Request for a change in AGK future release

[shades]

Hi Len0x and co,

First off, Thank you so much for creating this program. It's fantastic for someone like myself who doesn't know a hell of a lot on how to get a good result from re-encoding/encoding movies to a better compressed format. I used to use DVDx and it was good, but didn't have the quality or ability of AGK.

I have only 1 request really.
I have noticed that when going through the whole encoding process, the different processes that get performed are all done at LOW priority according to the task manager.
If this could be made user selectable it would be fantastic.
I have done numerous tests while converting my DVD collection and if I sit there and manually change each of the tasks to Above Normal prioity, I can actually shave off just over 1 hr in my encoding times in some cases.

This is a huge improvement!! a normal 3 1/2 hr encode drops to under 2 hrs!

I don't know if it's even possible, but if so could this perhaps be looked at for a future release? I also notice when Vdub is doing it's thing, I go into the Job section and also increase it's tread task priority to Above Normal as well as doing so in task manager to its own task. Perhaps there is a way to launch Vdub in Above Normal priority and it's internal encode task usage ??

Appart from that, fantastic app. Love it.

[unskinnyboy]

...and the next thing we know is all the newbies coming in here and complaining about how the new AutoGK beta slows their PC down to a crawl and how they didn't have this issue before etc.

Remember, not everyone have powerful PCs.

[len0x]

Why not set default priority in VDubMod settings? ("highest" should do the trick for you).

[shades]

@ unskinnyboy,

Oh sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone, just wondering if it was possible that's all, seing as though it made such an amazing difference.
It's not just Vdub, all the processes, i.e. LAME, Dmux/mux programs everyrhing that was launched by AGK was at Low priority. I did just sit there and manually changed each process during the encode to Above Normal and will continue to do so if that's just the way it is, but I thought you may be interested in the difference it made to encode times regardless of the PC and maybe see it as positive feedback, not a bitch session. I certainly don't have the latest hardware and thought, hey, this may benefit everyone, maybe even you.

To Len0x, I will, but it's just one of the programs launched by AGK during an encode.

Is their a way to alter all of them??? If not, so be it, I will not say another word, newbie or not.

Actually I did have one other request :) or just tell me to shove off, but it would be awesome to be able to pick 2 or more seperate files and merge them into one XviD/DivX file. I recently got my bands gig sent to me on two digital tapes and decided to stick the 2 2 gig files onto a single CD using XviD but I wasn't sure how to combine the two files. I can select them no problem with AGK but only one file at a time ;)

I love your program and a thousand thanks to you and yours.

[jggimi]

Moved to development, since its nothing but requests for changes.

[unskinnyboy]

@shades, Sorry if I came across as harsh. Didn't meant that way. I just meant that even if it was possible (possible I guess, will talk about that in a bit), everything at high priority shouldn't be the defaults or else what I said will happen - people complaining. If this is possible, then it should be user-selectable.

There is a way to set process priority for each of the individual programs, for lame.exe, there is "--priority (0-5)", you can't control this since AutoGK doesn't let you edit the CLI before it starts converting the audio. Not sure what is the parm for azidts.exe. For DGIndex, edit DGIndex.ini and change Process_Priority from 2 to 1 (Normal to High). In VirtualDubMod, go to Options-->Preferences, and change the Process Priority to whatever you want (but in my experience, anything above 'Higher' won't give you much benefits but at the same time it will chew up lot of CPU) and save it.

So AFAICS, only setting the process priority for the audio encoding/transcoding is not in your hands, but since the time taken for the audio conversion part is negligible compared to the total end-to-end encoding time, guess you should be able to live with it even if AutoGK is not modified for this.

[shades]

@unskinnyboy

That's what I was getting at. Have a preferences setting in AGK as an update idea, that way people could choose!, no complaints that way.

eg. You go into ctrl F9 and select the piroity to run tasks at.
I'm not saying it's possible, but if it is possible and relatively easy to do, why not!!

I shaved off just over 1 hr on a full DVD to XviD convert.
Not a small margin by any means.
If it's not easy, worthwhile or whatever, no problems. Just thought I would suggest it as a future possibility. Either way, I'm not complaining. I love the program!!!

[travisbell]

I like the sound of this. I do all my encoding on a machine that sits in a closet, and is only used with AutoGK.

Would be a nice addition.

Cheers,

[TAC109]

Adjusting the priority of AGK and its spawned processes will only make a speed difference if there are other processes using significant processor time. If this is the case then maybe these other processes should be stopped.

This can be checked with the Task Monitor.

Travisbell's closet machine will not run AGK faster at a higher priority if it is not running anything else.

[travisbell]

Travisbell's closet machine will not run AGK faster at a higher priority if it is not running anything else.

Well no kiddin'. Don't matter to me that much then ;)

[nine]

I'd like to be a pain and bring this up again ;)

It would be very nice if there was an option to set the process priority of the apps that autogk launches (like GK).

My reason is that I run BOINC(seti@home, etc) on the PC that I encode on, and I usually do this @ night, so I'm not around to change the priorities.

BOINC and AutoGK both run @ low priority, so it takes ~2x longer to do an encode than it would if I had suspended BOINC.

The problem is that if I do suspend BOINC, half the time I forget to restart it (my problem really I guess), but it -would- be nice not to have to start and stop it whenever I do an encode. :thanks:

-edit-

Oh, never mind, ignore me ;) - I suppose since the actual video encoding step takes 90 % of the time, I'll just set the priority in VDM. That saves plenty of time :p