New PC Build - No Great Performance "wow"

Jim H wrote on 8/11/2009, 3:37 PM

I just finished building an i7 920 system with 12GB of RAM. I'm running Win7-64bit and Vegas 8.0c (I was cautioned against bothering with 8.1).

I'm trying to find some indication that this machine performs better in Vegas than my old AMD4800+ with 3 usable GB of RAM under WinXP. My preview is still choppy as ever. Dynamic RAM previews seem to render a bit faster. Have not tried to render any projects yet.

I employed the 2GB Hack. I also set my Dynamic RAM preview max to 1024. Not sure if any of this did any harm or good.

What have others experienced with similar hardware upgrades?

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 8/11/2009, 3:51 PM

with only 32-bit odds are, no matter what, you'll have the same, or near same, limits as if you ran on XP. Install 8.1 anyway, people say you can have both with no issues.

xberk wrote on 8/11/2009, 4:24 PM

HappyFriar is right as usual. 8.0c and 8.1 will co-exist. If I remember I had media problems with 8.1 but I got 8.1 to settle down when I installed the K-Lite64 bit codec. I know the right 64 bit Codec is essential. Many opinions on which one is best. I'm using the K-Lite 64 bit Codec with 9.0a. I'm having no problems I attribute to the Codec. A recent thread recommended this one. V64 Codec

See that thread for a discussion. Codec discussion .. I did find renders faster in 8.1:

srode wrote on 8/11/2009, 5:54 PM

Your biggest gain is going to be rendering tough projects that are 4:1 render to real time or more and with a 64 bit version of vegas. Normal editting and preview may not show much difference. I would guess those using AVCHD will see the most gain as it's one of the more demanding formats. What types of media files and render formats are you planning to use?

TheHappyFriar wrote on 8/11/2009, 6:17 PM

don't forget, windows 7 is BETA. Bad results could very well be caused by parts of the OS that haven't been fleshed out yet.

Jim H wrote on 8/11/2009, 8:40 PM

While I do have an AVCHD camera that I use on occasion, I'm mostly dealing with M2T files from my Sony HD1.

Regarding the use of both 8.0c and 8.1, I tried using both on my old machine running Win7 as well. I found that files created in 8.0 did not play well with 8.1. Audio takes would disappear. So if I'm to render on 8.1 I guess I would have to edit in 8.1. I rarely go back and work on old vegs anyway so I'm not too worried about backward compatibility. That said, is 8.1 a problem on it's own when starting a project from scratch?

Another question: What's 12GB of RAM buying me?

Thanks all.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 8/11/2009, 8:48 PM

might buy you to not break up HDV projects in to smaller pieces to render a final render.

busterkeaton wrote on 8/11/2009, 10:37 PM

Windows 7 is release candidate, which in the software world means, it is past Beta and only showstoppers will delay it. It hits store shelves Oct 22, but apparently the Dells and HP's of the word already have their hands on it.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 8/12/2009, 4:07 AM

explains the free upgrades to 7 then on the commercials. :)

[r]Evolution wrote on 8/12/2009, 9:20 AM

Wow!
This sounds like an awesome system. I bet any other NLE would love to be on a setup like this... but Vegas doesn't work like other NLE's so it doesn't take advantage of a Bad @ss system like this.

I would rather have the improvements be during my edit as apposed to rendering.
I can render over night while sleeping. What bothers me is when I'm at the helm of my NLE and it's not as responsive as it should be.

I've seen discussions where people talk about what Vegas should do to improve its performance during the edit and I'd love to see these come to be. I think then, Vegas would be taken seriously... but for now it's Prosumer at best.

Jim H wrote on 8/12/2009, 12:26 PM

"might buy you to not break up HDV projects in to smaller pieces to render a final render."

Happy, I don't understand what this means.

My biggest disappointment I must say is that my video preview is still choppy. Granted my dynamic ram previews go buy quicker and I can render longer previews. I suspect my render times will be faster with the faster processor as well.

Oh, and my boot/applications drive is now a 128GB Patriot Torqx M28 series SSD with 220/200 MB/Sec Read/Write speeds. Vegas opens almost instantly. So I'll be back to work in no time after each crash...lol...

TheHappyFriar wrote on 8/12/2009, 2:20 PM

I've never personally cared about preview speed. I would edit multi-track uncompressed SD on a P3-667 with 256ddr. I just learned how to deal with the limits I'm given with (as everyone does with everything they do).

"Happy, I don't understand what this means."

HD projects take up more memory, so if it get to a certain size (~6/7 minutes in length) with FX & what not, HDV will crash on render. If you look @ the processes you'll see Vegas is sucking up all the ram it can & then it runs out & can't render any more. I ended up breaking the project in to two parts (simple too with two instances of Vegas open) & then it worked. More ram access should solve that.

DGates wrote on 8/12/2009, 10:28 PM

Just render something already. Geez.

Don't 'suspect' it's going to be faster. Just do it!

Render a 5 minutes clip or something.

VidMus wrote on 8/13/2009, 12:45 AM

"Have not tried to render any projects yet."

WHY???

Why did you not render a test project and THEN post this thread???

Seems to me you would have wanted to make a number of render and file type tests first.

Danny Fye
www.vidmus.com

DGates wrote on 8/13/2009, 1:37 AM

Agreed.

I'm about to finally upgrade to a i7 system, and you can bet that rendering something is the first thing I'd do.

warriorking wrote on 8/13/2009, 6:23 AM

Trust me , once you press the render button , bands will begin to play, angels will weep, the sun will shine brighter, the heavens will.....sorry got a little carried away.. anyway you get the picture....The all night renders are a thing of the past with a i7 core setup...My i7core setup is comparable to yours and rendering and editing is a dream....

Specs:
Vista Ultimate 64Bit, Vegas 9.0a, i7Core 920, 12Gig OCZ DDR3, EVGA GTX 295 , 7.1 Prelude , 3-1TB Hds, 2 Blu-Ray Burners, X58Pro MB, 800Watt PS

seanfl wrote on 8/13/2009, 9:00 AM

I'm on a quad core qx6700 system with 4 gigs and it is TONS faster than the older amd 4800 system it replaced a couple years ago. 2 - 3x faster on renders. now I'm thinking about an i7 920.

Anyone else make the jump from qx6700 or q6600 to an i7 920? How much faster does it render?

this thread talks about it a bit:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=647822

Sean

[r]Evolution wrote on 8/13/2009, 9:02 AM

Rendering Sucks... but it's not the performance boost I need/want.
I'm happy with my Render times now... I would much rather increase the performance while I'm editing. Have it be more responsive, real-time, and exacting quality, & framerate during timeline & preview operations. I'm not sure but I thing that's what people are looking for when they ask for Vegas to use the GPU.

warriorking wrote on 8/13/2009, 12:13 PM

In my experience going from a Q9550 Quadcore to a i7Core setup, It knocked off over and hour and a half on my render times, a recent project took a little over 3 hours to render on my old Quadcore 9550, same project with the i7core took 1hr 15 minutes.... so yes to me it was well worth the upgrade...

srode wrote on 8/13/2009, 5:38 PM

I'll build an i7 for my next machine - I know it will be much faster - but I'm wating for USB and Sata Gen 3 becomes readily available in motherboards before making the move. Imagine 10x USB speed and Raid on gen 3 drives with an overclocked i7 - smokin fast!

Revaya wrote on 8/14/2009, 12:01 AM

This is nuts. I agree that if you buy a 12 gb of RAM computer with an i7 and then shell out $600 more for sony vegas you should hope that your previews, which play the biggest part in assisting your project, shoud wok smoothly. What does a person have to do to make sure his video fx and tranitions run smoothly and in sync with the audio?

Shift+B takes forever and is useless the second you tweak something that you shift+Bed

Same with rendering your file, but each time you render your file don't you lose a drop of generational quality each time??

Going to Draft or Preview (auto) doesnt do much except blur your picture, as the vid/audio still stays choppy

Are there any systems where the preview works??

And by the way I've watched many Vegas tutorials. Their previews seem to work! So rather than just accept it, isn't there something we can do?

Or maybe I am missing something and my preview just happens to be worse than everyone elses fo some reason and on this forum you guys are discussing mere minor lags...?