How do I tell Vegas to use more cpu power?

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/14/2009, 1:52 PM
When using cpu intensive effects, like the cookie cutter, the fps in the preview will drop dramatically. When I check processor use, it stays at about 35 per cent for each of the 4 cores. Is there a way to tell Vegas to use more cpu power for the preview so the fps stays at 25? Increasing 'priority' in Windows in favour of Vegas has no effect, as far as I can see.

Comments

abelenky wrote on 4/14/2009, 4:10 PM
It seems likely to me that CPU is not your problem.

Your CPU probably isn't running at 100% because it is waiting on a slower component: most likely the hard drive (reading the original video files or other resources), or possibly the RAM (if you don't have enough RAM, and some memory is getting swapped out to disk), or in a less likely scenario, it may be your video-card.

Can you post some information about your CPU, RAM size, and drive speeds?

I'd suggest you should have at least 3GB of RAM, and see if you are using 7200 RPM drives or higher (most notebook drives are 5400 RPM). The driver interface may also matter. If you're using an older PATA interface, an external USB drive, or a drive with a small cache, that could all slow things down.
musicvid10 wrote on 4/14/2009, 8:19 PM
Ivan,
Just a question, is the PreRender capability not available in your version of VMS?
MSmart wrote on 4/14/2009, 9:43 PM
What preview quality setting are you using? Best? Try lowering it to Good or Preview.

Because VMS doesn't offload preview processing to the GPU as some programs do, the trade off is lower preview fps.

As musicvid suggests, if you need to see it "realtime" you need to prerender.
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/14/2009, 9:47 PM
My system should not be the problem, I think: Intel quad core Q6600, 3GB Ram, nvidia 8800GS, 2x 500 GB in raid 0 (striped).

Prerender is available, but limited to 256MB.

When actually renderening, the cpu use goes up to 100 per cent, btw, but not so when previewing.

I get 25 fps most of the time (pal), but as soon as I add the cookie cutter to create a vignet effect, fps drops, but cpu use remains at 35%.
MSmart wrote on 4/15/2009, 2:07 PM
I get 25 fps most of the time (pal), but as soon as I add the cookie cutter to create a vignet effect, fps drops, but cpu use remains at 35%That's just the way VMS works. Add effect, preivew fps drops. Lower the preview quality to help increase fps when effects are used.

Other applications such as Pinnacle Studio make heavy use of the GPU allowing full fps when effects are used. Vegas keeps it simple utilizing the CPU to process effects. The downside (if you want to call it that) is lowered preview fps. If you must see how an effect looks at full fps, prerender a portion of the video, or lower the preview window quality.
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/15/2009, 2:17 PM
So it keeps cpu usage low in order to prevent crashes, hot cpu, and allows the user to do other things with the pc while rendering, I guess.
ritsmer wrote on 4/16/2009, 12:24 AM
Hardly made with intent - and you are right: it is strange.

I am just looking at a linear wipe between 2 stills and in the wipe the fps sinks to 6 Fps on my double quad Xeons (Win XP) - while the cpu usage keeps as low as 15 percent - evenly spread on all 8 cpu-kernels.

In this example with just 2 simple stills one can not blame 3rd party codecs etc.

It really is strange that Vegas in some cases can not utilize the cpus better - in other cases it is quite Ok, however...

I am not a Windows expert - but probably the Task Manager does not show the cpu-time spent in api-calls and if Vegas uses a lot of them then the cpus actually are fully loaded - even if you can not see it in the Task Manager. .. just my guess.

Edit: Ah, yes: just checked the page-faults and for 10 seconds of linear wipe between 2 simple stills Vegas gets 500.000 Page Faults - that is 50.000 per second - which, of course, will slow down any machine significantly.
One can speculate if the program code is optimal - In my old days as owner of a software company such things would have made me get the programmer into my office ...
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/16/2009, 1:24 AM
Is there something we can do, as users?
Second, does the pro version behave similarly. Not that I want to buy it, but I can imagine that pro users wouldn't tolerate this.
Perhaps I should post this in the pro forum and see how they react.
ritsmer wrote on 4/16/2009, 2:02 AM
I have the newest Pro version also and it behaves precisely like that also.

I have been googling the issue - and it seems that it is a well known Windows issue with programs working with large data areas - and that there is no cure for it...
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/16/2009, 2:29 AM
I posted this in the pro forum here:
link
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/16/2009, 3:58 AM
So here is the result from that research: You can turn on 'enable multi-threaded rendering for playback' in the 'internal preferences', which is accessed by holding shift while hitting 'preferences' under 'tools'.

Unfortunately, this feature is NOT available in VMS, only in pro...
ritsmer wrote on 4/16/2009, 4:40 AM
Uh - oh

I also did not know about that adjustment.
Just tried it in my Pro version - and: It really improves the preview speed. Significantly.

Maybe one more reason to go Pro :-)
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/16/2009, 4:46 AM
In the thread, there is a WARNING about fiddling with these intenal preferences. The system may become unstable, in some rare events. Anyhow, just don't forget you tweaked it.
ritsmer wrote on 4/16/2009, 5:55 AM
Really no problem - just hold shift+ctrl while starting Vegas and you are back to defaults again.

Have now been working whith this multiple-cpu-preview adjustment for an hour or two - and really: mostly the preview runs at full 29.970 fps at 1280x720 from mp4 and m2t media.
The (cross)fades are not noticeable any more and I do not even have to set it down to Preview quality or half size.
MSmart wrote on 4/16/2009, 12:34 PM
Thanks for rubbing it in.
ritsmer wrote on 4/16/2009, 12:58 PM
Rubbing it in?

I like that :-) - but

1) if you have a multi processor PC - and

2) if you have a Studio version where an Internal Tab shows up when you hold SHIFT while pressing Preferences - then you can also get this faster preview if you type TRUE after "Enable multi-core rendering for playback".

It works on my Studio Platinum Pro ver 9.0b - maybe someone could test /try it on other versions?

But as Chienworks wrote earlier: "*WARNING* You can screw up your Vegas installation really badly by playing in here. Don't touch anything unless you know what you're doing!!! If you get stuck, you can reset Vegas back to normal by holding down the Shift & Control keys while starting it. "
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/16/2009, 8:57 PM
It doesn't work with VMS8 platinum.
MSmart wrote on 4/17/2009, 12:40 AM
Yea, we went over this before, shift-options not available before v9. I also have VMS8P, so you're still rubbing it in, just not as much as I thought.

I see now, you don't have the Pro version, as in "Vegas Pro". We're back to the SCS marketing blunder. What you have is VMS Platinum with the "Pro Pack". You confused me when you said you had the Pro version. Not so.
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/29/2009, 3:52 AM
I've installed the trial of vms 9 pro and tweaked the internal preferences as described, and see no difference at all when trying edit some sample footage of the canon SX1 (avchd). I get 2 to 4 fps (!) (from dpreview.com) . What a disappointment. I hope Sony deals with this for the next upgrade.