also edit your projects in pieces.

but I never had issues with vegas choking while editing, just with a big HDV project & rendering. It's always run out of memory for me then, that's why I've started doing things in pieces.

Just rebooted everything (laptop & GRAID2 external drive). Memory usage was 364 MB. Loaded project having an HDV track and a HD track then memory went up to 781 MB. Imported (File>Import>Media) a bunch of standard DV's and it went up to 795 MB.

Then I imported an equivalent bunch of low bitrate Mpeg2 (proxies I had made for the DV's) and the memory use very obviously and steadily climbed up to 1.95 GB. Only imported, not placed on timeline. Immediately then did an "Undo" on this "Add Files" operation then it went back down to 818 GB.

Finally I imported only the proxies to a fresh Vegas project. The memory use climbed to 1.65 GB. So the trigger is these files but why are they a problem?

The proxies were rendered from Vegas (some time ago) produce files about 1/4 the size of the DV files. Sadly they appear not to have been produced using the custom template I thought I had used, so I can't supply that information. In GSpot they appear pretty standard. Nevertheless it looks like something about them is triggering the memory problem. Something about them must be non standard I guess, because the HD and HDV media were standard formats of Mpeg2 and did not cause the problem.

Anyone experienced anything reminiscent of this?

I'm not so sure I would call this a "memory problem". Programs are allowed to grab up to 2 gigs of memory and you have a TOTAL of 2 gigs in your machine. Subtract the 384 that you're using for other things..... and you're just hanging on the edge there.

I know some laptops use SHARED memory for the video cards as opposed to dedicated memory found on the card. Is this the case with your machine?

What do you have your page file set at?

1...Add 2 more gig of ram---it's dirt cheap right now
2...Disable indexing
3...Disable restore
4...Disable all the cutsey windows fade in/out stuff
5...In the task manager disable all unused services--they will restore after re-booting.
6...Use the default setting for ram preview.
7...Disable all automatic updates
8...Disable anti-virus
9...Disable media manager if you are not using it.
10...Render some complicated sections to AVI then put the AVI's on the timeline in place of and then delete the old files. After deletion the memory usage will decrease by "billions".
11...Best thing is to add two more gigs.
JJK

Laptop won't accept more than 2GB. Bigger & better platform definitely needed - likely to be a Mac Pro (with NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT) running Parallels.

The weird thing about the memory issue though was that it only happened when I imported the little SD Mpeg2's, not the great big HD's. Maybe they triggered a memory leak somehow? My solution was not to use these proxies (deleted them), just use the original DV. Now the memory usage is down to 970 MB and there are no obvious problems.

Most of the PC-level tips I already done-did, but thanks anyway of couse.

I believe someone else found the same problem within the last few weeks. They tried importing the SD mpeg-2 files from a DVD they made with Vegas and DVDA and Vegas crashed. Might be worth a few others testing this and if it really is a bug then report it to SCS. This used to work just fine.

Bob.

A "little" SD file still needs to be decompressed into RAM so I don't think the size of a compressed file on disk relates to the amount of RAM it'll use. Still a frame of SD in RAM takes less memory than a frame of HD. There was something weird about your mpeg files and it was best to ditch them.

While I wouldn't bet money on it, it's possible that your laptop supports 2GB SODIMMs (4GB total). At the time it was manufactured, the 2GB modules probably either didn't exist or were impossibly expensive, so they weren't listed in the specs. Unfortunately, it'd be on your dime to test that, but I know that a couple of desktop chipsets that are listed as supporting 8GB actually will sill support 16GB. Sometimes a BIOS update is required.

Rob Mack

There is definitely a bug in the way Vegas Pro 8 handles mpeg2 files.

I have tried adding mpeg2 files into the timeline and seen the memory bloat. Once i get to about 70 or so Vegas crashes.

Interestingly i don't have this problem with V7.

Ciao,

marks

Vegas must keep at least one uncompressed frame in memory in order to process it. In the case of stills, this means taking the still, whether saved in JPG, PNG or whatever, and storing it uncompressed in RAM. If there is a transition applied, then it must contain a minimum of two uncompressed stills in RAM. In the case of MPEG2, it must uncompress (actually reconstruct) at least 15 frames worth of video into RAM. ie: the I frame and all the B & P frames up to the next I frame. For 1440x1080 HDV files, this takes a minimum of about 70 meg of RAM multiplied by the number of clips you have open. All this eats up RAM pretty quickly. This is where Vegas v8.1 running in Vista64 really shows the advantage of all that extra addressable RAM.

Now, does Vegas actually crash or does it just run out of RAM and has to start using the page file, which is a monumentally slower than physical RAM, and Vegas appears to lock up when it is really just swapping like crazy to the page file?

Here's the thread and the nature of the problem:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=619678

Known bug in 8.0c, if the mpeg-2 stream contains ac3, goodbye.
Bob.

I don't think this (the ac3 audio problem) is that same issue.

The symptoms I witnessed was Vegas memory consumption growing and until the process max'ed out. Then it either disappeared or just hung. And it did not even require me to load the clips onto the timeline. Just highlighting them in the project media window showed the memory starting to grow. I presumed the Vegas was caching it up or something.

Loading the same bunch of clips into Vegas 7 didn't exhibit this behaviour.

And I ran across the issue in 8.0b.

Ciao,

marks

I hate to say it, but its nice to see some else having the same problem. I am running Vegas 8.0c on a desktop with Windows Vista 32 bit, 3.5 Gb RAM and trying to produce a long home video, about 25 minutes. When the physical memory reaches around 75% - 85% Vegas just vanishes, goes away, poof.

I have tried many different things - help sites Sony, HP, Windows. Suggestions have lead me to : try many combinations and permutations of virtual memory options, reduced/varied video resolution, updated all drivers, minimized running services, defrag'd and cleaned hard drives, ran every hardware diagnostic I have (everything ok), swapped out to different RAM, and finally did a complete Windows Vista system re-install....the list goes on. All this and Vegas still crashes around the same point with the same poof.

Talking about memory bloat - even cutting the project in half the memory fills immediately to around 70%....probably on the verge of crashing.

Any additional suggestions would be greatful.

Thanks,
Tom