I do have some time since the AMD Quad Core is not available yet. But with me filming/editing/producing ect..... I have a limited amount of time to find information. I know some of you have the 64 bit beta version so I was hoping to get some info so I can get a jump on what to buy. We will need three workstations so if the 64bit does not support more than 4 threads I can just buy newer AMD 64 chips and put them into what we have now. Then spend the money on other equipment. If the new verson will support more than 4 threads I can wait for the AMD Quad cores. Someone has the answer. I believe when I was at NAB and they annouced the 64 bit version the person said 16 cores and some crazy amount of virtual memory (8TB). Why is it so hard to get info about the upcoming products?

I can't answer why Sony does not like to give details a head of time, but I can point you to this thread about a new editing machine and there are a couple of posts on there about an 8 core option.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=552576&Replies=4

j razz

Just curious. Do you mean Threads or Cores. Checking Taskman for the number of threads in use before and after starting Vegas I see 669 without Vegas and 745 with Vegas. So Vegas seems to be running a little over 70 threads, just sitting idle with a project loaded.

I think what you heard at NAB is about the best info you're going to get about the number of cores V64 will use. Memory will be limited by the motherboard I think and most of what I see supports 8GB or 16 GB. After the MMIO tax that's probably 7 or 15 GB plus or minus.

But until V64 actually exists, I wouldn't be pouring money into 64 bit hardware for it. That's not good planning. I'll bet when it's released (maybe by NAB) it'll be a rocky start with lots of hardware gotchas.

Rob Mack

A thread is software, while a core is a hardware unit that can execute one thread at a time.

So an 8-core computer can execute 8 threads simultaneously.

If a single program is written to split up the work into multiple threads, these threads can run in separate cores at the same time, and special logic in the software makes sure that everything is assembled correctly.

It's not that easy in most cases to write multi-threaded code. If the code is complex, you also increase the risk of very hard-to-debug problems.

So an 8-core computer can execute 8 threads simultaneously.

Define "simultaneously". A multi-threaded app can be significantly faster on a single core than the same app if it was single-threaded. Most operations on a computer does involve other things than the CPU. This means delays. Most software that actually does things (other than just math) will never be able to utilize a CPU at 100%. This is where threads come in. Even on a single core threading an application can make more efficient use of that single core.

It's not that easy in most cases to write multi-threaded code.

This really depends. You can write multi-threaded code easily in many cases, depending on what you are trying to do. Server code is dead easy to multi-thread, such as web applications.

A multi-threaded app can be significantly faster on a single core than the same app if it was single-threaded.

It is not possible to make blanket statements about the speed one way or the other.
Multi-threading can also add overhead, different multi-core CPUs have different limitations (the current AMD quad-core for example have much higher bandwidth in their inter-CPU communication, compared to the current Intel quad CPUs).

There are so many factors involved that you'd need to test each architecture for each application separately.

You can write multi-threaded code easily in many cases, depending on what you are trying to do.

For exercise, you should try to write data communications stacks... :O)

Server code is dead easy to multi-thread...

Hoo-hoo. That depends on how far you want to take the multi-threading.
Are you sure you're not confusing multi-threading with multi-tasking? That's not the same thing. If you're just running multiple instances of the same code serving different server requests, that is not multi-threading.

I guess I am confussed now. All I need to know if I have 4x Quad Core AMD processors, will it use all of the hardware to render. Currently I have 2 AMD dual cores which is 4 cores. Vegas can use all 4. I want to get workstations with 16 total cores {4 Quad cores}. The DVD software from Vegas only uses 2 of my 4. So I want to use our current workstations to prepare DVD masters and hopefully be able to render faster on our workstations with the new 16 core hardware when available.

Sorry to get this started. Yes, the simple question is whether 64-bit Vegas can use 8 or even 16 cores, and keep them busy. It sound's like, from the quote from NAB, that 16 cores is something they plan on supporting.

The question gets more complex, though. Suppose you've got your fancy new V64 running on a machine with 16 cores and you decide to do an MPEG2 render using the Main Concept codec. Well, (correct me if I'm wrong here, folks) the main concept codec will use 2 cores, one for the video encode and the other for the audio encode. So you have one core running at 100% doing the video encode and the second core running at 10% doing the audio encode, and 14 other cores sit idle.

So maybe you could open another 7 instances of Vegas and do 7 more encodes. It begs the point of whether that 16 core system might be better used as a network renderer for 4 other edit stations?

Rob Mack

I render mpg-2 and it is using all 4 cores of my 2 amd dual cores so I hope the new software will use all 16 if we get 4 amd quad cores. Lets hear from a beta tester out there. I would hate to wait untill the next NAB to get an answer.

Just wanted to keep this hot at the top of the from list. Still waiting for someone to see it that has the answer. Oh help me Vegas Divas. I know someone has the answer.

All these questions about how many cores are used during a render.. Mainconcept using only 2. Somebody seeing all four utilized...

It could be useful to divide this into 2 concepts: rendering and encoding. Encoding would be the conversion from uncompressed video into the desired output format. That's done by the codec. Rendering would be all the other stuff that happens to create the uncompressed video (which may exist only in memory) that gets sent to the codec.

Maybe two cores are used for the encode to MainConcept, but some other number of cores are used for the rendering operations (color correction, FXs, audio conversions, whatever).

until V64 actually exists, I wouldn't be pouring money into 64 bit hardware for it

Hard to find modern motherboards that are not 64-bit capable. Harder still to find reasons not to buy one that is compatible.

Peripheral hardware is the bigger variable. But if you can buy a 64-bit capable DVD burner for the same cost as one that isn't compatible, why not? In March 2006, Sony sales told me that they had no plans of making 64-bit drivers for their CD burners. Plextor had just come out with their first, and it was expensive. So I bought an Asus drive that is 64-bit compatible It was cheaper than the Plextor and about the same as the Sony burners. Same exercise for the other components. With a bit of research I future-proofed my machine without spending any more funds than I would have otherwise. Now it is 2007, and I imagine the 64-bit peripherals are a lot easier to find.

That said, I would still consider spending $11k for a 16-core machine to be excessive. Sure, you can run multiple apps, but you'd probably get better results using two machines with fewer cores, and a KVM switch. You could even use a terminal server (remote desktop) session to control the second machine. Better still, the multiple apps won't be competing for the same system bus and hard drive I/O access.

I think you're asking someone to break their NDA. Don't hold your breath.

Rob

I can only base my response on other 64 bit programs that are already out there. Basically, you get two advantages with 64 bits and multiple cores. First you can access more than 4 GB of RAM and second, you can improve rendering times, because the rendering software splits the file into pieces and each CPU renders a piece of the file in parallel. If the 64 bit version of Vegas 8 is like the other 3D modeling and video rendering software that I have now, it will probably support all the RAM that you have and as many cores as you have.

Keep in mind that the OS may limit the number of cores, since only a couple of "favors" of Vista ( like Vista Ultimate x64) support two physical processors (each with up to 4 cores, which is the max available at the moment). Also, other than rendering, I doubt that you will see much improvement in speed with Vegas x64.

You should also consider that doubling the number of cores doesn't halve the rendering time. It comes close to that, but other overhead in the system limits the efficiency.

I don't want to get into an AMD/Intel discussion, but Intel has proven quad core offerings, while AMD is still promising their version "soon". Just like with cars, it may not be the best idea to buy the first year of a new model. And that's coming from someone with a high end AMD system. But you're in no hurry, so I would just wait and see on both Vegas x64 and the kind of system specs that you need to run it.