How To Make Cyberlink PowerDirector Run Faster

Cyberlink PowerDirector is one of the best video capturing and editing software available, but it can run slowly under certain circumstances. There could be a dozen things slowing your PowerDirector down; fortunately, you can tackle these problems with a few simple solutions. So what can you do to make your Cyberlink PowerDirector run faster?

The best ways to speed up Cyberlink PowerDirector are:

Optimize Your PowerDirector settings.
Upgrade your computer’s hardware.
Close background programs and applications.
Uninstall unnecessary software using Disk Cleanup.
Restart your computer.
Defragment your system at least once a month.

In this article, I’ll be discussing the many reasons that CyberLink PowerDirector can run slowly and what you can do to fix them so that you can get back to capturing and editing software quickly.

Table of Contents

What Is CyberLink PowerDirector?

CyberLink PowerDirector is a powerful suite of video and photo editing tools you can use to create professional-looking videos and photo slideshows that can be easily saved and sent to friends, family, or colleagues.

Some other features of PowerDirector are the ability to back up and restore files, rip audio discs, create data discs, burn video discs, and more. PowerDirector can be easily used by amateurs and professionals alike, its basic suite of video editing tools accessible enough not to encumber a newcomer.

A few other features of Cyberlink PowerDirector are:

Action camera tools
4K and 3D compatible
360-degree video footage tools
Professional-looking theater effects
Pre-programmed video templates

Optimize Your PowerDirector Settings

If your computer doesn’t have as much processing power as you’d like, or maybe your GPU is a few years behind, there are ways to optimize PowerDirector’s built-in settings to run more smoothly on lower-end systems. If you’re particularly struggling with video preview quality, check out this page from Cyberlink.

Settings to Optimize On Cyberlink PowerDirector:

Disable video tracks you’re not currently editing. Tracks you’re not actively editing can use valuable system memory better devoted to what you’re actively editing.
In Preview Mode, select Non-Real-time Preview mode. By doing so, you mute the audio and display your preview at a less fluid rate. This helps when editing HD videos and lets you see more frames your system may not be capable of displaying in real-time.
Lower the preview quality. Ultra HD, Full HD, HD, and even High qualities can result in too much strain on your CPU, GPU, and system memory. Lower the setting by one or two settings and check if this helps the preview display more smoothly.
Disable the Preview When Editing option while editing. This will ensure that system resources go to your editing and not the preview.

Upgrade Your Computer’s Hardware

Video editing software puts a lot of strain on the CPU and GPU of a computer and is as demanding as playing modern video games. Your computer checks every aspect of your video editing and saves it by the various components of the computer before saving the results into a file.

When your computer doesn’t have the recommended specifications to run PowerDirector, it can result in the software running slowly. This can include poor-quality previews, slow editing, lag during playback, crashing, and more issues that share the common theme of the software being slow.

Unfortunately, if this is your problem, there’s not much you can do short of upgrading your computer. While specifications like RAM and CPU are necessary, the graphics card or GPU is the most critical aspect of video editing software.

If you have enough RAM but your GPU lacks, consider upgrading this part of your computer to help take your video editing to the next level.

For more information, check out whether you can install PowerDirector on multiple computers.

Close Background Programs And Applications

When you have too many background programs running, this can slow down your entire computer and result in lag, frame drops, and crashes. Every program open on your computer uses a certain amount of system memory (RAM), a crucial component in any video editing software like PowerDirector.

Open Task Manager on your computer and click on Processes. This will show you every process in the fore and background of your computer. If you don’t recognize a process, it’s best to leave it alone, but take note of the programs you know are installed. If you aren’t using a program, right-click on that program’s process in Task Manager and click End Process.

Ending tasks in Task Manager can be an excellent way to free up space from background processes, but it can also have unintended consequences, as programs aren’t meant to be ended in this manner. Take caution when using this approach, and perhaps try to end programs the old-fashioned way – right-click the program and end it!

Your Video Project Is Too Large

If a project is very long or made of many small clips, it can encumber PowerDirector. Consider splitting your file up during the editing process because this will allow PowerDirector to focus solely on one clip or part of the video at a time.

Adding lots of effects and having real-time previews enabled while large files are being edited is a perfect storm to slow PowerDirector down.

Uninstall Unnecessary Software Using Disk Cleanup

This goes along with too much running in the background – if you have too many programs you don’t use installed, it takes up valuable hard drive space. When there’s too much on the hard drive, it is hard for PowerDirector to allocate and access space when it needs to save and retrieve files.

Uninstalling programs you don’t use will not only make PowerDirector instantly faster but cause a general speed boost to every aspect of your computer – browsing files, surfing the web, using other programs, watching videos, and more.

An additional tool installed on all Windows systems that helps speed systems up is Disk Cleanup. This will display and allow you to easily delete unnecessary files on your computer that may be slowing the whole system down.

Update Your Software

Software like Cyberlink Powerdirector is meant to be used in the most recently released form. If you have an older form of Powerdirector and it’s running slowly, lagging, or is otherwise choppy, consider updating your software to the most current version.

Restart Your Computer

If you’ve been editing many videos or otherwise using a lot of programs, your RAM may be swamped by background processes. Sometimes you can instantly fix a slow, laggy, or choppy computer by just restarting it.

If you’ve eliminated all other possible suspects that could be slowing your system down, try giving your computer a restart and try opening PowerDirector again.

Defragment Your System At least Once a Month

Disk Defragmenter is an incredibly useful tool preinstalled on all Windows operating systems. When a computer is used, files are spread around on the hard drive to make it more accessible. Over a long period of time, this can result in ‘clutter’ in your hard drive. When your hard drive is cluttered like this, it will slow the entire system down, including any programs that are heavy on system resources. PowerDirector is one of these programs.

If you regularly edit video content, you should be defragmenting your computer at least once a month. This will consolidate files that may be spread around on the hard drive, freeing up accessible space for programs and the Windows system to more quickly access and make use of.

For more information, check out which is better: Power Director and Adobe Premiere Pro

Final Thoughts

While Cyberlink PowerDirector can be very frustrating to use when it’s running slowly, crashing, or giving you other issues. Fortunately, there are some quick ways to make it run more smoothly so that you can get back to your video editing as quickly as possible.

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