Hmmm "There is no software that knows how to use it yet"...I mutter...while ripping the damn thing out and putting the old RX580 back in again...

The fact that is uses the exact same driver as the previous generation is probably where the answer lies...if you go to download the latest driver for RX5 series or 5700 series - you get the same file.

Magix support finally responded to my question sent 3 days ago:

"Good day, I have just upgraded my computer from the AMD RX580 GPU to the AMD
5700XT and suddenly am no longer able to render using the AMD VCE Hardware render
encoder. Is this a known problem?
Details: “An error occurred while creating the media file filename.mp4. The reason
for the error could not be determined.”
Magix Pro v15 build 416 or Magix Pro v16 build 424
AMD Radeon 5700 XT with drivers: Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.7.5 and also tried
19.7.4
Windows 10 pro 1809 without antivirus software or any other applications –
dedicated computer. Intel Core i7-8700K CPU"

Their response: "Hello, Thank you for your message.
Which driver version is installed to the system for the new card?
Which VCE spec is the card running?

So one can deduce they either did not read my email or read it and are stalling for time as they work with AMD on the real drivers...

AMD have not responded at all, just the robot acceptance of the ticket

If you've been through many driver versions over the years, it sometimes pays to clean the slate by uninstalling your current video driver first. Then clean out any leftover remnants of past drivers by removing all the AMD and ATI directories in c:\Program Files, C:\ProgramData, and C:\users\ <user name>\AppData\local. Followed by a reboot and then a fresh install of the current driver. There's a utility from AMD that does all that but I think you need to be in safe mode to run it:

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-601

The one I like better is this one from Guru3D, which also does a registry scrub down... but I only use it myself if my manual directory removals do not do the trick:

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

Another possibility, if all else fails, is switching the video bios. AMD cards usually come with 2 different bios's on them. And a little switch, typically accessible from the top, looking down near the front of the card... if it's in the "1" position try toggling it to "2" while the power's off. Or vice versa.

Btw, I consider the forums at Guru3D my go to place for video board issues. They also cover Nvidia as well. Good luck and hope you work it out and post some benchmarks because that sounds like it might be a killer card if it works in Vegas.

Howard-Vigorita I am testing a bunch of NLE's with different GPU's and as a standard approach I start each test with a fresh Windows 10 Pro, cloned from a service-packed clean master with nothing else installed. No antivirus, no video drivers. Then I install the latest drivers from the respective vendors website. With the 5700 I tried the latest (Released 31 July) and the previous driver (Released 29 July) - performing a clean install of each. I did not try any of the previous versions but note that they are coming out fast+furious just days apart so I suspect they know things are not working in the wild. I suspect when and if they fix this, you are right, it will be an awesome GPU for Vegas

If it is any consolation, Resolve will not even start with this card installed...Video Pro X does not see it at all and neither does Premier.

The guy who's video I posted a segment from did another video on using 5700 with premiere and Davinci. The video is weeks old and he was able to use them with whatever drivers were about then. I recall there were some bugs but the software started & was mostly usable (from memory)

Correct - it does start with Resolve 16 Beta but there is no advantage to performance over my old RX580 or a GTX1070. For premier i finally managed to open (and Media Encoder works) it, but it does not "see" the card and uses only CPU. Resolve 15 absolutely refuses to open. I will watch his video to see what he has done, thanks for the tip!

One HUGE surprise is HitfilmPro13 where it halved my render times over iGPU and easily beat both RX580 and the GTX1070. In fact that is the only editor I have tried that takes any advantage from it, despite it only using 20% GPU !

The RX480 with the exact driver (latest) uses 40% GPU but is much slower than the 5700XT. Who would have thought...

Overall however it is nowhere near Vegas or Premier or Resolve with much less hardware

bob-h found and watched the video you refer to but he compares NVIDIA to AMD, not AMD to AMD which I am doing. I see no difference in performance between my RX580 and the new 5700XT on Resolve 16b7 or Premier. And it does not work at all for Resolve 15 or the other editors I tested including Vegas 15 and 16. So I believe Premier and Resolve are not exploiting the new cards potential but work. And The likes of Vegas simply do not understand the card at all. Am curious to see if Vegas 17 DOES see it...not long to go now :)

Vegas 17 does not work either... it still fails when going to render a clip: "An error occurred while creating the media file x. The reason for the error could not be determined."

Just like with 15 and 16 this happens immediately on clicking "Render"

Neither AMD nor Magix has responded further to my support requests.

Magix is probably waiting on AMD, who is probably lagging behind.

Magix is probably waiting on AMD, who is probably lagging behind.

@fr0sty I suspect you are right. However some editors do at least see it as a Polaris though so you can carry it along in crippled form while they catch up (Premier/Resolve)

In fact on further reading, AMD claim NAVI will work "as" POLARIS for those applications that still do not have NAVI optimisation. And this is born out by my testing on Premier and Resolve - they turn in near-identical render times between the RX580 and the 5700XT and work with them no fuss. So for some reason Vegas is not seeing their backwards-compatible feature-set

Sorry to hear about the 5700XT problems. I'm planning a new Ryzen build at the end of the year. 3900X and 5700XT (looking for AIB) is what the build will be. I figure by then, motherboard BIOS and drivers should all be figured out.
In the mean time, the RX480 8GB and 1700X will have to do.

Glad that someone here is blazing the new trail. I was wondering about 5000 series support in VP.

Reyfox by the end of the year AMD will have released a slew of additional Graphics products with higher-end offerings geared at content creators - NAVI equivalents to the Vega 56/64 and vii - those will be the one's to watch. But the 5700XT will be the price-killer just like the RX580 is now unbelievable value at under $200

To put it into perspective for Vegas 16 my Core i7 renders a given 4K clip with a LUT applied in 22 minutes and 40 seconds. When I render the same clip with the built in Intel QSV encoder that drops to 11 minutes and 9 seconds. But when I use the AMD VCE encoder using the RX580 I just bought for $179 it produces a beautiful render in just 4 minutes and 41 seconds. The NVIDIA GTX 1070 ti costing $499 will render that same clip in 4 minutes and 23 Seconds.

AMD @ $179 = 4:41

NVIDIA @ $499=4:23

Hmm my update on Vegas 17 vanished and was replaced by my previous comments above...WT...?

I have tested Vegas 15 and 16 and 17 on my reference clip mentioned above. It is apparent that there is almost no difference in render times between Vegas 15 and 16 across the board with respect to rendering on any combination of my Core i7-8700K and an AMD or NVIDIA or iGPU

However they have been rather busy it seems, on Vega 17 which is now vastly superior (15 and 16 and 17):

For CPU only renders I get 22:16 and 22:40 and 14:57

For iGPU renders I get 11:46 and 11:09 and 4:52 (amazing improvement - no add-in GPU!!!) 15 and 16 used only about 20% of my iGPU but now uses 60%

For AMD renders I was not expecting an improvement as the GPU was already maxed out in 15 and 16 at 100% so now I get 4:42 and 4:41 and 4:40 showing the RX580 is indeed a bottleneck (100% across all three). More than likely one would see an improvement on the Vega cards. Will try to get my hands on one.

NVIDIA will be the interesting result as it was yielding 4:17 and 4:23 with only 10 to 20% CPU usage so plenty headroom for improvement there. Unfortunately I returned the borrowed GTX but will get it back tomorrow to see if they have optimised NVENC further.

Thanks for your reply. One of the reasons I like Vegas is because it uses my tired old RX480 at 100% speeding up rendering. And since I plan on continuing with AMD graphics, I was saddened by your report of it not working with AMD's latest. AMD is suppose to have improved their encode/decode in the new cards.

I hope this will be remedied in a future patch.

Curious as to Vega 56 results too.

Magix finally responded again with an equally inane reply, further to their previous time-waster last week:

"Hello. Thank you for your message. The 5700 series is based on tech from 2009.  The VCE standard first appeared in 2012.  VCE 3 cards were released on 2015"

And that is it...so AMD has pulled the wool over our eyes and is flogging us a card based on 10-year old technology with no VCE acceleration. Apparently.

OK I am prone to sarcasm from time to time and Magix has the unique ability to really bring it out of me. SO they think I have an old Radeon HD 5000 series card. And fair enough. But the thing is, if they bothered reading my initial request carefully THE FIRST TIME AROUND, they would not have asked me what driver version I was using (clearly mentioned) which wasted one week. And they would not be pointing out that I am using a 10-year old card (clearly mentioned it is an AMD 5700 XT RELEASED ON THE 7th OF JULY THIS YEAR).

So in another week or so they will read my reply pointing out the obvious (again) and ask me what colour tie I am wearing when I try to render the file. I don't now why I bother in all honesty

Apparently there are some issues that prevent AMD's AVC and HEVC decoder from working in Vegas currently, and it could be something similar is happening with your card's encoders as well. This is probably less a Magix issue and more an AMD one, and that has been the case with more than one software vendor for me lately, since I got my Radeon 7. Neat Video only very recently started working for my Radeon 7, for instance, and their developers told me it was an issue with AMD's drivers that caused the incompatibility.

@fr0sty I am sure you are right. However I feel that Magix is stalling for time on their answer. NAVI has replaced VCE with "VCN" or Video Core Next - a dedicated Render ASIC. BUT the thing is, AMD claims that VCN includes backwards compatibility for VCE requests for legacy apps. And this is born out with my testing where Premier and Resolve both accept the new card and produce acceptable 4K H264 VCE renders equaling the previous generation of cards. So yes they too do not "see" the more powerful feature set of NAVI yet. But they do "see" the VCE compatibility. Vegas on the other hand does not. This means a Vegas Pro buyer cannot avail of the latest AMD GPU and grow into it as the drivers and applications are matured.