My two cents . . . the answer to the question really does depend upon your use of the program and your other needs. I think Spot's second post (his first on this thread - the number two post) answered the question as asked nicely. As an objective reader, I didn't see any attack on Spot from BB's "foolish" post - in fact, it reflects my mode of computer use exactly - as I place a higher priority in getting more out of less than I do on having the latest, biggiest whatever - that's my philosophy everywhere, not just in computers or with Vegas.

My present Vegas setup has more RAM than any machine I've ever used - recently increased from 128 mb to 384 - and that wasn't to increase Vegas performance, but to address an errant low memory warning from WinXPPro that, itself, was generated by some worm (or virus) that made its way into my system (Vegas ran fine on my 0.9mhz/128mb system - I do lots of compositing and a great deal of multi-track audio/sound on sound, etc - working with professional artists who demonstrate their appreciation with their repeat business).

The worm (or virus) is gone, now, but the added memory remains, so I'll use it.

Since rendering to RAM isn't very practical for me, I don't use it - I use pre-render instead. Then, again, I'm well aware of how most of the FX I use will work out, so, I rarely even use pre-render.

That's me - your mileage may differ.

As for the little BB/Spot spat, I don't see why Spot allows past spats to thin his/her skin so. Read objectively, there was nothing personally insulting in BB's post - it was as informative as Spot's IMHO. Two opposite spectrum ends are being presented here. I, for one, appreciate the low RAM end, and don't find anything insulting about the concept - even the notion that it may be foolish for most folks to expend money on RAM for which they have no practical use.

The question wasn't how much ram do you need for Boris and the host of other applications cited by Spot. I suppose if you make widespread use of all those aps with Vegas, then more RAM isn't foolish. But, if you work on a limited budget, then, in terms of using Vegas, balancing memory requirements with the other Vegas requirements, you'd be better served to buy more disk storage than memory any day. 8 GB of ram will be of little use to someone who doesn't have enough disk space left to render the project (or the latest version of the project) without first having to print or destroy earlier versions.

John, your insistence that Sony do "something" about BB is childish. I don't have to point out the "ignore" feature of the forum boards, since others have already done so.

If you don't like BB's posts, don't read or respond to them. It's as simple as that.

I, for one, feel neither threatened by Spots posts (I'm just as professional in what I do as he is in what he does with Vegas), nor am I overwhelmed by the horsepower of his system. I also don't find anything of a personal attack in BB's initial response on this thread. The derailment (if there was one) resulted from Spot's subsequent response and the collateral "jumping on", IMO.

What has happened on other threads (between Spot and BB) should have no bearing on this thread, and, IMO, to the extent that all of us participate here at the pleasure of Sony, who provide and fund this forum, none of us has the authority to damand action by Sony against another poster just because we don't like the content or tone of his/her postings.

The value of this (or any forum) is in the exchange of information. Take what works for you and use it, discard the rest, make your own contributions for what they're worth and let them stand the scrutiny of those who will agree or disagree, and then, move on. (ok, it was my four cents, not two, but, there you have it).

Caruso

Sometimes i wish there was a "make this user ignore me" button. Click it and that user no longer sees any messages i type. It could be very useful at times. ;)

I forgot to mention that I do get around the running out of memory thing by rendering some of the complex sections first in avi then putting those sections back on the main project and this cuts the memory usage down considerable for the main render to Mpeg2 DVD.

JJK

The final thing I'll have to say in this thread is first thanks for the support here and that I received in emails. What I find truly sad is the ongoing effort, two in particular to attempt to muzzle me. for simply expressing my opinion. Anybody that knows me, knows that's a exercise in futility.

This thread, like several others recently deteriorated not because of anything I said, rather the same two attempting to find fault with I said even when its clear the comments were in no way directed towards them and was meant only as a opposing view.

What's going on here in very plain and obvious, to me anyway. Disagreement, especailly on a few hot topics is met with personal attacks. That's unfortunate because the lifeblood of any forum is discussion. If we only hear one side of issues, that there's no purpose to having a forum and those attempting to silence different opinions are the one's causing the damage, not the persons expressing different opinions.

[Edited by moderator]

Billy you just showed yourself a liar. i saw the post where you said he copied whats in his book. maybe SPOT will admit he has big ego when you admit you lied big. at least he tryed to keep it offline.

[Edited by moderator]

That unopened copy of Premiere Pro v1.5 sitting on my desk is looking pretty interesting right about now. Bye, guys.

John

For the record, I would have more than 512MB memory if my PC supported it. More memory means less paging, increases stability and performance and prevents hard disk thrashing.

It's a shame so many excellent threads on this forum quickly detiorate into personal attacks. At one time this forum was the best Vegas forum, bar none. Now excellent discussions are littered with disgraceful and unprofessional behavior. This forum reminds me of some of the usenet groups.

I've moved on to other excellent Vegas forums where none of this bickering occurs. All people are treated respectively, regardless if post is by a newbie who needs hand holding or an experienced user I check this forum occassionally because it still has some of the best knowledgeable Vegas people and interesting topics.

Lets strive keep this forum a pleasant and happy place for people to share knowledge and experience. After all, we all want Vegas to be number 1, right? We, as users of Vegas, should also be number 1. Lets not drag this forum any further into the mud.

BillyBoy...

[Edited by moderator]

This is a forum where everyone from hobbyists to professionals (do it for a living) come together to help each other. What suits one person may not suit everyone but everyone is entitled to their opinions no matter if you agree or disagree with them. All it takes is for you to simply state you don't disagree, but throwing the horsesh** around doesn't help sell your point.

I hope we can all agree to disagree, but your ranting and badgering others has to end.

mike

Well, once again this forum never ceases to amaze me. And there is certainly much knowledge to be gained here regarding technical aspects of Vegas, video, and such.

I appreciate the majority of the posts here, and consider others real-world experience as being a valid source of information to consider, but not always agree with...that's where differences of experience can breed difference in opinions.

However, I have certainly taken notice that anytime Spot speaks candidly about his experiences, lists his equipment, talks of projects, and just tell things as they actually exist in his video life, that BB immediately jumps on those kinds of posts as being ego-driven.

And it has also become very obvious that when others here share details of their setups and real-world experiences, BB doesn't seem to go after their posts as being ego-driven, so there is no doubt in my mind that BillyBoy has a very real, and very personal "bias" against Spot...for what deep internal reason(s) is anyones guess.

Should anyone here be silenced here? No, because I believe in freedom of speech...that's why I can say what I'm saying, but in all honesty, the "personal" issues between forum members (while often entertaining) can start to get old when they start consistently showing up thread after thread as the months go by...and the key person time and again does consistently seem to be BillyBoy.

Personally, I'm neither FOR nor AGAINST anyone who posts here, I'm just making note of the "factual events" as they keep cropping up. Life and people sure are interesting to observe. :o)

JJKiazk, yes, that is a workable solution. Since Sony will not offer advance tweaking advice about xp pro or win2000. A group of adv users should org a Sony forum thread about designing tweaks and batches for winxp or win2000 and test them . Designing a reasonable model for the general and advance user should be manageable. Then we should address network rendering for users with 5+ systems.


AJP

The reason, I started this thread was to form a database.
I started by using the search engine, typed MEMORY and RAM but came up empty. Just got a few threads with those words used in another context.
So for anyone wanting to deticate a PC for Vegas, then the first place you look is in a forum, hosted by those who sell the software, right?
I have got what I needed on the suject and hope other newcomers can use it to.
I can not tolerate a WinXP machine with less than 256mb in it, doing browsing and Word/Excel.

"JJKiazk, yes, that is a workable solution. Since Sony will not offer advance tweaking advice about xp pro or win2000. A group of adv users should org a Sony forum thread about designing tweaks and batches for winxp or win2000 and test them . Designing a reasonable model for the general and advance user should be manageable. Then we should address network rendering for users with 5+ systems. "

Pro Tools users have done just that so why should'nt we?
The DUC is a very civil and useful forum.

BillyBoy!! Spot listed his system spec's after being asked several times.
That is not EGO in my book.
BTW, what was that book that Spot wrote?? I would like to have it.

Golli,

Spot wrote Vegas 4 Editing Workshop along with a few other books. I bought mine at Buy.com which was cheaper than Amazon by a dollar or so.

Also check out the Vasst site for info on other books/dvd's both current and upcoming.

Golli,

[Edited by moderator]
"Instant Vegas 5" written by me and Jeffrey Fisher will hit soon, so will "Vegas 5 Editing Workshop." You can find them at most on-line and brick and mortar stores.
Sorry your thread turned into such a mess. That seems to happen a lot lately whenever I post and BB doesn't like it. If you want to visit the

you will never, ever, ever see this sort of childishness and ridiculous behavior. With 5 moderators....not to mention really cool admins...it never happens.

Ah... you're the guy with that cool native name, silly of me not to put spot+2 together.

I've seen that book on the net and want it.

The thread is usefull to some degree + I've learned more English along the way. But I think it would be wise to kill/lock it.

BB is not all bad he refers to you on his website with a link:
http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/home1.htm
So he must consider you a pro.

Thanks for all advices though.

Heavens to betsy. When I saw the post count on a thread about system ram, I knew instantly that BillyBoy was up to his old tricks.

Very simply, instead of saying "For my needs 512 or 1 gig has always been plenty" he has to take a crack at people who have installed more. Heck, I put a gig in my wife's PC cause she does the artwork for our vhs and dvd covers, and her previous pc build only had 256 mb. The first time she scanned and opened an image that was 1 gig or more, that was all it took!
After I saw the benefit of ram renders.....from SPOT....at a VASST training.....I'm going to put at least that much in my next build.

...oh....wait a minute....maybe BillyBoy continues this behavior because he wants to be paid to leave ala Zippy....


David

" "Instant Vegas 5" written by me and..."

Hey wait! Isn't that the book I sent you awhile back to proof read?? ;-)

Mario

PS: For people who didn't get the wink at the end...it's a joke!

golli, "Pro Tools users have done just that so why should'nt we? The DUC is a very civil and useful forum." Does this Pro tools forum have Vegas 5 runtimes with 60, 100, 300 stills with pans.crops? If they have tested Vegas 5 performance in various configurations, then why the inquiry? Plus if they have the test modeling data, please share with the forum. This would be great for upgrading or building new systems!

AJP

"Does this Pro tools forum have Vegas 5 runtimes with 60, 100, 300 stills with pans.crops? If they have tested Vegas 5 performance in various configurations, then why the inquiry? Plus if they have the test modeling data, please share with the forum. This would be great for upgrading or building new systems!"



No, they dont have Vegas. What I meant was that they have done this for their application, Pro Tools. It was 2 guys at first taking notes of users posting with problems, setup, what chipset works best, CPU, PSU, drivers, etc, etc....... Then they came up with a configuration of components, that make a solid and stable PC, after the DaveC stress test. The DaveC test is nothing but a standardised method, to measure what your machine can do for you. The official PTLE machine was an AMD/VIA, then one of them built an AMD/nVidia PC and that took some time to iron out. And lastly the 3. guy made a Intel based setup. So if someone is biased towards a sertain CPU or Chipset, it's all there and it all works.
This thread is now official and a "sticky" at the front of the forum, updated regularly with current prices.
And now there are 100's if not 1000's of PC's, built from these guidelines, quickly and painlessly. This thread, to me, is an extencive database.
This is of course, all because PT was originally a Mac only platform but recently, the software/hardware developers have begun pushing their latest designs, at NAMM and such shows on PC based systems, HOW ABOUT THAT!


"Please share with the forum"
I dont know if I'm allowed to post links to competitors sites, here.


BTW, excuse the rant, I just feel that Vegas/SF/ACID can only benefit from such a thread, making people on the verge of making an application decicion, eventually choosing the Sony app's.

The PT Database is well served, and is known at the NAMM show. Of course, if you've been there, you probably saw how Logic/FCP this year was heavily competing with Digi, it was a HUGE presence for AVID this year.
Doing this sort of database for Sony tools would be wonderful if the matrices were done well. The PT's aren't that great IMO, even though folks rave about them.
Rant well appreciated from my position. Just wish the data were easier to sift through without all the posturing here.

"Just wish the data were easier to sift through without all the posturing here."

Sorry but English is'nt my native language so I dont know what "posturing" and "matrices" means. FWIW I'm Icelandic.
And therefore I was'nt at the NAMM. I chat with other PT users that were there. And by no means was this rant, meant to push the PT platform here, it is just what I've used for music production so far.

I just meant that there are good things coming from the users themselfs on the PT forum, which can be adopted here (exchanging facts to keep our machines up and running). I 'm not saying that this forum is bad or anything it is just that by turning such a thread into a sticky on the front/top of the forum is a organised way to deal with issues that dont relate to Vegas but what Vegas CAN NOT LIVE WITHOUT, our machines.

I feel that the hosts (Sony Media) here are not that different from the hosts I'm refering to. I wery rarely see the tech's chime in to help. So we must do it our self. If we all have to do this by trial and error, each to his own, then what is the use for the internet?? To call each other names??

I will gladly post my system specs and issues that may arrise and how I resolve them or hopefully get help here, when I'm up and running.

I do have two (Vegas) projects coming on and one of them involving music and if that goes well, part two will be made and I hope that the ball might roll from there.

BTW Spot, dont you have an extra copy of your Vegas 4.0 book lying around?
(just kidding)

The reason you don't see a lot of engineers from software companies popping in to the PT, Cubase, Nuendo, Sonar, Vegas forums regarding hardware, is that there are legal ramifications to how they may or may not present information. When I was consulting to Steinberg a couple years ago, I was forbidden from posting any information about hardware specifically endorsed or not endorsed by Steinberg. It was during a time when I REALLY hated MOTU instead of just not liking them now....so it was hard to keep my mouth shut during that period.
Databases are good, but keep in mind that video, and Vegas in particular, uses resources differently than other media types.
The matrice/matrix is simply the database crossreferencing of components with specific softwares, specific CPU's, RAM, chipset. As an example, the VIA KT133/233 chipset runs fine for audio. But the moment you start sticking video streams into them on specific component combos, those machines were doomed. So, while assembling the database, there are far more considerations for vid than for audio. Audio doesn't need OHCI for instance, as a firewire interface. Most cards use either PCI or Cardbus for I/O. Audio cards have a pretty tight spec that has been around for a while, whereas vid is reasonably new to the desktop...That's all I meant.
I'll look forward to seeing your database! We'd link to it from the Sundance/VASST resource site!

"I'll look forward to seeing your database! We'd link to it from the Sundance/VASST resource site!"

Wait a minute! I'm refering to Vegas users combining their PC "issues/problems" as they arrise, combined into a thread and that will constitude/become a database. It will not be MY database. I will only be one link in chain of all the users here, posting a problem or posting how I resolved a problem.

But thanks for the confidence in me.