutes. Looking at the GPU in Task Manager Performance tab, it was definitely working although the load was listed under "Copy" and not "Encode." But that might not mean anything.

So, it might be working after all. I'll note that I'm actually running Premier Pro 2018, not 2017. So this all warrants further investigation to verify exactly what's going on.

 

[ArvinAbadilla]

@wynand32,

Are you able to get continuously smooth timeline playback with your Nvidia settings? I've tried to update to your newest settings, but I'm still getting choppy playback. Other SB2 15" users are also experiencing unusable Premiere Pro video editing here:

How to force NVidia 1060 on Surface Book 2

Apparently, if we use the Microsoft Feedback Hub app to UPVOTE the issue, it gets escalated directly to the engineering team. Therefore, I've installed the Microsoft Feedback Hub app and have started a complaint called:

"On Surface Book 2 (15") the dedicated GPU (GTX 1060) is not utilized during video editing in Premiere Pro"

Please feel free to search for it and upvote so that our issue gains visibility to the engineering team.

Thanks!

Arvin

 

[wynand32]

@wynand32,

Are you able to get continuously smooth timeline playback with your Nvidia settings? I've tried to update to your newest settings, but I'm still getting choppy playback. Other SB2 15" users are also experiencing unusable Premiere Pro video editing here:

How to force NVidia 1060 on Surface Book 2

Apparently, if we use the Microsoft Feedback Hub app to UPVOTE the issue, it gets escalated directly to the engineering team. Therefore, I've installed the Microsoft Feedback Hub app and have started a complaint called:

"On Surface Book 2 (15") the dedicated GPU (GTX 1060) is not utilized during video editing in Premiere Pro"

Please feel free to search for it and upvote so that our issue gains visibility to the engineering team.

Thanks!

Arvin

All I did in my testing was use Premier Pro CC 2018 to encode a video after adding some simple transitions. I didn't actually do any editing (and in fact, that's not really my forte). When I encoded video, I could see the GTX 1060 in use, and if I switched the settings to software the GTX 1060 wasn't used and the encoding process was about five time slower (as I remember, but definitely much slower).

So I don't really know enough to say if that's what people are expecting from the system and if it's what others are experiencing. I'll note that when I was doing the encoding, the system power use exceeded the power supply and drew from the battery (as Microsoft says will happen when on Best Performance during heavy gaming).

 

[wynand32]

Incidentally, I'll add that from my initial research (prior to running my very informal tests), it appears that it's not Microsoft that's the problem here, it's Adobe. They're the ones who seem to be reluctant to support switchable graphics due to past issues, and this issue isn't unique to the Surface Book 2.

Unless you consider that the SB2 doesn't allow the integrated GPU to be disabled. But I believe other notebooks with switchable graphics also don't allow disabling the integrated GPU.

 

[ArvinAbadilla]

Incidentally, I'll add that from my initial research (prior to running my very informal tests), it appears that it's not Microsoft that's the problem here, it's Adobe. They're the ones who seem to be reluctant to support switchable graphics due to past issues, and this issue isn't unique to the Surface Book 2.

Unless you consider that the SB2 doesn't allow the integrated GPU to be disabled. But I believe other notebooks with switchable graphics also don't allow disabling the integrated GPU.

Hi Wynand32,

I've been keeping my eyes peeled on dGPU news concerning the switching graphics for Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018. Have you found a any settings for smooth 4K playback on PP 2018? HD 1080p is perfectly editable, but 4K still plays smooth for about 5 seceonds, then gets so choppy that editing is impossible.

 

[mikecox]

This is all very discouraging.

I bought my SB specifically to run Adobe software; Lr, Ps, and PrE. It does a pretty good job with Lr and Ps but it does tend to chock in detail work. It's failed miserably with PrE. I'm now getting vertical lines on still images, which is something new. When I decided to switch to PrP SB would open the program but it couldn't open a New Project. I came here for advice and was told how to change my nVidea settings, but that didn't fix the problem.

I was planning to revert the SB and start over, thinking there was some kind of corruption in my system that even re-installed the OS, while saving my data, didn't fix. But after reading this I am convinced that I expected too much of the SB, and that it was a mistake. I'm not going to waste any more time nursing this machine, which, right now, will not boot up, even after running the steps for a hard reboot. It will also not charge the tablet, so I haven't been able to remove it for months, due to the low battery that has is "not charging".

I'm not sure what this machine has that excites people, it's been nothing but a disappointment for me, not only does it chock up when challenged it's unreliable and needs a lot of hand-holding.

I'm getting rid of it and investing in a more powerful, and more reliable, machine, one that doesn't chock up when challenged. I only hope I can get it to boot up one more time so I can rescue my data.

 

[mikecox]

Here is an update on the GPU issue.

The MS Store tech told me the problem with my graphics was due to the fact that the Tablet Battery was dead and that the Tablet Battery powered the graphics elements of the machine. They assured me that if I replaced the machine I would be able to run Adobe's Premiere Pro software.

 

[mikecox]

This is an F/U fyi regarding my issues with my PrE video editor.

I tool my SB into the MS Store and they informed me that because the Tablet battery was dead, and not taking a charge, that I should expect video issues. They told me I would need to replace my SB with a refurbished unit and that the SB should have no trouble running Premiere Pro when the Tablet battery was charged. Let's hope they are right!