[Detailed report] VST makes my timeline's performance extremely slow

ajizu-t wrote on 9/18/2025, 9:16 AM

Hello everyone, recently i noticed my timeline in vegas pro 23 build 278 was extremely slow.

so i tried every troubleshooting step that came into my mind like copying all of the timeline into another new project.

disabling GPU decode and GPU acceleration and also disabling thumbnails entirely
also getting rid of my effect and audio plugins, resetting my preferences
(check my signature for more info of what i have installed currently)

then i got down to the real issue which was VSTs,
VST2 or VST3 both have this problem regardless of which plugin vendor are installed!

i have a screen recording of this exact issue.

this nasty bug only happens when using vst plugins and i can confirm it happens even in vegas 22 build 250, otherwise native plugins that came with vegas like ExpressFX runs fine i even applied 24 of them combined and it still ran very well and does not have this issue.

i've seen people mention it in a post previously but didn't provide much explanation:
https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/audio-drag-delay--140960/

(it was about vegas 20) so this issue has been there for a very long time (i think), and its pretty serious.
and its definitely not about my audio file being broken. i tested with many other audio codecs and containers (detailed below) they all have this

i have KiloHearts Ultimate for my VST2 / 3 needs and the stock "eFX_" VST plugin that came with VEGAS Pro 16 and above

they both cause this issue.

here is how i did it for those who want to reproduce this bug.

take any audio file (i tested with .wav .mp3 .flac .m4a .ogg)
import into VEGAS Pro 23 with a new empty project (at any resolution or frame rate)
apply any vst effects (at least 2 effects together)
make a lot of cuts and copy pastes on this audio
vegas becomes very slow, undo's crawl to a stop, moving and dragging the audio is EXTREMELY slow. and high chance it will crash, as it crashed 3 times while testing + cutting is slow too!

while the audio is the real issue, being grouped to the video also causes it to be very slow to move clips around! so its very serious bug for huge timelines. (i usually work with 85 tracks total), but don't confuse this with your video codec causing this. you might be suffering from this issue all along!

and thats it 😅. i guess ill stick to my trusty vegas pro 16 for now and thanks again everyone

Comments

ajizu-t wrote on 9/21/2025, 5:59 PM

well, i have an update to my "trusty vegas pro 16", i happen to find this kind of related issue, but this is way wayy worse... it kills my project files if saved while in this disastrous bug. again everything here is screen recorded with annotations,

i honestly now understand why so many people don't use vegas for a professional setting. this isn't to bash on it. its just the truth,

i was there since the sony days back in 2012 and ever since,worked on many huge 6 to 14 minute videos with complex audio and effects and saying "huge" as in one of these projects that had 66 tracks of video and 24 tracks of audio,

the whole reason why i discovered all of these bugs is because my client's next project requires audio mixing and effects being applied, to make sure of this new 40 min to 1 hour long project would work with vegas i rigorously tested everything.

loading up 37 hour long of h264 clips from OBS and cameras, adding many effects (up to 300 in total), eveything worked fine, until i tested audio, it instantly went downhill from here

right now i am forced to move to adobe software starting today since thats what professionals use and is battle tested for big projects.

ill stick to vegas for very small fun stuff because i actually like it, but its just soo disappointing to see severe audio bugs when vegas started as a daw.

Have a lovely day everyone.

edit: i forgot so say this happens in

vegas pro 14 steam edition
vegas pro 16
vegas pro 23 (which also has the new slow timeline bug caused by VSTs)

zzzzzz9125 wrote on 9/21/2025, 8:13 PM

@ajizu-t Why do you add so many audio FX to audio events? A large amount of audio FX on events does indeed cause lag.

If these audio FX are exactly the same, please add them to Track FX.

ajizu-t wrote on 9/22/2025, 3:08 PM

@ajizu-t Why do you add so many audio FX to audio events? A large amount of audio FX on events does indeed cause lag.

If these audio FX are exactly the same, please add them to Track FX.

because its a basic feature that works in premiere and davinci? also yes it does change a lot and doing automation has too many lines and makes it impossible to edit with.

its also easier to and much much quicker to edit with than silly keyframes in audio.

Abdali wrote on 9/22/2025, 11:14 PM

I use a lot of VST3 plugins in my work, and I have found that VEGAS Pro becomes sluggish when I add too many third-party VST3 plugins directly to audio events on the timeline. It becomes noticeably slow to edit audio events, and projects that once opened in seconds can take minutes to load.

This problem seems specific to third-party plugins. Using VEGAS Pro's own native plugins doesn't cause the same level of performance degradation.

Based on my experience across versions:

In VEGAS Pro 20 and 21, it was very difficult to use VST3 plugins.

In VEGAS Pro 22, it works much better—even better than in VEGAS Pro 23.

That's why I still primarily use VEGAS Pro 22 for my work, as I do a lot of audio repair that relies on these third party VST3 plugins. I will completely switch to VEGAS Pro 23 when some of these issues are resolved in future updates.

The workaround I've found is to avoid adding VST3 plugins directly to audio events on the timeline. Instead, you should:

Complete all of your audio editing and placement first.

Create a new Audio Bus track.

Route all the audio tracks you want to apply effects to, to that new bus track.

Insert your third-party VST3 plugins onto the bus track.

This approach allows you to use fewer plugin instances and provides a much better editing experience, as VEGAS Pro 23 doesn't become sluggish. In my experience the third-party vst3 plugins should always be on the bus track, not on specific audio events within the timeline.

Third-party VST3 plugins are often the cause of performance issues, while VEGAS Pro's own plugins tend to work without much trouble.

If you need to apply a VST3 plugin to a specific audio event on the timeline, I recommend using one of VEGAS Pro's native options.

I hope this helps you. If you give it a try, let me know if you experience the same improvement.

ajizu-t wrote on 10/14/2025, 7:44 PM

@Abdali while this fix is really helpful for my case!. its still an issue. busses are also limited so this really needs to be looked into i explained everything yet i feel like i am yelling at a cloud. i've moved on now. hopefully one day this is done for.

also another bug is big projects take way longer to load in vegas 22/23 than 16/14. i don't know why its consistant yet nobody reported it.

in any case thank you very much❤️

Abdali wrote on 10/15/2025, 9:46 PM

@Abdali while this fix is really helpful for my case!. its still an issue. busses are also limited so this really needs to be looked into i explained everything yet i feel like i am yelling at a cloud. i've moved on now. hopefully one day this is done for.

also another bug is big projects take way longer to load in vegas 22/23 than 16/14. i don't know why its consistant yet nobody reported it.

in any case thank you very much❤️

Your Welcome & that's entirely understandable! I'm glad the bus-routing technique offered some temporary relief, but you are absolutely right: relying on workarounds for core VST3 functionality is not a permanent solution, hopefully, it gives the developers the exact information they need to fix that performance regression.

Regarding the slow project loading bug in VP 21/22/23, I can confirm that is a crucial piece of feedback I have experienced that same slowdown myself. It seems to be correlated with the number of VST3 plugins used in the project. It's often those quiet, consistent regressions that hurt the workflow the most. Bottlenecks like this needs to be addressed in future updates.

And definitely don't feel like you're yelling at a cloud. I am sure there are many genuine people in the community who are willing to help with reports like yours, and i hope VEGAS team will use this information to fix these kinds of persistent issues.