I have been editing for the longest time on my desktop PC using Adobe Premier using an Radeon X300 graphics card, Pentium 4 Proc 3.0GHZ, and 1 GB RAM, and my video is on an external HDD connected to the desktop.

My problem is my computer slows down greatly when editing and when I try to play what I am editing(while I am editing it)the video will skip and jump around.


Should I upgrade my RAM, video card, or both? And to what do you suggest. I am editing/shooting in 16:9 and when I make a DVD that is about 20 minutes long I have a hell of a hard time trying to fine tune my video.

BTW the video card is 128MB

The video card does not play a very important role in Premiere.

Storage space and data access times are more important, and my money is on this being a possible cause of your problems.

You are using an external drive. This might be the bottleneck. Is it USB?

I have heard of some people editing OK with external drives, but the preferred storage solution is a dedicated additional internal drive (or even better, a RAID).

I'm not aware the graphics card plays ANY roels for Premiere. Much more important for some 'effects' work. i know certain features of Aftre Effects uses the GPU but to my knowlegde, Premiere doesn't at all - up to v2 that is

Good spot Bert. Almost certainly the issue I reckon. Ever picked up one of those covers disk and tried playing thos background animations forom the CD/DVD rom drive? Play rubbuish don't they - just like described.

Edit on an internal drive and see if the issue goes away to prove this point.

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Thanks for your suggestions guys. I just upgraded my RAM to 2.512 GB and it runs a lot better, I'll buy a internal HDD next.

I have had a similiar problem with my pc. I have 3 dedicated internal hdd. 512 ram, plus a radeon 9250 256mb graphics card. My stuttering improved when i went from internal graphics card to this dedicated more bigger one. But i do get a slight stutter after i have rendered to watch how the footage looks. I assumed i just need to spend good money on a more better make of graphics card. If you have added more ram and its improved a bit maybe i should try that also.