High GPU usage and driver timeouts

DxO PhotoLab
#1

Hi all,

new PhotoLab 5 user here, after trying 4 for a while.

I do however have some questions/issues I can’t resolve. With the DeepPrime accelaration set to Auto select (default setting) or GPU only, my GPU usage goes to 100%. Even when idle and even after closing Photolab. When the DeepPrime accelaration set to CPU only, this does not occur. But setting it to CPU only slows down processing dramatically.

The second issue I have is that I’m getting driver timeouts when using GPU accelaration for DeepPrime, OpenCL is enabled and the number of simultaneously processed images > 1. PhotoLab reports a unknown processing error and AMD Radeon reports a driver timeout. This is regardless of the number of images in the queue: only the last will succeed because there’s no new image processing being started.

After disabling OpenCL, I can process 2 images simultaneously without problems.

First thing I did was clean install the AMD drivers by using DDU to remove the old drivers and install the latest 2.11.3 drivers but this didn’t solve to 2 issues mentioned above.

Some specs of my machine:
Windows 10
Intel Core i5-6400
16GB DDR4
AMD Radeon RX480 8GB
PhotoLab 5 and cache on SSD

I can’t upload the logs yet as I’m a new user. Please let me know if you need the logs and how I can provide them to you.

#2

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Your computer is a little bit under-specced.
Here are the specs as published by DXO:

image
image1405×875 79.9 KB

Your computer may still work with PL5, but probably it would be a good idea to create a support ticket here: support.dxo.com Good luck!

1 Like
#3

Hi! I’m swedish and read this at the site Sweclockers:

Referensmodellen av AMD Radeon RX 480 överskred vid lansering PCI Express-specifikationen för effektuttag. Redaktionen beslöt därför att tills vidare plocka bort utmärkelsen "Bra produkt

It means that the card exceeded the effect the PCI-cardslot managed to give. The testcrew decided to (take away) the recommendation of “Good product” they first gave the product.

Your time out problems seems to correlate with their verdict. You might have a power effect problem.

#4

That issue, with exceedingthe PCI Express power limit, has also been fixed with a driver update in 2016 so I don’t think that is the issue.

My PSU is more than capable of powering the system. Unless it starts to fail of course, but then I would expect issues in other GPU intensive processes as well.

Just to be sure, I tested processing with OpenCL with the power limit set to -50 and +50 in the AMD Radeon software. With -50 you’re limiting the power the GPU may use (with lower performance as a consequence), with +50 you’re allowing the GPU to use more power. In both cases, 2 simultaneous files processed with OpenCL result in a driver time out

#5

Thanks for your answer. I filed a support ticket last Friday.

I know my (t)rusty old machine is a bit lightweight for PL5, but using 100% GPU even after closing doesn’t seem right. I can imagine however that OpenCL is a bit too much for my machine.

I’ve done quite some processing today without OpenCL and that seems to work fine.

I will update this thread if any relevant or useful information pops up.

1 Like
#6

Windows 10
Intel Core i5-6400
8 GB DDR4
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 960
PhotoLab 5

I have the same processor (with four kernels i think) as you have. I have a different card (NVIDIA Geforce GTX 960 that I guess is older than yours) and 8 GB.

When I process 24 Mpixel Sony ARW and export a batch of JPEG my computer use 24 sek average with Deep Prime on. For me that´s fine. The benchmark I did some weeks ago placed my computer over 50 % of all tested before but the graphics card was on the low side.

I will have to upgrade in a future more because Windows 11 disqualifies all Intel i3-, i5-, and all but the most modern i7 computers, not because they don´t meet the Win 11 specifications but generally but of the more blurry reason not to be stable with Win 11. I though have a little hard to buy that argument because I think it´s their responsibility to fix problems like that. This will force miljons of Intel i3-, i5- and i7-users to pile up these miljons of computers at the dumps in order to stay compatible. These Windows 11 system requirements looks lika a nice wedding present from Microsoft to Intel and the computer manufacturers using their processors.

So I have hard to see Photolab and Windows 10 should´t work fine with your computer with another graphics card. I have no problems with both Photolab and Photo Mechanic open simultanously on 8 GB and you have 16 and an SSD. I use to look up a limited bunch of images in PM Plus when I have many images in a folder and then I send them over to Photolab with the “Edit”-function in PM, say 15 or 20 at the time instead of maybee houndreds at once as you open the very same folder and let Photolab render all of these on the fly with a serious wait state as a result.

#7

If GPU remains used after PL is closed, this means there’s still a program using it, or an issue in AMD drivers. I invite you to update your graphics drivers if not already done, or ask help from AMD support. Please note however that the issue that you describe looks similar to the one users are getting with AMD RX 580, see this thread for more information.

I invite you to check Windows processor requirements Windows 11 supported Intel processors | Microsoft Docs. The requirement is on the generation (year) of the processor rather than i3 or i7. What will most likely force users to upgrade hardware is missing TPM 2.0 support (in many cases you just need to enable it on your motherboard though).

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#8

If GPU remains used after PL is closed, this means there’s still a program using it, or an issue in AMD drivers. I invite you to update your graphics drivers if not already done, or ask help from AMD support. Please note however that the issue that you describe looks similar to the one users are getting with AMD RX 580, see this thread for more information.

Thanks for the information. I’m using the latest driver already, but in the thread you mention I see that an old driver may fix the problem. I will try that!

With regards of the 100% GPU issue. It only occurs when I start PL5 (although I never checked with the trail version of PL4). If I boot my computer, start PL5, do some work in PL5 and close PL5, the GPU remains 100%. No other programs were used. I will have a look if this issue is also solved with the older driver version.

I invite you to check Windows processor requirements Windows 11 supported Intel processors | Microsoft Docs. The requirement is on the generation (year) of the processor rather than i3 or i7. What will most likely force users to upgrade hardware is missing TPM 2.0 support (in many cases you just need to enable it on your motherboard though).

Although completely irrelevant for this thread, the i5-6400 does support TPM2.0, but simply isn’t supported by Microsoft. Quite a shame in my humble opinion but Windows 10 is still supported until October 2025. By then, my machine will be really old and probably already replaced :slight_smile:

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#9

yes I had similar problems with my RX580. Most reliable drivers appear to be the 20.Q3 ones. The latest drivers seem to have problems with both DXO Photolab’s deepPrime and rather bad (as in rendering it unusable) with ON1 Photo Raw. I’ve only got the batch processing set to 1 in Photolab as higher seemed to cause those timeout problems plus the gpu hits 100% so I cannot see much point in it trying to do another at the same time given the cpu usage seems to be quite low.

1 Like
#10

So, I’ve tried a couple of driver versions. Obviously, the most recent 21.11.3 drivers don’t work as expected: driver timeout and 100% GPU even after closing PL5.

Between each driver install, I removed the old driver completely using DDU.

Next I tried the older 21.5, as someone in the other topic mentioned that 21.4 was working on his machine and 21.6 broke thing. But in 21.5, I also got driver timeouts.

Next, I switched to the 21.2.3 version, from February 2021. These drivers seem to work. I can now process 2 images simultaneously with OpenCL enabled. Processing multiple image speeds things up for me quite a bit because I regularly do focus stacking, which means I have to process the images first before I can stack them. Some stacks contain dozens of photos.

Next, I did a small benchmark: is there a difference in processing time between OpenCL enabled and disabled? So I selected 7 images, all with some basic adjustments and DeepPrime enabled. The result: in both cases, processing takes about 1 minute and 30 seconds.

Which makes me wonder, does enabling OpenCL have any advantages? In the manual I read the following:

Enable OpenCL improves not only the thumbnail display, but lets you take advantage of computing power for image processing.

So, according to the manual, performance should increase. I did a very simple test on thumbnail creating and OpenCL feels faster, but could also be the placebo effect.

So the general question is: is it worth installing an older driver, just to make OpenCL work?

#11

It’s unfortunate that you need to stay with old drivers but still good to know :slight_smile:

From OpenCL has no effect - #3 by Lucas :

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#12

Thanks for the answer. So if I understand correctly from the other topic, OpenCL doesn’t have any advantages when using Prime or DeepPrime. That is good to know, because I use DeepPrime a lot. If OpenCL isn’t used for DeepPrime, it isn’t really necessary to enable it I guess.

And disabling OpenCL means I can keep up with the AMD driver releases.

Choices, choices :slight_smile: