What does it mean when a GPU isn't used by a graphic program

I've got an issue with Corel Video Studio X4. It's a video editing program. It's been a dog since day one, but until recently I thought it was my camera. Now that I have a nice shiny new dSLR shooting 1080p video at 24 fps (or 30 fps, or 60 fps) I came to the conclusion that it's the software. Fastforward past reinstalling a bunch of stuff including my OS and I discover via MSI Afterburner that VS just isn't doing ANYTHING with the GPU. Other programs use the GPU just fine, but VS X4 doesn't. So one of the things that Corel asked me to try was the trial of VS X5, which I did, and it was exactly the same thing.

So how is it that one series of programs can't use the GPU of my video card at all but every other program doesn't have any issues at all? The better question, do you know how I can fix this?

Thanks in advance.

 

I am df on the Corel forums so take that one thread with the flames icon as the same situation. I'm still waiting to hear back from Corel. One of the techs and I have exchanged a number of emails. If anything I at least don't feel hung out to dry.

My video card is http://www.msi.com/product/vga/N8400GS-MD1GD3H-LP.html#/?div=Overview which is nvidia driven, but I am NOT a video card guy. It's just weird that this card works with anything else I've thrown at it, including Photoshop (well, it doesn't slow down any that I can tell but I haven't actually spent time checking out every program) and games.

I'm stumped as to what to do to get it to work.

 

The short answer is programmers have to write support for gpu rendering in, and in many of the lower end apps it gets skipped as more features are higher priority then cpu rendering. Honestly i would suggest if your serious about editing trying a higher end app, like Adobe Pemiere. I wouldn't worry about it not specialy being used unless you are experiencing other issues.

 

GPU rendering will only really benefit you in rendering your outputted video, or adding various special effects in. If your not having super slow performance in those areas, you might not even benefit much from the additional gpu rendering.

 

Thank you for the comments. The problem I have is when I'm editing a video file I can't play it to see what's going on. Once I actually render the file and output it the file plays in a different player (whatever the default is for the format I chose) and it plays fine. That is unless I didn't realize I did something wrong since I couldn't preview it while editing.

So I gather what you're saying is there's really not much I can do on my end. If Corel wants to get it fixed they need to do something on their end. Their tech support has been in contact with me and I don't get the impression that they're just trying to blow me off so I'm hoping that they will pull this one out of the fire and issue another patch.

 

If I had the same problem I would check if there are newer device drivers available for the GPU.

 

Good point. I've got every device driver available since I bought the thing including the one on the disk. Nvidia drivers 280.26; 285.38; 290.53; 295.73; 296.10; 301.42. All have the same results. But that's not a bad thought.

 

Interesting that you cant preview while editing, that seems pretty terrible as far as the software goes. I would definitely look at upgrading to some other video editing software at this point, adobe premiere is my personal favorite on the windows side. That sounds like an issue they should work with you to fix.

 

Did it always behave this way? Or did this come up after a windows update or other program install maybe?

 

My case was handed off to a level III Corel tech (what level tech I had before I don't know). At any rate they claim that since my files were shot at 23.976 fps and I'm in NTSC mode (I am in the USA of course) and the program itself conforms all incoming video to 30 fps then it stutters.

The problem is that I've also shot in 29.976 fps mode on my Canon camera and it still stutters. But they also offered a "solution". Batch convert the files to 30fps. I just tried this and it actually does work, but I was hoping on shooting and editing in 23.976 mode for that movie look (that I've read about).

Looks like I'm going to give Adobe another shot, I really didn't like the layout when I trialed Premier Elements earlier (personal preference thing, others find it great and I've got no beef with that). What a disappointment with Corel. I figured they'd get their act together since they just bought Roxio. I guess they just like being amateurs.

 

I completely gave up on serious editing with confronted with windows editors, i mean i dont want to sound like a snob, but final cut 7/studio just feels right to me. If you do much editing or movie making a possible route for better editing software might be a local community produced tv station. Here in my town we have a channel called community access that has some editing bays setup for editing and will pretty much air most programing that any one produces. Might be something to look at?

 

Update:
After a long exhaustive process of chasing our tales and tech support not really offering anything of a real fix Corel has refunded the purchase of the program. Keep in mind I bought this last year at Thanksgiving and the 30 day money back guarantee had long since expired. So, while not optimal they are at least a company with a bit of integrity.