Inconsistent Vegas!

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rmack350 wrote on 2/9/2006, 8:11 PM
The thing is, Mr. Eight is having trouble with standard DV25 footage and is evidently not having trouble with the same footage in Premiere.

It's a mystery and looks like it'll remain one.

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 2/10/2006, 8:22 AM
Last night I was wondering if Vegas would perform any different if you'd configured your RAID array with the biggest clusters you could. (I'm kind of thinking this could be a bad optimization for Vegas.)

It might be tempting to use the largest cluster setting when you make the array if you were assuming you'd mostly be reading big files and large chunks of data. That might not work out for Vegas since it must be reading smaller chunks of data in order to degrade gracefully.

This is a really wild guess and I don't really expect it to pan out. However, I was running media off a striped array for a while and never saw a performance hit. (Eventually a drive started getting funky so I bailed on the array.)

What's leading me to this idea is my experience with some funky 1394 enclosures a few years ago. The timeline playback would stall out from time to time in V3. The problem went away if you turned off thumbnails (Vegas doesn't need the sfk files if there's no thumbnails). In V4 they changed the way Vegas behaved in an attempt to fix this. The fix didn't work but the stalling behavior changed a bit. The stalling wouldn't happen if you played the media outside of Vegas. Eventually I assumed it had something to do with having to retrieve a bunch of little peak files during playback.

I'm pretty convinced that Eight is having a throughput problem that Vegas exposes while other applications don't. Why do I think it's throughput? Because he says he has a low frame rate and also a low CPU load. It sounds like the CPU is waiting for data.

My solution to the firewire issue was to eventually replace or abandon my enclosures. This won't work for Eight because the problem is a configuration issue that he repeats from machine to machine.

It seems like a big undertaking but maybe it'd be worthwhile taking that older machine and building a very plain jane system to try Vegas on. Just windows and Vegas without trying to optimize anything.

Or maybe it's time for him to cut his losses and move to Premiere, which is evidently installed and running fine.

Rob Mack
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 2/10/2006, 8:58 AM
what about just moving his file off of the array and then playinsit on a diff HD?
rmack350 wrote on 2/10/2006, 9:47 AM
You would think that would solve the problem. I think he also said he has the swap on the array. That's not good.

But let's look at it another way. (Sorry, this is a great puzzle, IMO)

--When he changes the preview mode he gets good performance for a short time. Generally, when you change preview modes Vegas flushes the cached frames. We know that Vegas caches frames dynamically in an attempt to improve subsequent playbacks.

--He says "I monitor my CPU and Pagefile as well. When it gets down to 8fps I am only at 56% CPU and and half my page file." Later he says "My windows pagefile is set to my SATA Raid with a 1024 minimum and 3000 maximum." So the page file is on the media drive and isn't managed by Windows. Fine, but it sounds as though the page file is growing during playback. If that's true, why? If nothing else is running and Vegas has the preview RAM set low, where's the memory going? My page file looks like it has similar settings and with my Preview RAM set to 0 the PF is around 400 MB. With it set to 300 the PF rises into the 700s and hangs there. I have other apps open so I'm not surprised.

Anyway, it seems as though Vegas is caching frames and the page file is rising to a certain point and then stops. At a certain point the playback performance plummets but can be restored when by purging the cached frames.

I still think that Vegas is writing the preview ram to the page file, but I don't know why. If it is possible to write an application so that it never uses the page file then this could be fixed. And maybe it is possible.

He also mentions a system volume and a program volume. It may just be the way it's stated but it sounds like two volumes. Could it be possible that his preview RAM adjustments aren't really doing anything? Could Vegas be writing his prefs to one place but reading them from another? I've seen this on systems where I've tried to move my home directory to another partition. Many programs insist on putting prefs in your home directory on the C drive even if you supposedly moved it to the D drive.

I think the system is probably to optimized to untangle.

Rob Mack



fldave wrote on 2/10/2006, 10:08 AM
Ahh. Swap on the same array as the media files? Humm. Mine are on separate drives from my media, small (256MB) on C:\ and 15xxMB on D:\.

Since 8's swap is min=1024 and max=3000, Windows IS managing it. Mine are all set to min=max, so windows doesn't try to find a gibabyte at an inopertune time.

8: try to set your main page file to 2.5 to 3GB both min and max. Also, I think even MS recommends having a small page file on C:\ in case you loose your pagefile drive, thus mine on C:\ is 256MB.

Edited: spelling:)
Dan Sherman wrote on 2/10/2006, 10:23 AM
JJK,

Don't see any reference to "recompress" under Vegas/options/preferences/ video.
Looking in the right place?
rmack350 wrote on 2/10/2006, 1:47 PM
Yeah, knew that would be a little confusing. If you set a range, Windows is managing it. However, in the panel that configures it you can also select a radio button to "let Windows manage the swap file" I assume that means that you don't get any sort of say in the size of it.

And then, as you say, the way to take all management away from Windows is to set the min and max to the same values. It's best to do this after a defrag so you can (hopefully) get a continuous block of disc space for the file.

At this point I think the size settings for 8's swap file are pretty normal but it shouldn't be on the media drive. And I'll bet that moving it wouldn't solve the problem (but he should move it anyway). I don't think I'd tweak the swap any more than just moving it back to"C". You want to try to have a system that is as much like a stock system as possible so you can start to whittle down the possible problems.

Rob
JJKizak wrote on 2/10/2006, 2:28 PM
Sherman:
It might be under video device in the options menu and the box is normally checked with the settings in default.

JJK
8 Imaginations wrote on 2/10/2006, 3:50 PM
Hey guys...

I actually just moved the swap file over from my C: (boot drive, Windows) to the D: (Raid, media drive) during this thread to see if it helps. It really didn't :) So I will place it back....

I have tried millions of things. Somtimes it gets better, and then goes to crap...
rmack350 wrote on 2/10/2006, 7:34 PM
It really seems like an out of the ordinary problem and I'd like to see it fixed. I can certainly make Vegas act like this with a minimum of effort but it's always been pretty easy for me to make Vegas behave tolerably well. Aside from the old 1394 problems I've never had such a persistant problem with Vegas.

Rob
Dan Sherman wrote on 2/11/2006, 8:14 AM
JJK,

Yep, found it!
Dan Sherman wrote on 2/11/2006, 8:20 AM
JJK

Trying to make myself remove Vegas set up file.
Want to make my finger hit "delete" but I can't.
Tell me it's OK and I won't regret it!

Also DMA settings,---undr hard drive controller.
How do we get to hard drive controller.

Also bios,---how do we access.
JJKizak wrote on 2/11/2006, 9:11 AM
Sherman:
1. control panel, admin tools, computer management, device manager, hard drive controller or IDE controller, right click and select properties, select the menu positions on the top of the menu until you come to the one that shows DMA settings.
2. deleting the setup files is one of those things you really don't have to do and it usually doesn't make any difference unless the machine is malfunctioning. Sony and Sonic Foundry use those files one time during install and thats it, they are never used again and if you do another install it will add those files again. (Theoretically) Sometimes older codecs will get installed during install if these files are old.
3. Getting into your motherboard bios is usually hit Del during bootup but you have to consult your motherboard manual to be sure. If you haven't ever done this before don't have shaky fingers or any doubts about what you are doing as you can disable your machine and you will be very mad.

JJK

Harold Brown wrote on 2/11/2006, 10:33 AM
I expereince all of the same issues of fps as mentioned. I apply color correction and brightness & contrast and the display slows down. In "Preview" I cannot get anything above a 23fps. In draft mode with the mentioned effects it is 29.97. That is with the preview window undocked. The only way I can get the fps up is to reduce the size of the preview window. I can get "Preview" to 29.97 if I make the preview display 360X240. At 720x480 it is 23fps. The bigger the display the slower the fps (depending on effects applied). If I mute sound tracks I will see a fps jump of about .5fps. If I shut off Windows appearance and go to performance I see about a 1fps jump.
To drive up the fps and have a large display you have to start shutting other things down. Firewalls and anti virus programs suck down power (as mentioned).

During the test I was running Firefox, Spyware Doctor, AVG AntiVirus and ZoneAlarm Pro. My project had 4 video tracks and 7 audi tracks.

I have not checked my video card bios setting.


rmack350 wrote on 2/11/2006, 8:46 PM
That sounds like pretty reasonable performance to me. Eight is doing much less with a super tweaked system and getting far slower playback.

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 2/11/2006, 8:54 PM
Regarding BIOS, definitely check your manual for the key combo to get into it. Also, there's usually a brief message about it when you first boot your system.

The key combos can vary. HP consumer desktop systems use <F1> and <F11> for additional settings. My Gigabyte motherboard uses <del> or <ctrl>+<F1>.

If you manage to make your system unbootable you can open the case and remove the battery for a ten-count. This will clear the custom BIOS settings and the date and time. You can then start the system and go back in to BIOS Setup to reset the time.

Many motherboards have a special jumper to clear the BIOS. The advantage of these is that they don't reset the clock. Check your manual.

I wouldn't expect someone who's never seen a BIOS screen to screw up a system the first time in. Usually it's so overwhelming that you don't change anything.

Rob Mack