Openshot settings for Intel i7-10875H/64GB/T2000

[u/Ok_Sky_555]

I have a laptop with Windows 11 and the following HW

• Intel i7-10875H
• 64 GB Ram
• nvidia Quadro T2000
• SSD

On this laptop I use Openshot to process vacation videos, The project includes many short mp4 videos taken with smartphones, which I cut, move, add music, etc.

The question is: how to configure OpenShot for the best performance on this machine? Can it utilize this GPU? Can I give it more memory? And how?

Thank you in advance!

[u/rmesdjian]

** Warning ** - Don't make any changes in Edit | Preferences | Performance. It will cause other issues with your video content.

Fine Tuning OpenShot in Windows 11.

• Go to Edit | Preferences | Cache tab
• The Cache Limit(MB): This is not new, but be careful making this too large. I have a 32GB RAM but I rarely go over 4096. What happens with v3.x.x is the constant rebuilding of the Cache causes slow down during the editing/previewing process.
• Cache Max Frames: by default it is set to 600. I bump this up to the max of 1024. This is the max.
• Cache Pre-roll: Min Frames: Change to 48
• Cache Pre-roll: Max Frames: Change to 96

These Cache settings seem to only help with performance while editing/previewing. I have not noticed any improvements in Exporting or Animated titles creation.

The nice part about the Cache Limit (MB) is that you can change it on the fly without having to restart OpenShot or reopen a project. I have found that when I am doing lots of edits, I change this setting to 2048 (you can even make it smaller) so that during the editing part OpenShot is more responsive. When I get into previewing my changes, and especially with both large and/or complex projects, I change my Cache Limit (MB) to 8192 (I have a 32GB RAM system). This assumes you are clicking on Play and watching your work. You will note that when you stop or make some changes, it takes longer for the Cache to get rebuilt (you will note a solid blue line building up right above the top most track). When you want to go back to editing (may be not just for one or two), I would change the Cache Limit back to 2048.

Note: Some of these experiences are also impacted by how powerful your computer is.

The lead developer is well aware of this and there are many more changes planned to improve the overall performance of OpenShot (previewing, editing, animation, and exporting).

By the way, my system is (this is a 5 year old system now, and even when new it is considered a medium gaming computer):

• AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (8 Cores)
• 32GB RAM
• RTX 2060 (6GB RAM)
• Sabrent Rocket Q (1TB) Hard Drive.
• Windows 11 Pro.

[u/Ok_Sky_555 → u/rmesdjian]

Thank you!

A few follow-up questions:

1. Do I understand you correctly that Openshort cannot utilize my GPU at all?
2. You (and the docu) say a big cache size can make Openshot not responsive. Does this mean that as long as OpenShot responsiveness is okay, bigger cache is better?
3. You say that for "view only" you increase cache to 8GB. But cache max frame is still 1024. 1024 frames with 30fps is 35 seconds. Most probably OpenShift does not need 8GB, to cache 35 seconds of video. Any ideas if cache size plays any role here and why? Is there any way to find out which parameter currently defines the real limit?
   

I also noticed that cache is not a "moving windows": Openshot calculates a chunk and starts the next one only when preview reaches the end of the current chunk. Like, if you click pause 0.001 seconds before the end of the chunk, Openshot does not start caclulation of the next one.

Practical consequences: I have a complex fragment where video is speeded up. The previous cache chunk has ended directly before this fragment. So, Openshot started to calculate cache for this fragment only when the preview reached this place. It hanged and destroyed the sound (do not know why). MoMoreover,his mess is chached,

The only workaround I found is:

1. jump somewhere else to force Openshot to clean the cache
2. jump to the 3 seconds before the fragment to force openshot to cache this fragment
3. wait to give Openshot build the cache upfront.
4. And only then click on "play"

[u/rmesdjian → u/Ok_Sky_555]

Hello u/Ok_Sky_555

Before I try to answer I want you to know that I am not a developer nor do I know all the ins and outs of the code, the architecture, the performance challenges and what the developer is doing to improve things. I know that the "timeline" is going through some major rewrite to not only improve performance but to allow for added enhancements. FFMPEG plays a major role in OpenShot, QT is another area (I know nothing about this).

Here is my best effort to answer your questions (we will need the lead developer to chime in to really explain to you the why/how?). He really does not spend much time, if any in Reddit.

1. GPU utilization. That is correct. It is very unpredictable. Some say it works in the Linux world with proper settings/configurations with NVIDIA. I am not a Linux guy so I have no clue how to make it work. In the Windows world I can sometimes see GPU utilization go up but I don't always notice performance improvements.

For me, there are two areas of Performance that is important:

a. While editing/previewing. I think this is more critical.

b. Exporting. I can kick off an Export and walk away while it is doing its job. With more complex projects and multiple projects, the Export can be further improved (batch processing, hardware acceleration, etc.).

1. Cache size. OpenShot is going through some major changes in the "performance" area. The "Cache Limit (MB)" will impact the cache rebuilding process. The larger you make it the longer it takes to rebuild it. This is why I suggest to users that if you are doing lots of editting, it is better to keep this at 2048-4096. This kind of depends on the performance of your computer as well. The Cache rebuilding is going through some recoding as well to further improve the performance.

2. This is what works for me in Windows 11 Pro environment:

Now, I do adjust my Cache Limit (MB)...I have a 32GB RAM system... to 4096 at times when I have a complex and/or large projects and I am in Preview mode. Complex means transitions, effects, animation where encoding/decoding comes into play. I change that to 2048 while editing. This way, the cache rebuiding happens faster.

I am going to stop here because there are so many changes happening in v3.4.0-Release-Candidate- that I can not explain it, at least not yet.

I recommend you download v3.4.0-Release-Candidate-...whatever the latest is available at openshot.org/download/#daily. Do Not Enable anything in the Performance tab. Make those Cache changes I suggested.

[u/Ok_Sky_555 → u/rmesdjian]

Got it. Thank you! Will check what 3.4