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Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 11:49 am
by Regi Ellis
Hi

I currently own/installed both the latest studio versions of Resolve and Fusion 16. When doing just work related to VFX or Motion Graphics, I prefer to work in Fusion Standalone due to a more flexible interface. However, I am finding drastic performance differences in stand alone Fusion vs the one in Resolve. Comps that will play at 60 or 30 frames in Resolve, play at a 1/4 of the speed in stand alone...

I did a simple test with the following:
- background
- text+
- merge node

2 comps, 1 in UHD and the other in HD at 60FPS, 100 frames no keyframes, static;
After caching, Resolve runs at 60 fps in both comps; Standalone runs at 22-30FPS in UHD and 60FPS in HD.

I am not understanding the drastic performance difference on such a simple comp, when the code base is suppose to be the same. Most of my large comps become unworkable or crash prone ...

Can someone enlightening me on what is going on here?

Current System Specs:
Window 10 1903
Threadripper 2950x OC@4.1 all-cores (Underwater) on Asus Zenith Extreme
128GB RAM @2966
x2 EVGA RTX 2080TI FTW3 OC (Underwater)
Both apps are on WD Black M2 drives located on the board

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 1:39 am
by Kel Philm
Very similar specs (1950x, 64gb, 2080ti) and I am getting 60fps in Fusion? I top out at 167fps in UHD playback (frame rate set to 200).

Are you setting the frame rate to 60fps in the preferences for the project?

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:46 am
by Regi Ellis
Kel Philm wrote:Very similar specs (1950x, 64gb, 2080ti) and I am getting 60fps in Fusion? I top out at 167fps in UHD playback (frame rate set to 200).

Are you setting the frame rate to 60fps in the preferences for the project?


Yes, the settings are at 60fps; are you referring to the Fusion standalone? Also are you using Ryzen Master to disable cores when you work?

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:11 am
by Kel Philm
Fusion Studio standalone with Ryzen Master but not disabling cores as I work, not sure why I would want to do that with Fusion?

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:59 pm
by Regi Ellis
Kel Philm wrote:Fusion Studio standalone with Ryzen Master but not disabling cores as I work, not sure why I would want to do that with Fusion?


Fusion does not take advantage of all the cores and disabling some allows the active cores to run at higher clock speeds.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 6:06 pm
by Chad Capeland
Regi Ellis wrote:Fusion does not take advantage of all the cores


On a 2950X? Yes it does. It might not on a dual 7742, but I haven't tested that.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 1:55 pm
by Marc Gasser
I can confirm that Fusion 16 is way slower than Fusion 9
(see my specs in the footer).

Rendering a small testcomp and getting following rendertimes:

Fusion 9: 4 Minutes
Fusion 16: 18 Minutes
(can not post rendertimes from Fusion in Resolve, since it crashes)

Thats a huge difference and a step in the wrong direction....

I also have problems that in Fusion 16 some nodes do not work, for example the "Displace" node.
When copying the node from Fusion9 to 16 it works....


I am still so sad that they killed my beloved tool.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 2:18 pm
by Sander de Regt
That's strange. Depending on the kind of flow I've seen pretty big speed ups in Fusion 16 compared to Fusion 9. The only difference the other way around is usually when doing 3D renders from comps that originated in Fusion 9. The anti-aliasing settings have changed from 9 to 16 and the conversion from one setting to the other tends to slow down the renders.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 5:49 pm
by RCModelReviews
Marc Gasser wrote:I am still so sad that they killed my beloved tool.

How do you figure that? I'm still using Fusion 9 and it works like it always did. Not dead at all. :lol:

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 7:59 pm
by Marc Gasser
@RCModelReviews: You are right, I am also still using Fusion 9.

But I am looking for something with perspective for the next few years, just figured out that simple 2d animations render nearly realtime in Blender Eevee... and UE4 is also very interesting.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 9:32 pm
by Kel Philm
Marc,

Are you able to post the test comp?

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 12:12 am
by Marc Gasser
@Kel Philm:
I removed some assets to make the testcomp very simple and lightweight, get it here:
http://downloads.magdesign.ch/testcomp.zip (2MB)

In Fusion 9 render time is around 2 minutes.
In Fusion 16 render time is over 4 minutes.
In FusionResolve it crashes.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 2:15 am
by Kel Philm
Fusion 9 - 2:26 sec
Fusion 16 - 2:23 sec

CPU < 10%
GPU < 3%

Win Pro 10, TR 1950x, 64 GB 3200, RTX 2080ti.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 7:52 am
by Marc Gasser
thanks.

It looks like issue by the operating system :(

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 5:01 pm
by Chad Capeland
It might not be OS. Can you change Fusion 16 to run openCL instead of CUDA? Worth a shot.

If you are concerned about performance, though, saving to PNG is going to kill you on simple comps like this. Changing to RAW, for example, cuts your render times from 2:24 to 0:17. Computers have reached a point that the I/O codec has a HUGE impact on render time.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:14 pm
by Marc Gasser
@ Chad Capeland:

Thanks for the hint with the RAW codec, this is amazing and will save me ages of rendertime :P

However, I am not able to select my GPU in the Preferences/GPU, so I am not able to switch between Cuda and openCL.

I just spent another night testing other nvidia drivers, proprietary and open source ones, no luck.
At least I can be productive tomorrow and save rendertime while still being on Fusion9.

I think they messed up the Linux build.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 2:07 am
by Kel Philm
I had no idea that PNG format could slow a comp down that much (Down to 21sec in F16). That is insane. I guess the encoder/decoder was never written with sequences or multithreading in mind?

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 9:06 pm
by Marc Gasser
The thing is that the .raw format is proprietary and is not even supported in Davinci Resolve Studio.
(currently rerendering all the scenes... :cry: )

Footnote:
Just made a small 300 frame animation in Fusion and the exact same animation in Natron to compare .png render output times, Natron took under 10s while Fusion took over a minute.
While creating a show with approx. 30'000 frames, this will save me a few days of waiting... I do not get it, I really don't.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 9:21 pm
by Pieter Van Houte
What were the PNG compression settings?

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 11:50 pm
by rhysday
I'm finding it much slower than DaVinci because it's not detecting my cuda drivers. At this point I am so close to switching to Nuke.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:21 am
by Marc Gasser
@Pieter Van Houte: All .png export settings left on standard.

see the comparison here:


@rhysdy: just installed Nuke trial for evaluation, the price tag is high, but it seems to be the only robust node based compositor on the market :o . Natron is not robust enough and Boris Silhouette does not support drag'n'drop.There is hope for Mainframes Cavalry coming in 2020.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 1:44 pm
by Andrew Hazelden
Marc Gasser wrote:and Boris Silhouette does not support drag'n'drop.


Umm... It depends on what you mean by that Marc.

SilhouetteFX DragDrop Addons

If you are talking about a default configuration of Silhouette sure you could claim that. But if you add some free "SilhouetteFX Python Scripts" GitHub repository based content IMHO your claims wouldn't hold up to scrutiny on that aspect.

Those python scripts unlock automatic DragDrop image loading in Silhouette where you can drag imagery your from your Explorer/Finder/Nautilus desktop folder into the SFX "Trees" view. Media is then loaded into the Sources window with support for instant multi-channel SplitEXR functionality too. The Silhouette node graph's operations are also tweaked with the scripts too. ;)

SilhouetteFX Python Scripts | Drag and Drop + EXR Splitting


I've started to port some of the open-source atom packages from the Fusion/Resolve based Reactor package manager so the content works in Silhouette, too. My goal is to make it easier for people to do complex comp work in Fusion Studio, and have some of those same conveniences and QoL (Quality of Life) features in Silhouette when you need to do a whole lot of dedicated Paint/Roto work.


Fusion DragDrop Addons

If you really like Drag and Drop approaches, in Fusion/Resolve v16.1.1 you should search for the words "DragDrop" in the Reactor package manager for Fusion/Resolve.


Reactor DragDrop Atom Packages 1.png
Reactor DragDrop Atom Packages 1.png (160.28 KiB) Viewed 12499 times


Reactor DragDrop Atom Packages 2.png
Reactor DragDrop Atom Packages 2.png (182.38 KiB) Viewed 12499 times


There are new goodies in Reactor that unlock some extra DragDrop potential for Fusion .comp, .xyz point clouds, PTGui Pro v10 .pts files, Reactor .atom package files, and more.

With these new Reactor tools you can now drag and drop a Fusion Studio Standalone .comp file right into a Resolve Fusion page Nodes view comp session and it will be imported (concatenated) into your comp in an instant. That's not possible in a stock copy of Resolve where a Media Pool based Fusion comp is orphaned from using the "File > Import Fusion Composition..." menu item. :roll:

Fusion Media Pool Composites Can't Import a dot Comp File.png
Fusion Media Pool Composites Can't Import a dot Comp File.png (140.33 KiB) Viewed 12481 times


Drag and Drop in Resolve Workflow Demos

KartaVR Comp DragDrop for Resolve
https://imgur.com/a/qSoIUVR

"Guinness" Example Comp Drag Drop in Resolve
https://imgur.com/a/vCCqTTa

KartaVR PointCloud3D DragDrop | Importing an XYZ File
https://imgur.com/a/d4NnjB6


I'm always amazed by what's possible when a compositing package like Fusion, etc... provides a solid scripting API that let's the end-user customize their workspace and extend a toolset further. Sometimes it feels like the sky's the limit for what is possible. :D


Edited: Added a video clip to show what I mean.

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 4:43 pm
by Andrew Hazelden
Marc Gasser wrote:Just made a small 300 frame animation in Fusion and the exact same animation in Natron to compare .png render output times, Natron took under 10s while Fusion took over a minute.
While creating a show with approx. 30'000 frames, this will save me a few days of waiting... I do not get it, I really don't.


I'd suggest you consider rendering to an EXR 16 bit-half float image format, and use the DWAA codec which is smaller then a PNG filesize wise, faster to render/load then PNG, and supports "HDR range" floating point color values that far exceed a 0-1.0 color range.

Saver Node With DWAA Codec.png
Saver Node With DWAA Codec.png (26.84 KiB) Viewed 12483 times

Re: Fusion Performance Differences

PostPosted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:28 pm
by Marc Gasser
Thanks for your detailed response.
So I will give Silhouette another try then...but I guess its not very handy for comping yet...

As further up in this thread, Chad Capeland recommended to render .raw files, which indeed gave quite faster render times. But as I wanted to import the image sequence into Resolve, to do final tweaks with color and audio, I realized that this format is not supported. Also previewing raw image sequence is not supported in any other programs.
Maybe EXR files are more supported in other tools.

The fact that Fusion 9 is not faster on my supercomputer than on my 10 year old computer and the other fact that Fusion 16 and DaFusion16 still do not work on Linux gives me big headaches.
For the current project I started to do all the particle stuff and even the 2d sprite animations in Blender, it saves me quite a few (waiting) hours each day and I can nearly work in realtime, which is essential in animation.

The last few weeks, while starting to produce the new show, I spent a lot of time finding fast and reliable tools for visual content creation. I decided that the price does not matter anymore, I just need a tool to reach my goal in a fast and robust way, without too much of round-tripping and bug reporting. Proprietary or Opensource does not matter, as long as it is fast and easy to use. Tested several game engines, all major node based comping tools, 3d tools....

Sometimes I have the slight feeling that I am doing everything wrong, am I the only one here fighting with performance, stability, preview and render times?
How are this tasks solved in big studios? All Adobe or Foundry pipelines?
I can not imagine that anyone in a professional environment is using Fusion 16.