Thanks for your reply.
I find 334.89 but not 334.84 on the Nvidia website - is that the one you mean?
Donald

Yes, 334.89 is correct.

I just recently went from 296.10 to whatever the latest driver is and for the first time I get good results. There is no difference between the two drivers in performance. At least not enough to really notice.

I am using the 580 card now. My 560ti is packed away. I do not have enough power supply to use both.

Would both help? I do not have a third monitor for it and I have no place to put a third monitor. Would be nice for my layouts.

It does help to have both in the system. However, you must take care how you install them and make sure your system does actually support 2x PCIe x16; most systems only can do 2x PCIe x8. In your case, the 560 goes into the top or first slot and the 580 just below. In Vegas, set the 580 for GPU acceleration and Vegas will use both. You can the split the monitors, one for each card which actually helps reduce power usage. Usually, Nvidia cards don't use reduced power when two monitors are connected on one card.

I am trying to set my system correctly, and found this thread. For 2 years I have been frustratingly struggling with 2x GTX 680s, but dealing with them. After seeing this thread I realize I had a GTX 580 in a spare PC. Optimistically excited, I yanked out my 680s and threw the 580 in and retrograded my drivers on a clean installation to 334.89. Now things seem to be worse, and trying to remedy the situation.

First, I "had" a 3 monitor setup with the 680s, but this 580 seems to only be able to handle 2 at a time. Maybe adding a 680 in there somewhere might allow for 3 again, but unsure how to configure it correctly.

Second - and the biggest reason I am trying to get this as smoothly running as possible is my playback framerate. I will be adding more intense files very soon (I have the a7rii on order) and fully intend to use the 4k capability to it's maximum. Currently I combine XAVCS 50M from an a7s, XAVCS 100M 4k from an ax100, and AVCHD from some a6000s. Yes, you could say the 4k is overkill with that setup at the moment, but I will be moving swiftly to have all sources at 4k as revenue permits.

On their own, and if I put playback at half quality, I can get full 24p playback from all sources, even the 4k with no problem if they are effect free, or some light CC. My 680s did that as well. Other than the 4k footage, I really can play it all back at full quality preview with no issues, but I do not mind keeping it at half just so I can play it all.

Where I am running into my biggest issues are when I do multi camera edits. When I had the 680s installed and I was getting about 18-22 FPS playback with 4 sources including the 4k on the multiple screen. When I put in the 580, now I am lucky to get 5 fps with 4 sources showing that include the 4k footage.

I really want to launch my business into the 4k arena, but am starting to get worried. Maybe the 580 is not cut out for this at all? Once I start adding more 4k sources I am even more scared about the results.

Any help would be appreciated and thank you in advance!

Stick with the 680s, I think most of the hype surrounding the 580 is that Cuda acceleration works in main concept avc rendering. Playback uses opencl and the 580 isn't really all that strong in opencl as you've found. If you Google gpu acceleration for Sony Vegas you'll find 99.9% of result are people talking about rendering with no consideration of playback speed.

doubleman

First, please fill in your system specs, there is more to a good system then just the GPU. The 580 is a great card but only up to Full HD. I had two in my system and changed them out for two R9 290... day and night! Also the R9 290 can handle 3 monitors, the 580 only two.

Another thing you should do is to convert all footage to a Vegas friendly format. I would use Catalyst Browse and convert all to 4K XAVC-Intra. That will generate MXF files that play much better in Vegas and it supports 422.

Thank you for the quick response!

I filled out my system specs immediately after replying to this, maybe they are not showing yet?

I did try an R9 290 a couple months back for about a week due to a suggestion and saw no improvement anywhere so I returned it. Also, quite often the 3rd monitor on the display port would not re-activate if the computer monitors timed out and turned off. I never put this computer to sleep or hibernate, just have the monitors shut off.

Other that what I posted in my profile for system specs, my mobo is ASUS Rampage IV extreme.

CPU i7 3930 hex core 3.2 ghz. 32gb ram. Win 8.1 64 bit. Anything else?

Also, converting everything would lose quality wouldn't it? I hate messing with original files.

I do have a couple R9 270s laying around, as well as older GTX 285s and a GTX460 in case that helps.

Also after my initial response I did install one of the 680s. I put that on the top slot and the 580 on the 3rd slot. My main monitor and editing monitor are connected tot he 580s, and the 3rd monitor is connected to the 680. Still same results so far.

If you didn't see any improvement with the R9 290 then you have other issues. I have a 3930K too but I run mine at 4.3GHz and I can only recommend that. There is no way you can have good playback running the CPU at stock speeds. I switched back from Win 8.1 to Win 7 because my system is just faster this way.
Converting the AX100 files to XAVC Intra will cause any quality loss at all. I am not sure at what bit the other cameras record but the files coming out of Catalyst Browse are 200Mbps; try a few clips and see how ti goes.

Edit: Make sure MB does run in PCIe 3.0; it doesn't natively and may require a BIOS update.

Will try that. I have never seen catalyst browse, but will download. I will see where I can get with that, thanks.

mainConcept or Sony?

Sony

I'm running Pro 12 w/ a GeForce GTX 660, Driver Ver. 347.8 (See my system specs)

The system's been "relatively" stable. I say "relatively" because I get the odd freeze up and "Vegas has stopped working" message. Sometimes I can go 2-3 hours before getting the message or crash, but I KNOW it will pop up sooner or later, so I diligently save often.

Btw, I get about the same errors when GPU is on or off.

In general, I'm happy with the render performance I'm getting w/ the hex core and 660. I'm contemplating upgrading to a R9 290, but I just purchased the 660 so will be waiting for the prices to drop on the R9 before I pick one up.

You mess with video cards a lot, it might be problematic for Vegas to choose right GPU for effects/playback acceleration. Please check Vegas options every time your install video driver/card, there is a combobox for GPU acceleration that lists available acceleration options.

As for raw speed of playback, give easy proxy files generation a try (that's new for Vegas 13). I don't think you really need full resolution 4k for every step of editing.

I let catalyst do it's thing and tested some clips this morning. Still not good. I also tried making a "worst case" scenario creating a 4 track multi edit off of the ax100, and am getting a little nervous. Even bringing it down to quarter quality in the multi edit mode, I was getting 5 fps. 1 fps at full. Now I know I don't need to do 4x 4k tracks today, but am hoping by the end of the year.

UPDATE: I tried the "create video proxy" option in VP12 this morning (I have never used it), and let it do it's thing. Not only did it process the files much faster than the transcoding in catalyst with much smaller files, if I do half preview quality I seem to get full 24p if I set Vegas to use the GTX 680. About 22p if I use the 580. So on that end I do see some improvement with the 680, and I can deal with editing 4k video at half quality - especially since I am editing on 1080p monitors (I have a 4k monitor that I have had issues with editing on but that is for an entirely new thread). I am always striving to increase my potential, so if there was any way to get max FPS with full quality preview in the future, I am all ears!

MORE SYSTEM INFO: This has been an expensive week for me trying to improve my PC for better performance.

I completely replaced all my RAM. When I built this PC about 2.5 years ago it had 64GB RAM. About a year into it, a few sticks started to go bad. I just started yanking sticks until MEMtest stopped giving me errors and I ended up at 32GB. I still have had minor issues since then, so I decided to replace 32GB this week just to make sure nothing was bad. Not sure if I will ever fill it to 64 again with current prices.

I replaced my system Intel 250GB SSD with a new 500GB SSD. Along with that my system was completely installed from scratch. Win 8.1, Sony VP12 and VP11, Adobe CS6 (I only use photoshop, cant stand premiere), DVD Architect, Microsoft Office 2010, Audacity, and Acronis True image are all the software I have installed right now.

My project file drive I am now using 2x1TB SSD striped (2 TB total) and these are also brand new this week. So, about the only thing left from the original PC is the Mobo and CPU.

I am a horrible overclocker and have never had much success. My RAM does not even run close to it's posted speed.

I now have no mechanical drives in the PC.

Thank you all for joining in this discussion so far! I do plan on upgrading Vegas Pro, but am holding out for 14 if possible. 13 just seems to be on the stale side of releases now.

doublehamm

Like you I run a 3930K but with an on old Intel DX79SR board. Overclocking on your board is very simple, just set the CPU multiplier and the board will do the rest. As from RAM speed, the 3930 doesn't like anything more then 1600MHz, which is what I have set mine at. What you certainly need is watercooling, even a H80i or H100i would do. Aircooling the 3930K will leave you at stock speeds which are just not enough for 4K editing. 64GB or 32GB doesn't make any difference when it comes to Vegas; mine was fine at 16GB even with 4K editing. Important is that you buy matched memory modules suitable for dual channel and quad channel.

My system runs really great at the moment and I will skip the Haswell generation of CPUs. The R9 290x is currently the best you can get in terms of playback speed period. To take full advantage of such a card you have to make sure your MB does run it in PCIe 3.0 mode.

Does your CPU run on all "cylinders"? My board would run the COU at difference speeds for each core when left in default mode. Is your turbo mode enabled? The 3930K should reach 3.8GHz by default, which is as much as it can take on air cooled. Is your power supply sufficient?

There are many things that can be wrong with a system aside from the GPU.

Edit:
4x 4K-multicam track with XAVC-Intra MXF files will get me around 20fps. The preview quality doesn't make a difference. I believe that at this point I am hitting the max transfer rate my RAID-0 SSDs can deliver; might be the same for you.
2x 4K-multicam I can still get 29.97fps.

My CPU is cooled with a corsair water cooled I believe it is an h80i, but something very similar if not.

RAM I think I finally have running at 1333. I was never able to get above 1033 before. Rated for 1833.

Any time I try bumping a value in the bios, and the computer restarts, it gives me the error: "overclocking failed", and sends me back to the bios to fix things.

I might bite the bullet and try an R9 290 again if it gets too ugly (these proxies are giving me some hope for now), but really do not want to be disappointed and return another product again to Microcenter. I think they roll their eyes when they see me exit off the freeway headed tot he store.

Don't buy the R9 290 yet! You still have gremlins in your system!

I am sure the MB has a bios default setting. I would start with a clean BIOS setup by resetting it to its defaults. Make sure you have the latest BIOS for the MB, if not, PCIe 3.0 may not work.

The must run at 1600MHz or you loose a lot of performance! Sell off the stick you have on eBay and buy dual or quad channel certified RAM; I use GSkill. Your RAM can very well be preventing the system to OC.

The H80i should be sufficient to run the 3930K between 4.1 and 4.3GHz.

Posted by: OldSmoke, Date: 6/30/2015 5:35:31 AM
What you certainly need is watercooling, even a H80i or H100i would do. Aircooling the 3930K will leave you at stock speeds which are just not enough for 4K editing.
If you're overclocking I'd go w/ the H100i, dual fan. I was overclocking with an H80i single fan water cooler and got over temp shutdown with the H80i. The intake and output hoses were both very warm, almost the same temp to the touch. I'm back to normal clocking and everything is running fine.

I use "Hardware Info 64bit" to monitor the CPU temp and load as well as both GPUs temp and load.

Byron might be right, the H80i may not be enough to go all the way. I am had a H100 and it was sufficient for 4.3GHz OC. I actually got it up to 4.5GHz but with occasional BSD so I backed it up to 4.3GHz and that is what I am running for more then 18 month now.

Well, I tried OC through the ASUS AI suite (never done it that way). I set it for 4.3GHz as recommended by the ASUS software. The computer restarted, and it appeared to be a success. After about 5 minutes, my computer completely froze up. I restarted it and it restarted fine and I went to lower the recommended setting. Before I was able to get into the software to tweak it the system froze again. I wanted to restart it and go immediately into the bios to fix this, but now the computer will not even start up. I mean the fans go but nothing on the displays.

I have tried changing out the GPUs

I unplugged the computer for a while, and removed all power supply cables. I let it sit for about 10 minuted but the LED on the power lamp on the motherboard was still it up?

I removed the battery and kept it out for 5 minutes hoping to reset the cmos.

My computer is still not responsive when I start up. Internally it sounds like everything is working fine, but display is still blank.

Any suggestions now?

The only thing I have connected to my computer now is the keyboard and mouse.

I am about ready to head out to Microcenter and finish up putting together the new computer. I already bought half of one this week....

If I cannot get this to start up, and I decide on a new MOBO and CPU, what would you suggest? I probably don't need a massive gaming motherboard I know that, I just want something rock solid with plenty of expansion space inside as well as plenty of USB 3.0 ports.
I have an intensity pro 4k inside, and a firewire B card inside, although I don't think I need that anymore. I used it for a CF card reader and all my CF cameras were sold off this month to help balance the cost of the a7Rii.