Resolume Forum

Working on an issue today with stuttering footage and low FPS in Resolume Avenue 7.22 on Windows 10 with NVIDIA A4000

This is for a permanent installation and for the past 3 weeks it has been running perfectly and smooth. I state again everything worked perfectly for weeks and the show ran for over 8 hours a day.

However, today, the same footage using the same file on the same computer (no updates!) is playing back very slow and every 30 seconds or so will drop to under 10 FPS.

We are working through all possible issues and I wanted to post here to see if there is anything I missed.

• 3840 x 3840 @ 30 FPS using DXV3 Normal, No Alpha at 90 Minutes Long
• Resolume to MadMapper via Spout

Things we have tried:

1) All files are converted to DXV3 Normal, No Alpha using Alley. They are very large (3840 x 3840 @ 30 FPS) and are about 90 minutes long and about 500 GB. Is there any reason that is too big? They are converted FROM .mp4 H.264

Previous thread on file size: https://www.resolume.com/forum/viewtopi ... 072#p93072

2) This is all running off of the same SSD.

3) Changing the Composition to be 30 FPS or Auto seems to have no effect.

4) CPU and GPU both read below 50% the entire time even through stuttering.

5) Machine has been restarted.

6) Files for both the footage and Avenue composition have not been changed (file manager still shows them unmodified since 3 weeks ago).

Things we are currently trying:

A) Stemming out all clips instead of a 90 minute show. Throws off the whole composition but it might work??

B) Only use MadMapper?

C) Checking SSD utilization?

What else should we try? Thanks!

Just going to update this as it comes.

I just also disabled Spout and ran only Resolume Avenue and the FPS is still super low.

Spout and MadMapper are not the issue.

Right now my best hunch is that for whatever reason a 90 minute file is not a good idea.

This makes no sense because it was working fine for 3 weeks.

However, if I only play a single 6 minute clip (still 3840 x 3840 @ 30 FPS DXV3, etc) then it plays super smooth.

You can also see in the Resource Monitor Disk graph that utilization drops ways off when I play this single 6 minute clip vs the 90 minute clip.

This is all on the same SSD of course which is a 2TB NVMe 2280 1.99 DWPD OPAL/SED. ChatGPT tells me this is more than enough to work for this.

Going to try a different resolution next and see if that might be a contributing factor.

Is there anything suspect about the video codec coming into Alley?

Does it matter if the input video is H.264, .mp4, etc?

Further, changing the DMA Textures to Force ON or Force OFF had no effect.

It was set by default to auto-detect and I will change it back and leave it there.

Hey Lumenarius,

I get how frustrating this must be, especially since everything was running smoothly for weeks. Let’s try to narrow this down and get things back on track.

A 90-minute DXV3 file at 3840x3840 is huge, and even though your system handled it before, SSDs can sometimes slow down over time, especially if they’re nearly full or starting to wear out. Try running a tool like CrystalDiskMark to check the read speeds of your SSD. If the performance is lower than expected, freeing up space (20-25% at least) or re-partitioning the drive might help.

Also, splitting that massive file into smaller chunks might be a good workaround. I know it’s not ideal, but you can use Resolume’s Autopilot to stitch them together seamlessly.

Recheck how you’re converting the MP4s into DXV3. Sometimes small inconsistencies in the source files can cause problems. Alley should work fine, but make sure the resolution, frame rate, and everything else is consistent. If in doubt, try re-converting one of the files and see if it plays better.

Since switching DMA Textures didn’t make a difference, set it back to Auto. Also, double-check that your NVIDIA A4000 drivers are up to date. Outdated drivers can cause weird playback issues.

Just as an experiment, try a scaled-down version of the file (e.g., 1920x1920). If that plays fine, then the resolution might be pushing the limits of the hardware or SSD read speeds.

It’s good you ruled out Spout. To be extra sure, try running just Resolume (no MadMapper) and see if that changes anything.

If none of this works, try playing the same file from an external NVMe drive or even on a different machine. It’ll help confirm if the SSD or the system itself is the problem.

Why it worked before and not now:
SSDs can slow down over time even if there aren’t obvious hardware failures. Fragmentation, small system changes, or even background tasks could be contributing to the issue. Based on your resource monitor showing low disk utilization, I’d say the SSD is worth investigating.

I hope this helped you out in anyway. Let me know how it goes.

Hi tijnisfijn,

Thank you so much for responding here. It is definitely frazzling dealing with this!

The show just started and luckily we got it working with 20 minutes to spare by using ONLY MadMapper and the .mp4. I really love Resolume as it is light years better at playback than MadMapper, and we absolutely need to figure out what the issue is, but damn if that wasn't a lot of work to just use MadMapper in the first place! I hope this can help someone in the future which is why I mention it.

So for the SSD I think there are some definite clues here. I can say that this is a brand new system made by OnLogic and that they used the following SSD: "2TB NVMe 2280 1.99 DWPD OPAL/SED"

It has been used for the past 3 weeks. ChatGPT says this SSD is meant for lots of daily reads and writes so I am hoping it is actually rated for this.

With that said the drive was about 50% full as of writing. I did make a few large files in the setup period and have not done any Disk Fragmentation: is that still a thing?

With regards to CrystalDiskMark that is definitely something I am going to try next.

I think overall splitting the files into smaller chunks is a good next move. This is a bummer because this is not the only remote installation we have that is configured similarly (i.e. 1 large file for a 90 minute show) and I have asked to clarify if this would be an issue in a previous forum post to which I was told it would not be an issue. Not saying this is the issue but it may be likely. https://www.resolume.com/forum/viewtopi ... 072#p93072

Overall it is something I would like to do either way especially given the amazing progress on the Custom Wire Transition that was made here: https://www.resolume.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27185

As for reconverting in Alley I can confirm I have tried that and the result is the same. Both by converting the same file and by converting a new file rendered out of Premiere.

As shown in the previous screenshot of Alley the specs are pretty standard. Would it matter at all that the file came in as a .MP4?

I will also be trying a scaled down 1920 x 1920 90 minute version as a test.

I wish I had an extra Win 10 A4000 machine like this one laying around but I do not have that in order to try.

As for background tasks I have closed absolutely everything. The only other thing than MadMapper or Resolume is LogMeIn but the issue happens even if that is closed and the client is watching.

And for a few more things we tried:

HAP Codec. This took about 1.5 hours to convert and did not change anything. For some reason the file itself was over 600 GB and does not like being name changed and we were unable to delete it afterwards. File Explorer keeps crashing when we try. We used ShutterEncoder which worked well. Far easier than ffmpeg in command line!

Windows Update. For some reason, even though I tried multiple methods to disable, Windows 10 still updated itself and wouldn't you know it that happened exactly yesterday morning before the issue started!?!?! Ahhagaha!!

I am going to try reverting to the previous update and then use something like StopUpdates10 as that seems like it can more aggressively prevent updates.

I will be logging in this evening after midnight and again tomorrow morning to try out these moves.

I will isolate and test after each one and I will report back what I find regardless.

If there are any other moves on the table I should try I am open to literally anything!

Thank you

I think you're right to suspect the Windows update, especially since the timing lines up perfectly with when the issues started. Windows updates have a way of messing with finely tuned systems by changing settings or updating drivers, even when you don’t want it to.

One thing to check right away is the GPU driver. Windows updates love to “helpfully” install what they think is the best driver, but it can often be a version that conflicts with what your system actually needs. Take a look in the Device Manager under Display Adapters, find your NVIDIA A4000, and check the driver version. Compare it to the latest one on NVIDIA’s website. If they don’t match, I’d recommend downloading and installing the correct driver directly from NVIDIA to make sure it’s optimized for Resolume. If OnLogic added any custom GPU profiles or software to your system, it’s worth checking that those are still active and weren’t overwritten or disabled by the update.

Another common issue with updates is that they sometimes reset power settings to “Balanced,” which can throttle performance. Head over to the Power Options in the Control Panel and make sure you’re on High Performance or a custom plan set up for this type of workload. Also, check the advanced power settings to confirm that things like the SSD and GPU aren’t being put into power-saving modes.

Windows updates also have a tendency to re-enable background tasks like Windows Defender or file indexing, which can quietly eat up disk and CPU resources. It’s a good idea to open up the Task Manager or Resource Monitor and keep an eye on what’s running in the background, especially during playback. If you notice anything like high disk usage, you can try disabling unnecessary services through the Services tab in Task Manager or using msconfig.

Another area worth looking into is the graphics settings in Windows itself. Go into your display settings and make sure Resolume is set to use the High-Performance GPU. Sometimes after an update, Windows decides to "optimize" things by switching apps to an integrated GPU or a less powerful setting, so it’s good to double-check.

For your SSD, Windows updates can sometimes tweak disk policies as well. In the Device Manager, find your NVMe drive, check its properties, and ensure that write-caching and other optimizations are still enabled. Since this is a high-performance drive, any small change to its configuration could affect playback.

Finally, if nothing else works, you can try rolling back the update entirely. Go to Update & Security in the Settings menu and view your update history. From there, you can uninstall any recent updates, particularly large feature updates or cumulative ones that might have introduced changes.

It’s frustrating how much work it can be to undo what a Windows update does, but these steps should help narrow things down. Let me know if you make any progress—I’m curious to hear what you find!

PS: I'll update the random video bumper mixer tomorrow for you I saw I made a mistake, I was making it very quickly and I overlooked something if you turn on the random direction it will work for now but tomorrow I'll upload the good version.

Hello, thank you once again for taking the time to go over possible solutions with us. This means a lot as this is a pretty serious permanent installation.

TLDR: as of right now I tried every step and nothing has changed. The FPS consistently drops to under 5-10 FPS immediately and holds here when playing back in Resolume using ANY file, DXV, H.264, etc.

Resolume is really the best and ONLY tool so we are 100% committed to figuring this out and getting it to work. MadMapper is a great work around, and thank god it does work right now because the show would be dead in the water without it. But, MadMapper kind of lacks when it comes to making a show (good at playing 1 video...) so we are going to spend whatever it takes to get Resolume working.

System Specs:
OnLogic K804
Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC High End
Intel Core i9-12900 (Alder Lake) 2.4~5.1 GHz 16-core Processor - 65W
x2 2TB NVMe 2280 1.99 DWPD OPAL/SED
x2 32 GB SO-DIMM DDR4 2666
Nvidia RTX A4000 GPU - 16GB

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1) New GPU driver

I installed a new driver for the NVIDIA RTX A4000 GPU. It was on 471.68 and now it is now on 553.50. No change.

2) Power Options in Control Panel

I checked in the Power Options under Control Panel and went for "Ultimate Performance" instead of the default listing. No change.

3) NVIDIA Control Panel

In the NVIDIA Control Panel I specified that Resolume and MadMapper should both be on Max Power settings. No change.

3.5) Next time I opened Avenue it stated that "The NVIDIA profile for Resolume needs to be restored". I tried hitting "Ignore" and the app did not run smooth and FPS was still low. I then clicked "Restore and Restart" on next launch and the app itself ran smoother but the FPS was still 5-10.

(See screenshot) 4) Windows Update Rollback

I then went all the way and rolled back the update in Windows Settings but unfortunately this did not fix anything and the FPS is still 5-10. I really thought this was the issue but it does not seem so. No change.

5) Remote Access or Not

Also, I am doing all of this remotely but the client can very much confirm Resolume is stuttering even if LogMeIn is off and there is no internet.

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Okay... here are some other things I found outside of the ideas listed in the most recent post.

A) Disk Speed Tests

The CrystalDisk app looks like it has viruses FOR SURE. Lol. Any page that has fake "Download" button ads is somewhere I never run anything from. Not your fault, just something I have learned over the years.

I went with ATTO Disk Benchmark instead which ChatGPT said is "Enterprise Level". It was also free and had no weird fake "Download" button ads.

https://shop.atto.com/products/disk-ben ... or-windows

I went ahead and ran this on both SSDs (identical spec and size) and the results were the same.

I found that the disk was able to write at 2.75 GB/s and read at 3.26 GB/s. This matches with spec for that drive and should be more than enough to playback videos files, right?

When doing the test and having Task Manager open the disk was only 46% utilized and was hitting speeds of 3.5 Gb/s sustained.

(See screenshot) B) Transfer speed between drives

One more clue here is that there are x2 identical drives on this machine. They are both the same SSD. One is C: and has Windows and all the Programs on it and the other is D: and is empty.

Transferring a 20 GB file between them is no issue. Happens quick and transfer rates are 3 GB/s. When I go to move a larger file, like the 90 minute DXV where the file is 500 GB the transfer rate starts super quick and then immediately drops to like 50 MB/s and estimates it will take 4 hours... I waited for a good 15 minutes before cancelling that.

I am going to try for a full 4 hr transfer tonight and see if there are any performance differences between the drives when it comes to 90 minute DXV playback.

C) Disk Read During Playback

When I run Avenue and play any of the files (DXV, H.264, 6 or 90 minute) the disk is about 50% utilized as per Task Manager (about 150 Mb/s). Note this speed is the same for any of the file types or durations.

When I run MadMapper and play the H.264 files (6 or 90) the disk is only 6% utilized (about 15 Mb/s) and it runs perfectly smooth. In MadMapper this performance is the same whether or not "Hardware Acceleration" is enabled in the MadMapper Media Panel. I cannot play DXV in MadMapper.

Why might there be such a difference even with the same file between applications?

(See screenshot) D) Difference between SSD drives and playback

On the 2nd drive, if I transfer a 6 minute DXV clip there and load it into Resolume it will playback smooth at 30 FPS. Not sure why as they are the same drive? I have not had the full time to move over the 90 minute DXV file but will this evening (see B).

Note that yesterday I was able to get a 6 minute DXV clip to play back smooth on the C: SSD but today that is no longer the case. What?? With that said I am not sure moving them to the 2nd D: drive is a long term solution either if it might not work smooth tomorrow, etc.

E) Nearly every time I close Resolume on this computer (about 90%) it crashes and prompts me to send an error report. I do. But is this a clue? In every other installation we have this does not happen on every close.

F) Would Resolume ARENA perform any different in the entire scope of this issue?

G) Odd ball question here but what does the internal Resolume team use for computers?

Is there a certain brand and configuration you swear by that always works and never has issues? Or at least you would trust for a live show or permanent installation over others?

The computer we bought from OnLogic is about $8,000 and it is kind of disorientating why this won't work right as it is the most professional system we could find and is the same as our other installations which have ran flawlessly for literally years.

On this system we burned it in with Resolume and MadMapper + all other software running for 2 weeks straight with the final production 90 minute DXV content in our studio. Flawless. OnLogic even holds it for 1 week prior to shipping it and runs it through their own set of tests before shipping it out too. Zero issues to report of during this entire process.

Over the past 4 years of using OnLogic we have never had this type of issue with the FPS being so low. Over the past 10+ years of using Resolume we have never experienced anything like this either.

In the past we used the Intel NUC product line but they would invariantly brick themselves from time to time so we started going with OnLogic because we know Amazon uses them in their warehouses where things have to work.

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Overall we will figure this out. We literally have to.

If there is ANYTHING you can think of to try next I am open to it.

My next move is to call OnLogic and see if they can think of anything.

Thank you,

- Lumenarius

So this issue was finally resolved but there is still some mystery.

I was able to resolve it by moving the content to the other, identical, SSD, D:/

I truly am not sure why this was the fix. Both SSDs are identical and both report the they are healthy, both have the same drivers, both show the same utilization when the programs are running From every metric I can see they should perform exactly the same, right?

The only difference in Resolume runs at about 5-10 FPS when the files are on drive C:/ and runs fine at 60 FPS when on drive D:/

From further testing I can say all other programs work fine whether they are using one drive or another. MadMapper performed great with files on either drive, Alley even processed the files at the same speed, VLC played files fine on either drive, etc.

So I really have no idea why this issue happened or why moving the files to the other SSD was the fix?

Beyond that I will say that here are some other solutions that were found:

A) Use VLC to stream a single video or playlist over NDI to MadMapper. You could also stream this into Resolume via NDI as well and/or into MadMapper from there again. No issues regardless of the SSD VLC was playing back from.

B) Just use MadMapper directly. MadMapper had no issue playing back the H.264 or ProRes versions of the file natively. We found you could even use MadMapper as the playback engine and then pipe that into Resolume via NDI or Spout if you needed more processing or preferred Arena for mapping, etc.

If anyone can think of any further tests we can run on this system to see what the issue might be please say so and we will give it a try.

If we learn anything about why this happened we will update this thread.

Thanks for the help everyone!