Best computer config for rendering speed

looney2ns wrote on 8/2/2010, 9:35 PM

VMSHD Platinum 10 here.
Computer has intel i7-930 processor.
6 gigs of tri channel memory.
Ati Radeon HD 4500 vid card.
SATA 3 640GB HD partitioned to 4 drives.

At any given time during rendering, the processor only shows 17-18% useage.

Any suggestions to help get the best rendering speeds?
Thanks.

Comments

Ken42 wrote on 8/5/2010, 10:09 AM

Hi. I've just rendered some SD footage to standard DVD on a Quad Core Q8200, 2.33 Ghz and 3Gig of memory with a video card. Media on one physical drive, project on another.

Used around 80% of processor.

I'll try some HD footage later and let you know.

Ken42 wrote on 8/5/2010, 10:21 AM

But now . . . still on SD footage, I've watched it go up to 100% and is now settled at around 30%. Using 1.6GB of memory.

CPU usage seems to be lower when rendering clips that I've changed in some way. Slow but less processor intensive.

musicvid10 wrote on 8/5/2010, 10:38 AM

All that less than 100% utilization during render means is that the CPU is not the system bottleneck.

looney2ns wrote on 8/12/2010, 1:09 PM

So if I had seperate HD and rendered to that drive, could that possibly speed up rendering?
Thanks.

ritsmer wrote on 8/12/2010, 1:24 PM

Here http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=722194&Replies=46 is an interesting discussion about which settings etc. can affect the CPU usage and the rendering speed.

Markk655 wrote on 8/12/2010, 5:55 PM

Ritsmer,

Would you be interested in converting the .veg rendertest for use with VMS and perhaps starting a new thread???

KenJ62 wrote on 8/12/2010, 6:44 PM

Your partitioned drive is likely the bottleneck in your configuration. Video editing works better with two real drives, chosen for throughput. I would add a fast HDD and remove the partitions from your primary drive.

ritsmer wrote on 8/12/2010, 11:11 PM

Mark: The Rendertest project is John Clines child - so pls.send him a mail (see his specs) and ask directly.

Markk655 wrote on 8/13/2010, 5:40 AM

Will do.

looney2ns wrote on 8/13/2010, 11:44 AM

Just curious, will removing the partitions on the primary help with speed?
Thank you for the replys.

ritsmer wrote on 8/13/2010, 12:47 PM

Yes and no.
Depends how much you use the physical primary HDD totally.

Mike M. wrote on 8/13/2010, 9:44 PM

SATA SSD for the OS and Vegas
SATA HD1 for the files/data/video
SATA HD2 for the paging/virtual memory

If partition, only on HD1

ritsmer wrote on 8/14/2010, 12:51 AM

mixer440: Right - but storage for the input clips and storage for the rendered output should be on 2 different HDD's
- or at least 2 different partitions (as Windows assigns an input/output buffer to each logical partition.)

When I render here I see file transfer speeds in- and out that are pretty near the HDD's theoretical limits - so this could be a bottleneck if the CPU(s) are fast enough (have a 2 x quad Xeon machine)