To my opinion, there is also no need for previewing at full 60 fps. When you work with proxies, these are only 720p24 (XDCAM), irrespective of the resolution and framerate of the UHDfootage. Therefore it's so easy to edit with proxies. Important when working with proxies is that you don't switch the preview to good or full, because with that setting, the original files are used instead of the lores/loframe proxies.

Editorial Comments on this Thread

Musicvid has outdone himself with a moment of clarity unequaled for a long time.

3POINT always has more than three good points.

The Vegas developers have no doubt assessed the state of hardware from time to time and have provided a good tool for working around the limitations of systems hardware (compared to the complexity of video encoding methods) at any point in time. Using proxies is that solution for us mere mortals.*

*  I've never used proxies even though I have a UHD camera. In fact, my camera has the ability to create proxies along with the normal video and I have the feature turned off

Vegas Team definitely has to work on GPU decoding. That's the key to work with heavily compressed codec.

In Vegas, none of your files play smoothly on my old system (i73930k + 1070ti). CPU is at 90% GPU 5% or less

Using Resolve I have real time preview in multicam mode (CPU 15%, GPU 50% seen through Task manager).

HEVC is a very demanding format for CPU decoding, your best bet in any NLE would be to convert those files to an intermediate. My Ryzen 7 1800x, for instance, can't smoothly decode and play back 4k HEVC above 50mbps. Your best bet is encoding to intermediate formats. This isn't just true for Vegas, but any software... especially if you are doing multicam. Some GPUs offer acceleration for HEVC decoding, but I'm not sure if NLE's can utilize that for timeline decoding.

I download your footages and here is what I got on my system.

Single track XT3-4K 50P 10 bit ----- VP16 TL BEST/FULL settings run 48-50 frames CPU 68-73% GPU stay solid @ 10%

Single track NX1 4K 30P VP16 TL run BEST/FULL settings run full frame rate CPU 40-48% GPU stay solid @ 6%

Single track GoPro 7 4K 60P VP16 TL run BEST/FULL settings full frame rate CPU 67-72@ GPU stay solid 12%

XT3 footage bouncing between 48-50 frames. The other two stay solid full frame rates. I can not see a way to multicam editing with XT3 and GoPro 7 footages. At least not yet. Perhaps is the near future with far more powerful CPU and GPU. The codec is the major factors here.

 

I can edit 2 tracks 10 bit GH5 with All I codec and I got full frame rate at BEST/FULL on a 10 32 bit Project Properties settings. I when tried your footages with 2 tracks. Its started out at full frame rate and taper it down 3 frames.

 

 

Wow thats really promising, what about running it in Good preview in full/half i've never used best because its so Demanding on the CPU and there is no way to run it on my end, so 95% of the time i run it in good/half, OMG i really hate to ask but can you rerun that xt3 and gopro, in multicam?

is there any video card that can do realtime preview even better then AMD Frontier Edition Vega 10 16GB HBM2? and does that card run games well?

Two 4K 60P, highly compressed .h265 is just not doable on full frame rate playback. I really don't believed anything out there can decompress it on the TL at full frame rate. I am sure you already known that. Transcode the footage before doing multicam editing is the way to go at this point. I prefered transcode method over proxi via Vegas.

Yes HBM2 16GB is the card I am using along with 16 cores Threadripper running @ 4ghz. Frontier Edition is a workstation card with 10 bit output. I don't doing game at all but I am sure you can game but don't expect its as good as the 1080Ti. As its market as a workstation card.

I download your footages and here is what I got on my system.

Single track XT3-4K 50P 10 bit ----- VP16 TL BEST/FULL settings run 48-50 frames CPU 68-73% GPU stay solid @ 10%

Single track NX1 4K 30P VP16 TL run BEST/FULL settings run full frame rate CPU 40-48% GPU stay solid @ 6%

Single track GoPro 7 4K 60P VP16 TL run BEST/FULL settings full frame rate CPU 67-72@ GPU stay solid 12%

XT3 footage bouncing between 48-50 frames. The other two stay solid full frame rates. I can not see a way to multicam editing with XT3 and GoPro 7 footages. At least not yet. Perhaps is the near future with far more powerful CPU and GPU. The codec is the major factors here.

 

I can edit 2 tracks 10 bit GH5 with All I codec and I got full frame rate at BEST/FULL on a 10 32 bit Project Properties settings. I when tried your footages with 2 tracks. Its started out at full frame rate and taper it down 3 frames.

 

 

Wow thats really promising, what about running it in Good preview in full/half i've never used best because its so Demanding on the CPU and there is no way to run it on my end, so 95% of the time i run it in good/half, OMG i really hate to ask but can you rerun that xt3 and gopro, in multicam?

is there any video card that can do realtime preview even better then AMD Frontier Edition Vega 10 16GB HBM2? and does that card run games well?

Two 4K 60P, highly compressed .h265 is just not doable on full frame rate playback. I really don't believed anything out there can decompress it on the TL at full frame rate. I am sure you already known that. Transcode the footage before doing multicam editing is the way to go at this point. I prefered transcode method over proxi via Vegas.

 

Yes HBM2 16GB is the card I am using along with 16 cores Threadripper running @ 4ghz. Frontier Edition is a workstation card with 10 bit output. I don't doing game at all but I am sure you can game but don't expect its as good as the 1080Ti. As its market as a workstation card.

Do you know if Radeon RX Vega 64 going to work just as well? or only frontier edition takes advantage or something that card has to offer? thx

Musicvid has outdone himself with a moment of clarity unequaled for a long time.

A moment that came, coincidentally, at 6 am following a sober evening.

Probably just a fluke.

I download your footages and here is what I got on my system.

Single track XT3-4K 50P 10 bit ----- VP16 TL BEST/FULL settings run 48-50 frames CPU 68-73% GPU stay solid @ 10%

Single track NX1 4K 30P VP16 TL run BEST/FULL settings run full frame rate CPU 40-48% GPU stay solid @ 6%

Single track GoPro 7 4K 60P VP16 TL run BEST/FULL settings full frame rate CPU 67-72@ GPU stay solid 12%

XT3 footage bouncing between 48-50 frames. The other two stay solid full frame rates. I can not see a way to multicam editing with XT3 and GoPro 7 footages. At least not yet. Perhaps is the near future with far more powerful CPU and GPU. The codec is the major factors here.

 

I can edit 2 tracks 10 bit GH5 with All I codec and I got full frame rate at BEST/FULL on a 10 32 bit Project Properties settings. I when tried your footages with 2 tracks. Its started out at full frame rate and taper it down 3 frames.

 

 

Wow thats really promising, what about running it in Good preview in full/half i've never used best because its so Demanding on the CPU and there is no way to run it on my end, so 95% of the time i run it in good/half, OMG i really hate to ask but can you rerun that xt3 and gopro, in multicam?

is there any video card that can do realtime preview even better then AMD Frontier Edition Vega 10 16GB HBM2? and does that card run games well?

Two 4K 60P, highly compressed .h265 is just not doable on full frame rate playback. I really don't believed anything out there can decompress it on the TL at full frame rate. I am sure you already known that. Transcode the footage before doing multicam editing is the way to go at this point. I prefered transcode method over proxi via Vegas.

 

Yes HBM2 16GB is the card I am using along with 16 cores Threadripper running @ 4ghz. Frontier Edition is a workstation card with 10 bit output. I don't doing game at all but I am sure you can game but don't expect its as good as the 1080Ti. As its market as a workstation card.

Do you know if Radeon RX Vega 64 going to work just as well? or only frontier edition takes advantage or something that card has to offer? thx

I do not know. Perhaps someone else have high end cpu with vega 64 combo can share some detail. I decide to load your GoPro 7 4K 60P and XT3 4K 50P 10 bit into Davinci resolve studio 15 and edit in multicam. I am surprised am able to cut in between shot at full frame rate, smooth. wow.

See.... all in software.... about 1 year ago a few editing software had butter smooth playback of HEVC, but i just couldn't get used to it, vegas is so easy to edit. Im willing to buy another video card if it helps vegas though. Anyone with Radeon RX Vega 64 can you test to see how vegas handles HEVC files in included in this thread? thanks!

Bruce,j-v once again thank you for all the tests and everyone else who contributed, would be great if we at least pinpointed fastest card for real time playback.

I didn't think Resolve background renders as does Premiere.

I do notice comments like the one above and wonder what's in the secret sauce? Does Resolve maybe prerender cuts automatically?

One more note: 18 cores may run slower for encoding than the recommended 6-8 cores.

One more note: 18 cores may run slower for encoding than the recommended 6-8 cores.

even if all cores overclocked to 4.6?

One more note: 18 cores may run slower for encoding than the recommended 6-8 cores.

even if all cores overclocked to 4.6?

If I have to guess. Even a 5ghz 6-8 cores cpu will not out perform the flagship 18 cores running at 4.6ghz in encoding or in anything. That is why its a flagship with a premium price for a reason.

That's quite a statement. Benchmarking and encoding sites don't all agree with you that more than 8 cores are better. Can you test this for yourself, please?

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/how-many-cores-are-beneficial--101846/#ca625953

One more note: 18 cores may run slower for encoding than the recommended 6-8 cores.

even if all cores overclocked to 4.6?

Well by all means burn the damn thing up and let us know if it helped.

Those dual Xeon high cores count low clock (2-3ghz) certainly hold true are not perform well in encoding vs high clock 6-8 cores version. But here is not the case at all. What he got here is an overclocked high clocks at 4.6ghz 18 cores beast that will absolutely out perform the 6-8 at 5ghz. And I stand by it.

Bruce,j-v once again thank you for all the tests and everyone else who contributed, would be great if we at least pinpointed fastest card for real time playback.

I've asked that. Lots of people have. Still dont know the answer. You don't want to buy the most powerful card you can find, if it does not improve playback playback (or render) anymore than a gtx1080.

Davinci Resolve, as people have discussed, is a completely different animal. The better the graphics card the better the playback performance. The following shows how various cards perform on timeline playback while Resolve on a project with colour grading, motion tracking & 3 filters (Lens Flare, Tilt-Shift Blur &Sharpen)

As you can see, if you had money to burn an RX2080ti is the best of the non professional cards & would improve playback. I don't believe that can be said for Vegas Pro. I wish we had a similar chart.

I tried these 3 files on my ageing system which has the 8-core i7-5960X overclocked to 4.3GHz. My GPU is Radeon HD6970, which is old but probably utilized as much as any GPU in terms of percentage, since it is from the generation of GPUs that the Vegas GPU acceleration was coded for. Full specs in my profile. The GPU figures below are a bit suspect as GPU-Z is not very responsive with these short files and I'm on an older version of Win10 without the GPU monitoring included.

GoPro HERO7 HEVC

• VLC - smooth - CPU 33% - GPU 18%
• MPC-HC - smooth - CPU 21% - GPU 19%
• VP16 GPU OFF - smooth - CPU 53% - GPU 7%
• VP16 GPU ON - smooth - CPU 50% - GPU 33%

Samsung NX1

• VLC - smooth - CPU 14% - GPU 10%
• MPC-HC - smooth - CPU 14% - GPU 19%
• VP16 GPU OFF - smooth - CPU 30% - GPU 7%
• VP16 GPU ON - smooth - CPU 30% - GPU 17%

Fujifilm

• VLC - smooth - CPU 30% - GPU 27%
• MPC-HC - smooth - CPU 25% - GPU 25%
• VP16 GPU OFF - 2fps - CPU 60% - GPU 5%
• VP16 GPU ON - 2fps - CPU 60% - GPU ?%

These results and the others in this thread show that CPU is still more important for Vegas than GPU. That's been consistent advice over recent years and still applies.

I don't know why tripleflip's higher spec system is playing less smoothly than mine. One possibility is that my machine hasn't had the Meltdown & Spectre patches.

Finally, I'm in the camp that believes you can make a comparison between playback smoothness in players and NLEs. In both cases they have to decode every pixel of every frame. BruceUSA's finding with Resolve shows that smooth playback of these formats in an NLE is possible. Of course an NLE has some extra processes to run at the same time, and may have to do more buffering, but fundamentally if a player can chug through that Fujifilm 50p HEVC with 25% CPU and GPU load, then Vegas should be able to do better than 2fps.

Finally, I'm in the camp that believes you can make a comparison between playback smoothness in players and NLEs. In both cases they have to decode every pixel of every frame.

Can a player attach filters, trim, effects, transistions on several tracks etc while playing...

Finally, I'm in the camp that believes you can make a comparison between playback smoothness in players and NLEs. In both cases they have to decode every pixel of every frame.

Can a player attach filters, trim, effects, transistions on several tracks etc while playing...

@3POINT No (although I think some players can do some of those things on a single track). That's why I said "Of course an NLE has some extra processes to run at the same time".

If you don't process the video in any of those ways you mention, and just sit back to play it free of effects etc., then the comparison between players and NLEs is reasonable.

The comparison between Vegas and Resolve is certainly fair, since Resolve is capable of processing the video in the ways you mention (not sure about "while playing" though, as I haven't used it).

...and actually I think I'm being quite generous to the NLEs. If I play a 4K solid colour generated media item in VP16 and "click around" in it, my CPU is at 3% and my GPU at 2%. That's a reasonable measure of how little resources the "extra processes" actually take.

On my system, see my signature (and also on my i7 notebook) I'm able to edit smoothly 2160p30 H.264 footage without proxies, with Vegas and Movie Studio. On both systems I'm not able to run Resolve at all...

On my system, see my signature (and also on my i7 notebook) I'm able to edit smoothly 2160p30 H.264 footage without proxies, with Vegas and Movie Studio. On both systems I'm not able to run Resolve at all...

Does vegas just crawl away and die at 2160p60?