Thank you for your help Walter-i. I updated my graphics card driver through Vegas as you showed and my updates came through, it recognized all my games and photoshop and even VLC player but it did not recognize Vegas. I tried to manually add Vegas and the GeForce app still can't see Vegas. So I've stepped over to B; and C; here is some info:

B1 - Vegas 18.0 Build 527
B2 - Windows 10, 64bit, 20H2 - OSbuild 19042.1348
B3 - GoPro 7black, 7Silver, 8black, Nikon D7200, Sony a7II, Sony PXW-Z90
B4 - Mostly YouTube 1080p renders (but I haven't rendered anything due to this issue)
B5 - On multi camera layering, one camera track has been flipped 90degrees on track 1:

so every time I try to manipulate this track the program will freeze for minutes at a time.

Like I had stated before, this was never an issue when using Sony Vegas 12.

Thank you again for your assistance with this issue.

Can you share a screenshot of help/driver update? A red screen shows a failure related to the GPU. As Walter stated, VP 12 didn't use the GPU much so you wouldn't have seen this problem then.

Hiya RogerS, thank you also for helping. What ever happened to Plug and Play huh?

As requested:

Hi Python, I checked online and Driver Version: 472.47 - Release Date: Wed Nov 10, 2021 is the latest so that's fine.

You can add apps in Windows "graphics settings", but that's to assign it between GPUs. It doesn't seem like your CPU has its own iGPU so that probably won't help. Just for clarity, what is your CPU?

Your Sony files are probably fine. GoPro has caused problems with Vegas in the past. Which settings are you using with your GoPros. HEVC? Can you share MediaInfo for frequently used GoPro files?

Can you share a screenshot of preferences, file i/o as well?

If your files are HEVC you can try the legacy HEVC decoder or uncheck it and see if it helps. If they are AVC (and not 10-bit) you can also try legacy or disabling the NVIDIA NVDEC decoder and see if it helps with stability. Not using GPU decoding will likely hurt playback performance, though, so it's not ideal.

Other things to do would be to transcode the GoPro footage to regular AVC using a tool like Handbrake (try the "production" presets and match your resolution and framerate. Swap out the media and see if stability improves with the NVDEC decoder on.

I appreciate the attention you are giving to help me Roger... you are a legend:

My CPU is an i5-7400CPU @ 3.00GHz
Installed RAM 40GB (just in case you wanted to know)

here's the screengrab of my file I/O

Call me old fashioned, but I'm kinda used to stuff working after you buy it. This all seems like a lot of trouble. Shouldn't I just go back to 12 that worked just fine?

Call me old fashioned, but I'm kinda used to stuff working after you buy it. This all seems like a lot of trouble.

That's the Vegas anomaly , Easiest editor to use, intuitive mostly, fast to edit, but it's so very broken at this point when it comes to different file types, like you say it should just work.

It looks like the problem gopro file is AVC given the file name I can see on track1 starting with GH0, that should mean vegas is trying to use your Nvidia decoder to play the file, you can try ticking legacy AVC decoding, that might be the partial solution except now it has no GPU decoding to improve playback/render, but the ridiculous complexity doesn't end there

It'a also possible that although Vegas Nvidia GPU decoding is broken for your file, Intel GPU decoding will work just fine. If Vegas could see your Intel IGPU630 it would have selected it, so that would mean it's not available, why isn't it available? could be turned off in your bios, or you may require a monitor to be connected to your motherboard for it to work.

On any other editing software NONE OF THAT MATTERS, IT WILL JUST WORK. So you got this weird conflict , easiest to use software but requires all these highly technical work arounds depending on the file you're trying to play. The best case scenario is that you do get your IGPU630 working as decoder, for the least amount of problems in the future. Why does the Intel GPU decoder work better on Vegas, when Nvidia and AMD GPU decoders work fine on every other editor? I sure as hell don't know.

I am having to guess a lot of stuff because you didn't provide all the info RogerS asked. The MediaInfo data is important

Hi Python, I understand the frustration, but you may be able to solve this problem once and for all. I came from 12, thought I'd upgrade but had issues like this with 15 (which was terrible for GoPro/DJI) but stuck around and don't have to do anything particular to get Vegas to work right anymore.

If you can enable the iGPU in bios and then have it do the decoding that in and of itself may be enough to fix the issue. Having this do decoding and the NVIDIA card do timeline/Fx acceleration is the best setup you can have. Ive also seen NVIDIA decoding have issues with some files- not sure if that's an NVIDIA or Vegas problem (or a combination).

Do share MediaInfo.

You can turn VP 18/19 into VP 12 but checking "enable legacy AVC", but as Todd mentions there's a performance penalty. Getting the Intel GPU to work would be my first recommendation.

Beyond that consider a re-encode for the GoPro files (try Handbrake x264 or Shutter Encoder), go to media and swap video files and see if it helps. Then just build that into your workflow for these files in the future. With re-encoding you don't need legacy AVC and the Intel or NVIDIA decoders should work without issue.

You can also try to file a support request (not sure they'll give you a fix beyond what's here, but it's also a bug report).

MediaInfo is a new concept for me. I've downloaded it, but not sure what to do or what you would like to see from it.

@Python66 Instructions here https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-how-to-post-mediainfo-and-vegas-pro-file-properties--104561/

I have no GoPro/DJI files to try in 18. If short ones can be uploaded to the cloud, I'll give it a shot.