Mac Pro - FCPX 10.2.1 - Neat Video v4 - ARTIFACTS ON EXPORT

resolve technical issues related to use of Neat Video
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luxychris
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Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 9:44 pm

Mac Pro - FCPX 10.2.1 - Neat Video v4 - ARTIFACTS ON EXPORT

Post by luxychris »

Hello there!

I have been having MAJOR ISSUES with Neat Video v4 on my Mac Pro. A few months ago, I had no issues with Neat Video (except for the crazy render/export times, which I have come to accept).

I get crazy visual artifacts that appear every few frames. Colored lines. Jagged black boxes. All random.

Exporting directly the ProRes first (then bringing that in and exporting at H.264) USED TO solve the problem. It no longer does. Artifacts appear on exports to ProRes as well.

I cannot achieve a clean export whatsoever.

I have brought my Mac Pro to Apple and they say everything is perfectly fine with the hardware. I even let them keep it for a few days to have their Senior Tech run GPU tests on it. GPUs are both fine. (I have the D700 GPU upgrade.)

What can I do???

Blessings,

Chris
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Post by NVTeam »

Do you run the very latest update of Neat Video 4 (4.0.6)?
If not, please update (use the original instruction provided after purchase) and then check if the problem is still reproducible.

Also, make sure FCPX is also fully updated.

Thank you,
Vlad
luxychris
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Post by luxychris »

Yes, I am. Thank you. Both FCPX and v4.0.6
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Post by NVTeam »

Is the problem easily reproducible in a fresh new test project with one short clip and one effect? Could you prepare such a test project, verify that it allows to reproduce the problem and then send us (1) the project (for example, export it to XML and send us the XML file and source clip) and (2) the output clip rendered on your machine. We will also render the same project on our machines and check if we get the same results. Perhaps it is a machine-specific issue.

Thank you,
Vlad
luxychris
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Post by luxychris »

Thank you, Vlad. It IS a machine-specific issue. I have this project fully saved to a fast RAID. When exporting on my Mac Pro, this nonsense occurs. When exporting on my MacBook Pro, it works flawlessly. Why would it not working correctly on the Mac Pro? Thanks for your ideas and insight!
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Post by NVTeam »

Perhaps the GPUs are malfunctioning?.. I would try to disable use of GPUs in Neat Video Preferences (Performance tab) and set Neat Video to use the CPU alone for a test.

Vlad
luxychris
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Post by luxychris »

Okay. I'll try that. It's a shame not to use my workhorse 12GB of GPU power!

QUESTIONS.

1. Is the plugin more problematic when using nested sequences (compound clips) that contain clips which each have their own color filters . . . with an additional global color filter on the main sequence (along with the Neat plugin)?

2. What is the most complete way of UNINSTALLING EVERYTHING and reinstalling the plugin?

Thanks,

Chris
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Post by NVTeam »

Running on the CPU alone is only a test. If it shows that the problem is related to the GPU then it is a reason to contact Apple.

Regarding your questions:

1. that is not problematic for the plug-in itself, but that may be more difficult to handle for FCPX who has to organize processing in such settings; in our experience, it is FCPX who usually fails at such complicated tasks;

2. you can use the Uninstall.app available in the Neat Video folder in /Applications.

Vlad
luxychris
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Post by luxychris »

UPDATE! I ran a full sequence export at CPU ONLY (no GPU) and everything is perfect! Funny thing . . . I even run the speed tests in Neat Video and it says that CPU ONLY is about twice as fast at CPU + my 2 GPU (12GB total). This makes absolutely no sense. But it works fine with CPU ONLY (just slow).

Apple says that nothing is wrong with my GPUs. Hardware tests show everything is fine. And there are no errors in the Console.

Any other hints? Possibly how to prove to Apple that my GPUs are not functioning correctly? They seems to work with EVERY OTHER APP. Just not Neat Video.

Do you have another version that I could try to use?

I have a Quad Core Mac Pro with the D700 FirePro GPU upgrade (6GB per GPU; 12GB total).

Thanks!

Chris
NVTeam
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Post by NVTeam »

Please post the whole log from Optimize window to let me see the actual speeds from your machine as measured by Neat Video tests.

Thank you,
Vlad
luxychris
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Post by luxychris »

Ok. So, this optimized test shows somewhat different numbers than the simple "Test" on the main CPU/GPU preferences page.

Here are the results. Do you see anything glaringly wrong?

Frame Size: 3840x2160 progressive
Bitdepth: 32 bits per channel
Quality Mode: High
Mix with Original: Disabled
Temporal Filter: Enabled
Radius: 5 frames
Dust and Scratches: Disabled
Slow Shutter: Disabled
Spatial Filter: Enabled
Frequencies: High, Mid, Low
Artifact Removal: Enabled
Edge Smoothing: Disabled
Sharpening: Disabled
Neat Video 4.0.6 Pro plug-in for Final Cut

Detecting the best combination of performance settings:
running the test data set on up to 8 CPU cores and on up to 2 GPUs
AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1: 6144 MB currently available, using up to 100%
AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2: 6144 MB currently available, using up to 100%

CPU only (1 core): 0.0669 frames/sec
CPU only (2 cores): 0.13 frames/sec
CPU only (3 cores): 0.145 frames/sec
CPU only (4 cores): 0.216 frames/sec
CPU only (5 cores): 0.241 frames/sec
CPU only (6 cores): 0.251 frames/sec
CPU only (7 cores): 0.256 frames/sec
CPU only (8 cores): 0.273 frames/sec
GPU only (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1): 0.687 frames/sec
GPU only (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.653 frames/sec
GPU only (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1, AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.79 frames/sec
CPU (1 core) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1): 0.627 frames/sec
CPU (2 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1): 0.602 frames/sec
CPU (3 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1): 0.66 frames/sec
CPU (4 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1): 0.686 frames/sec
CPU (5 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1): 0.626 frames/sec
CPU (6 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1): 0.663 frames/sec
CPU (7 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1): 0.635 frames/sec
CPU (8 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1): 0.631 frames/sec
CPU (1 core) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.653 frames/sec
CPU (2 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.631 frames/sec
CPU (3 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.65 frames/sec
CPU (4 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.679 frames/sec
CPU (5 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.678 frames/sec
CPU (6 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.669 frames/sec
CPU (7 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.654 frames/sec
CPU (8 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.627 frames/sec
CPU (2 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1, AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.948 frames/sec
CPU (3 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1, AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.878 frames/sec
CPU (4 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1, AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.883 frames/sec
CPU (5 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1, AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.859 frames/sec
CPU (6 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1, AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.826 frames/sec
CPU (7 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1, AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.799 frames/sec
CPU (8 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1, AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2): 0.754 frames/sec

Best combination: CPU (2 cores) and GPU (AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #1, AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 Compute Engine #2)
luxychris
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Post by luxychris »

(edited)
Last edited by luxychris on Sun Aug 30, 2015 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
NVTeam
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Post by NVTeam »

It is of course the total, overall speed of Neat Video filter itself.

From the Optimize results:
No GPU gives 0.273 frames/sec
1 GPU gives 0.687 frames/sec
2 GPUs give 0.79 frames/sec
CPU and GPUs give 0.948

Those measurements show that the GPUs are faster than the CPU and the CPU can help them only marginally. If the CPU tries to do a bigger part of the overall job (which happens when many cores are used for processing) then that only slows down the overall progress because faster GPUs have to wait for the slower CPU to finish its part.

The speeds look normal. I don't see any obvious problems in the results.

I can see you use the High quality mode though. Could you run a test render with GPU but with the Normal quality mode instead? Perhaps the problem only shows up when the GPUs run the code related to the High quality mode and then the test will show correct rendering. The normal quality mode also puts less stress on the hardware, which is another factor that can help with the render.

Thank you,
Vlad
luxychris
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Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2015 9:44 pm

Post by luxychris »

Thanks Vlad. I mixed up my decimal numbers there, thus the mixup between faster/slower results between CPU and GPU usage. It all makes sense now.

As for the Normal/High Quality, I have the same results with both. I just started using the Higher Quality. However all the artifacts come with either scenario.

Well, the CPU Only seems to be working for now. I hate to use it when it's so much slower.

How would YOU attempt contacting Apple to tell them something is wrong with the GPUs when all other GPU tests say everything is just fine? They system is only about 4 months NEW!

Do you have a GPU test app that you can provide? Perhaps it can show where there might be problems?

Thanks Vlad. This really is frustrating.

BTW, Photoshop and After Effects use the GPU just fine! And, of course, I am using a 4K display which uses the GPU and it works just fine.

Chris
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Post by NVTeam »

I saw quite a few reports of similar problems (even not related to Neat Video at all) with other GPU-intensive applications like DaVinci Resolve specifically regarding the new MacPro with D700s. Some of users of such machines were able to take their machines to an Apple store and demonstrate the problem directly. Then Apple replaced the GPUs and that fixed the problem.

Please take a look for example in this thread for a video recording of such GPU-caused rendering problems happening in Resolve. Please also read the comments there.

Perhaps you could also demonstrate the problem in an Apple store like that. Apple may say they are unaware of the problems with D700 but the problem with that GPU is in fact quite common and the solution used by Apple is to replace the GPU(s).

Hope this helps,
Vlad
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