PPro 2 slow loading when minimized
 

Hi everyone,

I dont know if its normal for PPro2 but whenever I minimize my project window, it takes forever (around 30 seconds) to load back when i maximize my window again. Its really annoying especially because I need to go in media player to search for songs to put in my timeline. Is there any settings I could tweak to let Ppro2 run like its maximized all the time. I have a AMD 3800 X2 with 1 gig ram ddr 566mhz one dedicated HD for system and one for video projects (all SATA). I disabled every programs running in the background. I work in HDV format with about 300 files in the project.Could it be that? I never had these problems before when editing normal DV on my P4 3.0 ghz with the same amount of files.

Thanks for your help everyone.

With the amount of files, I think you need another gig of ram. Your virtual memory is probably klanking all the time. And, depending on what you disabled, its possible you have shut down a utility that helps with handling memory issues... What that would be, I don't know, but rather than skimp on the memory, I would try beefing up. I run a 3800+ with 2 gigs, and edit native, and that minimization issue isn't a problem. Of course, I have never done a project with 300 files. That gets out of hand, and when the project is getting that big, I tend to break it up in sections, and then do a final "pull it all together" project.

thanks for your advice,

but I already tried with 2 gigs and the same problem occurs, I wonder if there is any tweak for the paging file or whatever its called to enhance the performance of PPRO. Every time the window lose focus and gets it back, the HardDrive is in a rush for 20-30 sec and all of a sudden, its quick,quiet and smooth. And its a fresh WInXP installation.

Monitoring System Resources, Anti-Virus Scanners
 

The key is to closely monitor your system's resources. The standard Windows XP Task List is okay, but there are several excellent utilities that validate things better, including cool benchmarking that stress tests your memory, disk, graphics and CPU hardware. First, reboot your machine and then stop every application you have and all non-essential services, especially realtime anti-virus scanners, which are notorious for killing CPU and disk resources. Next, start your monitoring software (Ctrl-Alt-Del->Task List->Performance) and note your "at-rest" memory/swap values; this is your core footprint. Now, start PPro but do not open your 300-file project. Watch the monitor as it reflects memory and CPU usage just for PPro; this is your PPro-only baseline. Are you running out of memory already? Does your CPU utilization enter the red zone for sustained periods just starting PPro? Next, load your 300-file project and playback/capture some content, as you watch those resources quickly dwindle. Have you drained all real memory yet, starting that painful swapping game to disk? Does your CPU peg for long periods now? Lastly, minimize and restore PPro and monitor how this impacts performance. If performance dies only at this point (not before), then your operating system performance parameters/preferences are tuned to favor foreground applications. You can alter this behavior to better balance resources for foreground and background applications; you may notice periodic sluggish foreground response depending on how strong your system is, but PPro shouldn't take 30-seconds to reload after every window restoration. Life is full of trade-offs!

Also try this experiement with smaller PPro projects, with just 25 and 150 files for example. If these smaller projects run smoothly in all scenarios, then your 300-file project is crossing a memory, disk/cache or CPU threshold, bottlenecking one or more of these resources. Whenever memory is constrained, increasing RAM up to 3GB and buying a fast (10K) hard disk with a big cache for your projects is the way to go. If your CPU pegs for sustained periods, moving to a faster hyperthreading Xeon will help, but that's more costly. Also, PPro will offload work to GPUs like the NVIDIA Quadro FX, which helps reduce the strain on your system, but that's also spendy...

I'm not so sure these will beat the AMD offerings, from what I've seen on the Web with respect to HDV processing, so check around.

Frankly, 30 seconds is probably not a lot of time to bring up a 300 file project from background. I imagine its takes longer to load it from a cold start of PPro.