Crashing when rendering on MainConcept MPEG-2

w-d wrote on 7/21/2021, 6:06 PM

Hi, at the beginning of July, I was able to render a project (3.9 GB rendered) using MainConcept MPEG-2 (which I use in DVD Architect).

If I render the exact same project now, it either hangs at 90% or crashes partway through (around 2.1 GB rendered). The whole Vegas window just disappears when it crashes.

I looked at the logs in \AppData\Local\Vegas Pro\18.0 but see no log files modified within the past 10 minutes of the crash.

Is there another location with logs which will give me some hints? The whole Vegas window just disappears and there are no error messages at all.

Thanks!

Comments

Musicvid wrote on 7/21/2021, 6:09 PM

What build number of Vegas Pro 18 are you using?

Are you monitoring your core temperatures while rendering?

w-d wrote on 7/21/2021, 7:38 PM

Hi @Musicvid, thanks for your reply. It is build 527. I don't know how to monitor the core temp, but I think the core temp is OK since it's not too hot when I put my hand over the PC (it is liquid cooled) and I was able to render the same file to an avc to burn a Blu-Ray with DVD Architect without crashing just now. It is just the MainConcept MPEG-2 which is giving problems.

Are there any other log file locations apart from  \AppData\Local\Vegas Pro\18.0? Thanks!

Musicvid wrote on 7/21/2021, 9:38 PM

I just completed a one hour render to Mainconcept MPEG-2, using Vegas Pro 18 b527.

I was unable to duplicate your behavior, and the render completed without issue.

Sudden shutdowns are often triggered by system heat, so I suggest getting a utility, such as Coretemp or just using Windows Task Manager.

Another possibility: have you altered one of the stock render templates from its defaults?

w-d wrote on 7/21/2021, 10:28 PM

Thanks a lot for trying it out on the same build, @Musicvid. That's really helpful.

The only change I made to the template from default settings was changing the render quality to best, and then I saved it under a different name. (But I had used this exact same template on July 2, with quality set to best, and the same file rendered properly.)

Which MainConcept MPEG-2 template worked for you? I will try the same one that is working for you.

Thanks again!

RogerS wrote on 7/21/2021, 10:32 PM

HWInfo is a tool that can monitor temps. https://www.hwinfo.com/download/
My CPU and GPU were fine but VRMs overheated and caused corrupted renders. Not saying that's the case here though.

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 7/22/2021, 3:11 PM

@w-d The one I use to monitor core temps is CoreTemp from alcpu.com. More likely a Vegas setting that might have been changed by an update. Take a look at "Legacy" under deprecated features... I keep that unchecked. There's also a legacy Internal setting that affects MainConcept encoding, it's set to FALSE on my machine. Another thing that might influence render hanging is the target drive for the render... sending it to a different physical disk sometimes helps.

w-d wrote on 7/22/2021, 7:03 PM

Thanks for everyone's suggestions about the core temp!

I tried again today, and this time I got a dialog box and the preview window is all red.

The dialog box:

"An error occurred while creating the media file test.mpg.

The system is low on memory. You may be able to reduce memory usage by closing other applications."

In the Vegas render dialog, the memory usage is 1.91 GB, disk usage is 1.77%, CPU usage is 33%.

Windows Task Manager shows only 5% of memory used. The system has 128 GB total RAM and only Vegas is open.

I will try the Legacy feature that @Howard-Vigorita suggested and see if that improves the rendering.

w-d wrote on 7/22/2021, 7:37 PM

I couldn't find the Legacy feature that @Howard-Vigorita mentioned, but when I Googled, there seems to be an "Allow legacy GPU rendering" checkbox that I can't find in my preferences.

Based on those useful hints, I got it to render by turning off "GPU acceleration of video processing" in the Video tab of the Preferences dialog. That's probably not a great solution, but at least I can make the deliverable.

Thanks again, everyone!

RogerS wrote on 7/22/2021, 8:19 PM

The low memory error usually refers to GPU in my experience so I would do the turn off GPU acceleration in the video tab to get it to work. If there are Fx that need the GPU it will slow things down somewhat but... it will render.

I don't see which GPU you are using but if you go to help/driver update you can attempt to update whichever GPU(s) you have and see if it lets you complete a render with GPU acceleration enabled.

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 7/23/2021, 4:15 PM

@w-d The 1st Legacy option is in Options, Preferences, Deprecated Features:

The 2nd Legacy option is in Options (Holding down shift key), Internal, then Type "MainConcept" at the bottom to filter off all the other settings there:

The screen shots are my settings (which should be default) and these work best for me. I only mention them because I recall an update once upon a time that changed them, degrading performance, and I had to manually change them back to fix things.

w-d wrote on 7/25/2021, 6:15 PM

Thanks, @Howard-Vigorita. I checked and have the same settings as you in both of those spots.

And thanks, @RogerS. Updating the NVidia video driver to the latest Studio version fixed it even when I turn the GPU acceleration back on :)

RogerS wrote on 7/25/2021, 7:56 PM

That's great news!