Properties should be set to 1440x1080, interlaced, upper field first, pixel ratio 1.333.

Your system should be able to play "moderate" Cineform intermediates at real time (easily). You might need to look at memory allocation, but first see what happens with correct properties.

OK, yes the project properties are correct that I'm using. Here is some more info that may help.

I unchecked mostly everything I didn't need in msconfig/startup. Rebooted, and had 8 processes under user name including vegas. 3 are blue tooth for wireless keyboard and mouse, but mem usage was minimal. There were 39 total processes running.

I started up vegas, and watched the task manager. I am playing 1 track of cineform avi's, several cuts, with no effects. Vegas climbed to about 300,000K mem usage. FPS started at around 29 and dropped to around 6 after 2 minutes and file page climbed to maxed out at 1.47GB.

The 2nd time I played the sequence, it started at less than 10fps and varied between 6-17 fps.

CPU usage was around 40-48% during play back.

The only other processes that were above 10,000K mem usage were sqlservr and explorer and svchost.

I started a new project with a normal (not hdv-cineform avi) avi rendered vid and fps was still not at a constant 29.97. It would go down to low 20's. It seems like with this computer set up that something is wrong if it can't play a dv vid at full res.

Any thoughts? Thanks. Derek

No thoughts eh?

Well, I was wondering about something else. Is it possible to have a dual boot kind of thing where when starting up my computer, I could have the computer only load the programs I absolutely need for Vegas and audio? No firewalls, spyware, aol crap, etc. etc. I can do that to an extent with msconfig, but there are still programs trying to do stuff in the back ground. I'm wondering if this is what my problem is with this computer. Thanks. Derek

I tried that with my dual P3 system about 18 months ago, but it was probably too far gone performance-wise for me to tell if there is a difference. To implement, you would go to My Computer/Properties/Hardware Profiles. Uncheck the hardware you don't need, like network card, etc. I heard that even a modem (my newest PC doesn't even have one) can cause lots of overhead. Shut that off. Not sure if software profiles are affected.

Your PC should get better performance with HDV intermediates. I get 29.97 with HDV Cineform (I don't have HD Connect) with P4 3.2 HT.

I've seen several posts where they muted their audio and they regained their realtime preview. Try that. If it gets better, your audio card may have the same IRQ resources as something else. You might make sure that your input audio format = project audio format, some indications that the audio convert interferes with preview performance.

I was wondering how you'd got on with your problem. I presume you have your preview window set to "preview (auto)". Have you checked the temperature aspect? That there isn't fluff clogging your CPU cooling fan? Cineform Connect HD is the correct program to use for generating the intermediates -- did you use "high" or "moderate" setting?
Virus checkers can absorb CPU and time. Best not to be connected to the web for video editing, but other people work that way.
Probably it doesn't help much to tell you that my much less powerful system has no trouble playing HDV intermediates (no filters etc) at 25fps (in 50i land).

Yes, don't have antivirus running, specially Norton. If you must run AV while you render, set the AV options to only check files coming into or going out of your PC. Do not have AV run on the read of every file all of the time.

Also, I noticed you are running SQLServer, probably due to Media Manager? I have that shut off.

I'll add my standard 2 cents here.

If your preview RAM is set too high your system will start to swap things to the page file after Vegas has been playing for a minute or two.

Since Vegas constantly caches frames into RAM, if you set the Preview RAM too high Windows will start swapping things as you play. This will make your page file grow as your framerate falls. Try reducing your preview RAM setting.

Another thing that's occurred to me is that if windows has set up your 1394 card as a network interface you should disable that interface.

Rob Mack

First of all, thanks for taking the time to try to help me.

Let's see, 1394 is connected under Network settings and it won't disable for some reason when I click on "diable." Strange.

I had my RAM preview set at 1024 a day ago and tried changing it to 0 and the same lousy play back happened.

I have disabled Norton including going into msconfig and unchecking ccapp amongst other things and rebooted. Same slowness factor. I know everyone hates Norton 'cause it's such a resource hog, but on my P3 1 GHZ I would disable Norton and was able to work with Vegas 4 with no problems.

No, I never try to edit while connected to the internet with every program known to man trying to access it. :o)

I don't know what SQLServer is. Can I click end process without everything blowing up? haha I'll Google it.

Yes, video preview was set to auto preview. I tried stretching it to the next bigger size as someone suggested but it didn't help.

I used the "high" large files to capture with Connect HD. I thought this might be the problem, so, I stuck a completely rendered dv avi file in the time line and it still didn't stay at 29.97. It would drop down to the low 20's occasionally which is rediculous with this machine.

I had the audio muted. I'll check the audio project properties. I have the Motu 828 FW audio card, but I've used that on my old ancient box without any problems so I would think it would be the same here.

I guess I'll try uninstalling Norton and attempt this again to see if that's the problem. I'm thinking about pulling out my old box and using that for my business documents and email, etc. and using the new computer for audio and video only.

Also, my display settings for the 2 24" dells are 3840 by 1200 (desktop stretched across 2 monitors. I don't know if that has anything to do with this. It's set at 32 bit.

Here are the benchmark specs when I first got the computer...before I ruined it apparently. :o)

3DMark 2003 Benchmark 15043

3DMark 2005 Benchmark 6939

PC Marks 5458
CPU Score 4512
Memory Score 3708
Graphics Score 6108
HDD Score 5426