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Fusion 8 Loader (QuickTime .mp4) extremely slow?

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Daniel Michael Kracht

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Fusion 8 Loader (QuickTime .mp4) extremely slow?

PostFri Jul 28, 2017 7:19 pm

Hiya,

After having seen DaVinci Resolve and how awesome it is compared to Adobe Premiere and other similar programs, I wanted to try and make the jump to Fusion 8 as well. I've always been a fan of node-based workflows over layered timelines, so I thought this would be great, if not for one issue.. Loading .mp4 files using QuickTime (H.264) is awfully slow! DaVinci Resolve runs super smoothly, but Fusion 8 is just a big trainwreck to the point that it's not worth waiting for the preview to finish playing.

I'm running the following:
OS: Win 10 x64
CPU: Intel i7 6700HQ processor
GPU: Nvidia GTX 960m 2GB
RAM: 16GB
Storage: SSD

Previewing transformations of images is fine, as is loading and playing image sequences. It's only movie files that give me this massive performance drain. As Resolve works perfectly I'm hoping that it's an issue with Fusion, and that there's either a setting I can toggle to improve performance, or an older version that I can use that does not have this issue.

Anyone here that has a solution for this problem? :)
Last edited by Daniel Michael Kracht on Fri Jul 28, 2017 9:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Chad Capeland

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Re: Fusion 8 Loader (QuickTime .mp4) extremely slow?

PostFri Jul 28, 2017 9:40 pm

Solution is to transcode to image sequences. You can use Fusion to do the transcode, or Resolve, but you don't want to be doing random access on the .mp4 file generally.
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Daniel Michael Kracht

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Re: Fusion 8 Loader (QuickTime .mp4) extremely slow?

PostFri Jul 28, 2017 10:23 pm

Chad Capeland wrote:Solution is to transcode to image sequences. You can use Fusion to do the transcode, or Resolve, but you don't want to be doing random access on the .mp4 file generally.


I've also noticed that transcoding to DNxHD seemed to help to get 30fps. (And also inflated the filesize to multiple gigabytes) But why does Resolve perform so well with those same mp4's whereas Fusion 8 struggles with them? Is there something fundamentally different in how they load these files?

Oh well, if transcoding is my only option, do you have any tips on what might be the smallest/fastest codec/media to use for transcoding? So far, my personal experience seems to suggest that DNxHD LB 720p & wav audio files are the best way to get solid >30fps playback in Fusion 8.
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Bryan Ray

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Re: Fusion 8 Loader (QuickTime .mp4) extremely slow?

PostSat Jul 29, 2017 2:10 am

You won't get performance from video of any type in Fusion; that's just not the way it's designed. If you absolutely need the fastest access, a half-resolution jpeg sequence at 80% quality will play smoothly on almost any reasonable system.

You could put this sequence in the proxy field of your Loader and keep a full-quality TIFF or EXR or the like in the main file field. That way, you get fast playback when you need it by turning on proxy mode without sacrificing a high quality image when you need that.

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Daniel Michael Kracht

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Re: Fusion 8 Loader (QuickTime .mp4) extremely slow?

PostMon Jul 31, 2017 8:44 am

So at home on my Windows Laptop I've been transcoding for a bit now, which works fine but it's a bit annoying, so thanks for the suggestions on specific transcoding settings.

However, as to your comment "that's just not the way it's designed", I've tested the same setup on a mac at work, one that has marginally better CPU & slightly more RAM, but a way worse GPU. Yet on the mac performance on the same .mp4 files is *flawless*. And by that I mean as smooth as DaVinci Resolve performs on my Windows Laptop.

Given the crappier GPU and the only slightly better CPU and RAM, I wonder if it's really not a driver or OS specific issue that is limiting Windows performance rather than that just being the way that Fusion has been designed.
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Max Seredkin

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Re: Fusion 8 Loader (QuickTime .mp4) extremely slow?

PostMon Jul 31, 2017 9:06 pm

Turn on "Local cache" is off in "import" tab of loader
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Daniel Michael Kracht

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Re: Fusion 8 Loader (QuickTime .mp4) extremely slow?

PostTue Aug 01, 2017 8:38 pm

Fusion 9 was released and that solved all my issues. It runs pretty much as smooth as Resolve now! So I'm happy. :D

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