More memory error woes - inching closer to Premiere

JohnS wrote on 1/6/2004, 8:06 AM

More memory error woes - inching closer to Premiere ...

I have a 30 minute video that I’m trying to render; mostly stills, sprinkled with some .avi clips. I used some effects throughout the entire project, but, nothing too fancy nor too much. Whenever I try to render the thing (four separate attempts) into the MPEG-2 NTSC Widescreen format, Vegas gives me an “Error occurred while creating the media file (name of file.mpg). The system is low on memory. You may be able to reduce memory usage by closing other applications.” The error always occurs at approx. the ten minute mark of the video when it is transitioning from a still photo to an avi clip (1.6 gig file).

It is not the particular avi video clip’s fault either. I have been able to render this portion of my video (without doing the entire project) successfully (in a one-minute snippet) – without attempting the entire project.

Also, there are other avi clips prior to this clip that render successfully during the 9 minutes prior to this point.

I have looked at other posts, attempted to optimize my system, and closed all of the unnecessary start-up stuff. I am running XP with virtual memory set at 1024 MB initial size and 4096 MB custom size (total paging file size for all drives is 1024 MB). I’ve adjusted my Visual Effects page in XP Advanced Performance Options to “Adjust for best performance”.

I am using a Dell 3.06/Hyperthreading with 1 gig of ram. My Windows XP Pro operating system is on my internal 200Gig hard drive (that is less than ½ full); Vegas 4.0d is installed on the same drive. The project that I’m attempting to render is on an external 200Gig USB2 hard drive (that is less than ¼ full). All of my hard drives are NTSF.

By the way, this problem is exponentially magnified when you consider that every time that I attempt to render this, it takes my computer approx. 7 hours to reach this “memory error” location. My point is two-fold: first, it takes me an additional 7 hours each time I attempt to troubleshoot this issue (and I can’t use my computer for anything else during this time); second, nobody on this earth has this amount of time to waste fooling around with this crap.

One other issue:
Even though I’m using Vegas 4.0d with NTFS, I still can’t get Vegas to import avi files larger than 2 gig.

Any help … especially from Sony … would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
JohnS
sheppp@hotmail.com

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 1/6/2004, 8:20 AM

First, read the EPM response from Sony http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=241875&Replies=12&Page=1

Second, 7 hours to render an avi to mpeg? That's completely whacked, and you've got to have something else going on. Avi to MPEG is basically realtime or less. 30 min file =30 min or less render.
I'd be looking at hardware too. While your machine has the specs, it also would indicate that there is a hardware issue somewhere. 1 clue is the 2 gig file limit you are hitting. That's not FAT or NTFS related, but it could be related to swap files, DMA, etc. This also is a candidate for heat related issues. Encoding to MPEG is VERY processor intensive, and many people around the world have reported heat issues with TMPEG, MC, and Ligos encoders.
Where I'm confused is you say you are rendering from avi to mpeg, but in the post, you say it's hanging where you are transitioning from avi to a still?
If the still is a tif for instance, you are calling on an external reading device such as quicktime. Make sure that's up to snuff.
In any event, you'll ALWAYS get the best image and renderspeeds by rendering to DV first, then from DV/avi to MPEG. It's also easier on your processor.

JohnS wrote on 1/6/2004, 8:52 AM

Thanks for the tips, Spot. I'll try rendering to DV first - I'm assuming that you mean render to Video for Windows (.avi).

To clarify, I have a series of jpeg photos (generally approx 5 meg each) that I used scan and pan on. I mixed in several .avi clips that I rendered in Particle Illusion (less than 2 gig each). The error problem occurs approximately 10 minutes into the render (to MPEG2 project using the DVD Architect 24p NTSC Widescreen template) when transitioning from one of the photos to one of the .avi clips.

I, too, am shocked at why it is taking so long to render but have been unable to figure out the problem. I am using a stock Dell box with a nVidia G-Force FX5600 video card. The fact that it stops rendering at the same point every time tells me that it probalby isn't a heat issue (although I'm aware that it could be a factor in other situations).

I realize that you aren't my personal tech support person, but I really appreciate your input. I think that you are on to something with this 2 gig max issue that I am having. It might be directly related to my render error message too. If you can shed any additional light re swap files or DMA (whatever that stands for), I'd greatly appreciate it. I haven't heard back from Sony ...

Thanks much.
JohnS

pelladon wrote on 1/6/2004, 9:41 AM

Hmm, I read 4Gig avi files into Vegas 4 all the time, no problems (still use FAT32 partitions). Haven't had a chance to use NTFS yet.

Have you updated your motherboard bios and chipset drivers?

BTW: I'm running on a Athlon XP 2800 with Abit NFS-7 mb. No Dell for me!

Spot|DSE wrote on 1/6/2004, 9:49 AM

One other thing that *might* be an issue is system resources if you've got a bunch of 5 meg images.
DMA=Direct Memory Access, and it should be enabled in your IDE controllers.
Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>IDE Controllers>right click Primary and Secondary controllers and select Properties, select DMA in the Transfer mode dropdown box.
Yes, I'm suggesting rendering to avi first, using the 24p template if that's what your project media is. There also might be an issue with the Particle Illusion avi's going to MPEG for one reason or another, codec related or otherwise. As soon as third party stuff gets into the mix, sometimes weirdness occurs regardless of the app you might be working with.

rebel44 wrote on 1/6/2004, 10:07 AM

I am using ParticleIllusion and render small clips in it ,added to Vegas. No problem here. The DMA transfer has to be enable in BIIOS settings on some motherboards(MSI K7 N2Delta). I am rendering everything in avi and then after satisfing with final-render to whatever format I need.
About the 2G limit -you got me there. Starnge.
If you using external HD to capture then data transfer speed my be a problem.

busterkeaton wrote on 1/6/2004, 10:11 AM

Swap=virtual memory=page file. You may know that already, but's unclear from your post.

This is from www.whatis.com is which is a great technical resource, especially for acronyms.
Direct Memory Access (DMA) is a capability provided by some computer bus architectures that allows data to be sent directly from an attached device (such as a disk drive) to the memory on the computer's motherboard. The microprocessor is freed from involvement with the data transfer, thus speeding up overall computer operation.

Also have you been able to render large projects to that external drive before? The external drive needs to have DMA turned on as well.

virtual memory set at 1024 MB initial size and 4096 MB custom size (total paging file size for all drives is 1024 MB. This sounds off to me. If you set a custom size of 4096, how can the total be lower? Do you mean the currently used page file?

A lot of people recommend having the minimum and the maximum page file size to be the same. This way windows never needs to be resize it and it is less likely to become fragmented. 4 times memory is generally pretty big too. I think people recommend 1.5 or 2 times memory. Does anyone care to speculate that windows trying to create another 3 gig of page file size, while rendering could cause this issue?

JohnS wrote on 1/6/2004, 10:48 AM

Sorry about that BusterKeaton & Spot,

The 4096MB virtual memory setting is the Max setting in the custom size field. The initial setting is at 1024MB. A tech support dude in India (Dell's new apparent company HQ) told me to use these settings a few months ago for a different issue. I'll be switching it back to 2048 for the max. Do you see any issues if I let XP manage Virtual Memory settings for me?

Also, for your info, my two internal ide drives have the transfer mode set at "DMA if available" and current transfer mode of "Ultra DMA Mode 5". I checked all over my Device Manager to insure that DMA was turned on for my USB2 drive, however, I could not find anywhere to do so.

Thanks again

pelladon wrote on 1/6/2004, 11:12 AM

BTW did the event logs have any useful info?

dholt wrote on 1/6/2004, 11:12 AM

I've recently run into the same problem and got the same error message. Here's what I did. I'm not a techie when it comes to computers but it worked.

Remove any large files from your HD you don't need and are not using. Defrag your HD after each project.

Click start - run, type in msconfig - go to start-up and cancel everything. This will free ram if any behind the scenes applications or programs are running. you can always turn them back on when your done.

Ram is cheap so you might think about getting 2 gig especially for editing video.
Hope this helps

JohnS wrote on 1/6/2004, 11:47 AM

Pelladon, I couldn't find anything in the Event Logs ... not that I'd know what it was talking about even if I did ... I'm no programmer or rocket scientist, for that matter.

DHolt, I am currently defragging my "c" drive as we speak - the one with Vegas on it. As you know, it can take a while, so I won't be able to test anything until it finishes the task - I was mistakenly under the impression that a fast system with a decent amount of memory could defrag a 100 gigs fairly rapidly ... The schooling of myself continues ... As for the drive with all of my avi and jpeg files, I defragged that about a week ago.

Thanks

pelladon wrote on 1/6/2004, 11:58 AM

Actually, you can filter the events in the event viewer to show just the warnings and errors (don't care about the information messages).

Usually if a service or driver failed to load properly, it should be recorded in the event logs. Trying to see if the 2Gig problem is related to a service or driver that didn't load right.

Standard procedure for any NT based operating system, check the logs.

JohnS wrote on 1/6/2004, 12:06 PM

Thanks Pelladon, but nothing there ...

pelladon wrote on 1/6/2004, 12:52 PM

Hmm, the only other thing I can think of is Intel's Application Accelerator

http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa

But make sure you have the latest XP service pack first.

Udi wrote on 1/6/2004, 10:39 PM

You should focus on the 7 hour problem, it is way too much and this is probably the root of the crash.

I once had a similar problem when rendering from and to a USB2 disk. Try rendering to an internal drive.

Rendering still images in best, with pan-zoom, takes me about 2:1. With chroma key and color correction 6:1. If your rate is way above that - you need to find the problem. You can try to bypass fx, solo the track, cancel the track-motion or pan-zoom and see where you start to have problems.

You mention that a 1 minute rendering was fine, how long did it take?

Udi

busterkeaton wrote on 1/7/2004, 1:07 AM

I just checked my external drives I do not see the DMA option, I think I misrembered a system tool that ran that told me what the DMA settings were.

I was having some problems with an external hard drive until I did this.
In Device Manager, under disk drives, choose your external drive. Write click and choose Properties, then choose the Policy Tab. Unclick "enable write caching on the disk"

For my USB 2.0 drive I have "Optimize for performance" selected and I do not have "enable write caching checked"

On my Firewire Drive, under "Optimize for peformance" I do not have the option for write cached, so I have "Optimize for quick removal" selected.

I did this because I was getting wierd Windows errors on my external drive like
the file e:\$Ms could not be written.