Optimization is Very Poor

The amount this program lags makes it very difficult to do most editing and seeing how many versions this program has been through its straight up frustrating this hasn’t been given any priority yet or if there were any attempts, they had no lasting effect. And with the most recent update, I can’t play an audio track without Shotcut taking a shit.

The most recent update is Version 18.11.18.
What are your computer specifications?
Does your computer meet the minimum system requirements?

  • Operating system: 32- or 64-bit Windows 7 - 10, Apple macOS 10.10 - 10.15, or 64-bit Linux with at least glibc 2.19.

  • CPU: x86-64 Intel or AMD; at least one 2 GHz core for SD, 2 cores for HD, and 4 cores for 4K.

  • RAM: At least 4 GB for SD, 8 GB for HD, and 16 GB for 4K.

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Intel® Core™ i5-7400 CPU @ 3.00GHz, 3001 Mhz, 4 core, 4 logical possessors. 8.00 RAM. Windows 10
64-bit Operating system. x64-based processor

Try to update graphic card driver.

In SC’s defense, all NLE’s are taxing on computers.
It all depends on resolution of the videos, the codec/s being used and the filters applied.
Other editors like Premier, FCP and Resolve also suffer from the same things, although they do have proxy settings which SC does not, so there is room for improvement.

As far as your i5 goes, I would say it’s border line sufficient for serious editing.
Depending on what I want to do and decide to use SC, I have three computers that I use:
An i5 iMac which is OK for short promo’s, any more and there is “hiccupping”
An i7 Win 7 PC with a big fat NVIDIA GTX1050, that allows me to do multiple tracks and apply many more filters,
and finally the Xeon “mother ship” with a M6000 card and she is a real work horse for long form work.

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The main qualm I have is that the program is very inconsistent. Shot cut is the only editing program I’ve ever used and without it I would never have been able to make YouTube videos so I don’t know if other editing software war has the same issues this frequently or at all. Sometimes I’m running a clip and it runs with no issues at all, but when I try to play it back again the audio lags out and the video becomes choppy. I feel like this is due to a faulty loading system. I’m no coder but I feel the issue is that the program doesn’t properly unload a segment I played and when I’m playing back a different part it still thinks that I’m at the previous part and trys to load that in while playing the current part.

Hi, I’m someone who writes code but the problem you are describing doesn’t seem like a software issue at least from my perspective of using Shotcut for a couple of days now, on a laptop with integrated graphics.

First thing I would check is my ram usage using Task Manager. You can open in at least 2 ways: by selecting it from a drop down menu when you right click on your taskbar, or by doing CTRL+ALT+DEL.
Maybe you will find something hogging your ram, Windows 10 can be a pain in this department with Cortana and other processes that can go wild from time to time. There are a ton of tutorials on how to disable these.

Other thing is as people already mentioned if you are using a desktop machine and have a graphics card, please do check for the newest drivers from Nvidia or AMD.

In the end, if you didn’t try it yet I would give the old reinstall a shot, since sometimes configuration files can get messed up, and a clean install of Shotcut might help get rid of the problems.

If you get any other hints on the exact cause, let us know.
Also if you are using a laptop keep it plugged in.

Without knowing what kind of video you’re trying to edit(as @Hudson555x mentioned 8gb is the minimum recommended for HD, 4k is a different monster) and what kind of drives you’re using(your system sounds like a typical office pc so i’m guessing spinning disc but I hope I’m wrong) we can’t make recommendations about the best place to start beyond the common point of the intel graphics drivers might be out of date and causing problems(although you might have a gpu you didn’t mention clearly either way)
Considering I edit 4k video regularly with shotcut on windows(although on a PC @Paul2 would classify as a Xeon “mothership” minux that quadro) and 1080p on a laptop with a dated i5-4200u as an NLE it’s quite scalable assuming your hardware is up to the task you’re demanding of it. Certain codecs and containers(mts files come to mind) are troublesome as well and could easily be part of your problem.

How do I check for driver updates?

That depends on your system, if it’s a prebuilt from dell or lenovo they have a utility for that, if it’s a custom system you’d want to go to the individual vendors(intel nvidia ect.) and download an appropriate driver

In the general case (not necessarily Shotcut, since I’m no SC expert), Intermittent performance issues like those you describe are often caused by A) Lack of RAM or B) lack of drive space. How much free space do you have on the hard drive you’re working from and is it the same drive as your system swap space?

If you specify the laptop / pc I could help you.
As a general guideline
nvidia is here Official Drivers | NVIDIA
as for amd go here https://www.amd.com/en/support

Now you’ll need to know what GPU you have, its model and the operating system you are using. This can be checked in system properties on windows or using a 3-rd party program such as Speccy Download Speccy | Find your computer specs, free! where the free version is more than enough to check the basic specs.

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