Thanks Greg, but as a Vegas user from version 8 up, I've been through those settings and workarounds multiple times, with no real improvement. As I said, on my PC ( rooughly same specs as you, with a radeon 290 ), preview degrades pretty quickly, but preview with the same project / processing demands in Edius8 run just fine and smooth.

I'll see with the trial version of V14.

Preview in Vegas is still the same. Sometimes it goes smoothly, other times the video tearing. And you not know why. Edius is really better No compromises and video is still smooth. I recommend to stay with Edius than Magix has improved preview with new GPU. Then it will be the best Vegas.

OK I just downloaded the trial and threw my heaviest V13 project at it.

35 min documentary with 2 different simultanous language subtitles ( done in Vegas titles and text ), occasional title blend in over semi transparent color background, all clips have sharpen, contrast and NB Colorfast grading FX running in realtime, 3 audio tracks, multi scroll NB titler 4 pro title between sections.

Sadly, I'm not impressed. Pierre, it's just as you describe - random smoothness and then again fails without any apparent logical reason, same as always. Even on preview / full setting, same stuttering and even occasionally freezing ( which V13 doesn't do ) preview issues, drops to 16 fps when titles come in, button layout worsened, NB titler pro 4 not working, no visible improvements for me. Not to be the killjoy here, but I'm honestly not sure wether to remain optiomistic about the future of Vegas.

Unless it gets severely recoded and modernised in the future, I don't see much sense in upgrading right now.

Vegas must have a clean install of Windows. If not, then sometimes it plays strange. In the preview window, I have a quality set Previews (auto or half), and although I have the full number of frames at 25 fps, but the image sometimes tearing. I tried Edius and video is amazingly smooth. Beautifully it looks. I believe that Magix can and will be as good and reliable as Edius or Premiere. It just takes time.

If we have similar specs I wonder why we are getting different results. Maybe our results aren't that different and you're just throwing heavier effects at it. I stick primarily to Vegas's internal filters with the occassional Boris FX. Even with 2-3 color corrections and curves I still get good play back. If I throw too much at it a can bog it down if I try. Been with Vegas since version 4. Only recently tried Davinci Resolve. I like it for some things but not as a full time editor. I have not tried Edius or Premiere in a long time.

Of course, we all want fast & responsive, and really there is no limit to that demand - 4k, 6k, 8k....multiple effects, masks, composites,  streams...it will keep growing.   So for me, the discussion has to include "apples to apples" comparision to the alternatives.  I certainly didn't find PLAYBACK performance faster on Premiere or Resolve (both are quite a bit slower for 4k files from GH4).  Also, if I remember correctly, EDIUS creates its own internal proxies, so to compare fairly you would need to compare its performance  to Vegas' performance when using a proxy workflow.

I don't know about Edius, but with Resolve I can play back my XAVC-I 500 Mbps UHD/DCI 4K@50Hz footage absolutely smoothly with full quality and fps, even after multiple grading/cc-ing actions/nodes. And no wonder: my GTX 1080 gets loaded up to 99%, as does my 5969X CPU! Only after applying NR or some heavy OFX do I ever need to cache... In Vegas Pro 14, even a plain clip barely reaches 25 fps in Best/Full (which is strange in VP14, as in VP 13 I was able to play such clips back at full speed/quality even with 32 float projects); my GTX 1080 is only loaded at some 15%. Go figure...

Piotr

Piotr, your post demonstrates clearly how each use case varies - by usage, hardware, etc.  In your case the  GTX1080 is a real advantage, in my case, my much cheaper r290 does very little for Resolve, but really helps Vegas.    Also, are you comparing fairly?  If I remember correctly, Resolve also creates "optimized" media (ie proxy) and does not playback "best/full" (or whatever the Resolve equivalent is) once you apply nodes. Also, Resolve does not allow full screen secondary window, so you must be playing back through some other peice of hardware like decklink / intensity 4k to see your full screen output.  Yes?

I think it was a fair comparison - I clearly stated when I need to cache in Resolve. As to the monitoring, I use my Decklink 12G in both Resolve and Vegas Pro 14 - so really, apples to apples :)

Piotr

My understanding is that XAVC-I is an intraframe codec, and hence far less cpu intensive than a long gop codec like XAVC-S. That could explain why you don't see a performance hit with XAVC-I content wheras someone on the same hardware would see a performance hit if their camera recorded in XAVC-S.

Yeah - but I thought we were comparing NLEs, not codecs?

Piotr

My understanding is that XAVC-I is an intraframe codec, and hence far less cpu intensive than a long gop codec like XAVC-S. That could explain why you don't see a performance hit with XAVC-I content wheras someone on the same hardware would see a performance hit if their camera recorded in XAVC-S.

I also see that for XAVC-I with UHD resolution we have a playback issue in Vegas at the moment. That was the same for VP13 but also for VP14. As said, UHD 25p footage is fine, but with UHD 50p footage it is hard to come up to 50 fps in the preview. I see that also with my 8core processor, overclocking and a R9 390X with a simple clip (where the R9 390X will not help a lot anyway).

I think Vegas has a bug when editing project with multiple video tracks. If the top one completely blank the above ones, playback stutters, but if i mute that bottom tracks, framerate will be full. I don't use any special compositing mode, so in this case why Vegas calculate with bottom tracks at all?

Of course, we all want fast & responsive, and really there is no limit to that demand - 4k, 6k, 8k....multiple effects, masks, composites,  streams...it will keep growing.   So for me, the discussion has to include "apples to apples" comparision to the alternatives.  I certainly didn't find PLAYBACK performance faster on Premiere or Resolve (both are quite a bit slower for 4k files from GH4).  Also, if I remember correctly, EDIUS creates its own internal proxies, so to compare fairly you would need to compare its performance  to Vegas' performance when using a proxy workflow.

Agree 100%

I think Vegas has a bug when editing project with multiple video tracks. If the top one completely blank the above ones, playback stutters, but if i mute that bottom tracks, framerate will be full. I don't use any special compositing mode, so in this case why Vegas calculate with bottom tracks at all?

Because the bottom tracks are there and are not empty. So Vegas cannot know in advance that you will blank the other tracks completly simply by events that are in the top tracks. It must also await the possiblity that you will do some kind of blending or compositing - and that is why it has to take those events into account too.

Compard with Vegas, there are some tools that show a better playback performance even for XAVC UHD 50p. Right, Edius or Resolve or even the Catalyst Edit are able to playback such files with 50fps. That is also something that I have seen on my system many times. Sorry to say so.

If i were a Vegas developer :) i make a quick calculation by every frame, checking if the topmost track blocks what are below or not :)

Yeah - but I thought we were comparing NLEs, not codecs?

Piotr

Sure, but I figured Resolve was fast for you because you are using XAVC-I, whereas the Vegas users didn't specify their codec so I assumed it would be XAVC-S as that's the more common one found in consumer and prosumer level of camera gear. Hence the speed difference between Resolve and Vegas in this particular case.

I think it was a fair comparison - I clearly stated when I need to cache in Resolve. As to the monitoring, I use my Decklink 12G in both Resolve and Vegas Pro 14 - so really, apples to apples :)

Piotr

Apples to pineapples maybe!    😀

Just to get a little perspective,  your configuration includes a $1000 cpu,  a $2000 decklink, and lets call it 2 x $700 GPU  cards  (I read your post over in the Resolve forum about adding another gpu).   So near enough $4,500 before all the hard drive arrays and such.   Yes, I think we can safely assume Resolve will win that matchup for the forseeable future.

I admire Blackagic's approach to Resolve  - they publish a very detailed configuration guide and have techniques for scaling the processing in ways that no other "normal" NLE can acheive (add on GPU extension boxes, etc.) One day maybe Vegas will also do this. Let's hope!

At the other end of the spectrum, I have to edit using a 5 year old  i7 cpu with a $300 AMD GPU.  I can't get Resolve to perform well with this setup, but I can get Vegas to do the job in a reasonable fashion.

Anyway, there are so many variables in play that I think it is very hard to declare a clear winner in all cases.

Haha, you caught me (how do you know my real name? :)).... Anway - apart perhaps from the M.2 cache drive - if VP was coded in a better way, it could take full advantage of all this hardware just the way Resolve does - don't you agree? Cheers

Piotr

Megabit isn't exactly a common "handle".  Yes, I do agree.

"Scalable"  rather than proprietary would be perfect, so those with the greater need (and wallet) can add expensive hardware, while others with a more modest budget could add cheaper hardware.

If i were a Vegas developer :) i make a quick calculation by every frame, checking if the topmost track blocks what are below or not :)

For sure that is done - and that requires calculation capacity.

Sorry for your troubles video777, but your suggestion makes no more logical sense than me saying "everything is fine here so no bugs exist anywhere."    Software can be frustrating.