Running with the new graphics driver quite well so far.

great!

Would still give them a kick and get the latest.

PS.
"8.17.12.8044" is the driver i found, and yours is "280.44". We are talking about the same driver so it seems :)

Paul.

I've been running a good ten minutes straight without a crash with the GPU enabled. That may not seem like much, but I had been getting crashes every three or four minutes without the GPU enabled, and even less time with it on. It is running well enough now that I hate to shake the cart.

>PS.

That would explain why it is working so well.

Another strangeness I can't reproduce consistently: After changing the "display" preferences to put the timeline on top and doing several saves while working, when I exited the program I got the "Vegas has stopped working" dialog. When I reopened the project, all work had been saved but timeline was back on bottom. Put it back on top. Save. Exit. Crash. Reopen. Timeline back on bottom.
Third time worked. Exited without crash, reopened with timeline on top. ??

edit: This was a project I began last night for testing purposes. When I opened it this morning, I immediately changed the interface to my preferred "timeline on top." And the crashing began. I was working on this project for over twenty minutes, doing manual saves. When I just checked, I found that no new autosaves had been generated since I changed the preferences. I only have the one with date and time from last night. Autosave is still checked in preferences.

I left the program open for over ten minutes, constantly refreshing the explorer folder where the veg.bak file is. No updates. So I do a manual save. Now the veg.bak has the current time and date. Could some sort of discrepancy between the veg and veg.bak have been causing the exit crashes and not saving the layout? Are the autosaves not happening consistently in 11? I'm going to keep watching this.

I still get a crash and a debug message every time I quit Vegas. Preferences seem to be saved thou so it is just an annoyance.

Apparently, (plus a bit of gut feeling here) if you use the very latest beta this helps fix the crash on exit. In addition to the 511 build.

Paul.

atom12, i checked the autosave function here just to see if its working and there is strangeness indeed.
The autosave file is saved using the "Vegas Temp Folder" in vegas prefs->general.

C:\Users\YOUR_NAME\AppData\Local\Sony\Vegas Pro\11.0

And its saved as a .veg with a prefix filename and the word "autosave" in the filename too.
Is this supposed to update every 5 minutes with autosave ON? Because it does not. Only when you make an actual edit, then its saved. I see no timer action here, just save on changes. The help does indeed say " after 5 minutes", but i dont see that.

So whats that all about?

Paul.

Laurence:
I just finished making some small veg changes in V11 32bit 510 and saved and it did the same thing. Never happened before. Didn't loose anything.
JJK

I know this might be an incredibly naive question but don't major software companies do a some sort of beta testing on products (and updates) before they are released to the general public? And if that's so in this case, what happened? I would guess even a small beta testing of say a couple of dozen participants would let Sony know there are major bugs and would continue to do testing/solving/rewriting code before releasing anything to the general public.

Does that make sense or am I missing something?

And I'm not saying this to be a wise-a$$, I am a loyal Vegas user no matter what, but I really am curious about this.

Paul W,
Mine now seems to be updating at least sometimes when I make an edit - sometimes not. Maybe it's "5 minutes plus a change" that causes it, but it was not updating at all until the crash-on-exit stopped and preference changes were successfully saved. And the veg.bak in the autosave folder - if it's a useful "bak", shouldn't it be updating at the same rate? Maybe my logic doesn't apply to what it's actually doing, but the autosaved veg.bak is timestamped somewhere between the actual project veg.bak and the current autosaved .veg timestamp.

And maybe this is all meaningless and it's is the way it's supposed to be.

"Maybe it's "5 minutes plus a change" "..
yes could be. I monitored for about 15 minutes and there were no changes made to the autosave file. Then as soon as i cut a track, bang, the autosave updated occured. But after that, i dont know. So yes, could be:
after an edit, update, unless we just updated within the last 5 minutes then wait for next update time. Something like that.

I see the .bak file only after an exit of the project. The other .veg (in the temp folder) seems to be the 5 minute/edit autosave.

So maybe its working.

Paul.

Leee,
Much argument about "we are paying beta testers" against "Vegas is fine we are not beta testers"... Ohhh, you decide!

You have a legit point, but it brings with it flames and bulletts :0)

Paul.

>"Also, on our 6-core 980X system V11 only used 60% of the CPU & therefore renders speeds were 30% - 40% slower. Tried reducing threads, etc. and it only became slower..."
---

If it helps at all, I've seen that sort of thing a lot when GPU accel was turned on/working, but not well, or at least not as well as hoped. :-) In those situations I normally turn the GPU accel off & see which route is faster.

* * *

>"Main Concept "Internet VIdeo 720p" at BEST quality is crashing 100% of the time for me (the crash dialog opens and asks me what I was doing - "sitting, watching, waiting for the crash to happen").
If I set the output to BEST the project (a 15 second TV spot) completes the render, but I end up with one or more dropped frames OR a blue frame (or several).
I see no improvement in 511 for the issue that was killing me. This was ONE project I was trying to complete with VP11. I'm rolling back to 10. sigh."
---

Purely FWIW, problem I've had with Vegas MC encoders is that encoders in newer versions of Vegas at least partly take over -- I had to skip Vegas 10 for example because it broke encoding for me identically in both v.9 & v.10. Seems the same sort of thing in v.9 & v.11, but the MC encoders work for me this time round. That said, I've had enough problems with mpg2 green screening on the timeline because of the GPU accel code, that anytime I need to import mpg2 I start the project in Vegas 9, then see how a copy of the project behaves in v. 11 before I go any further. With mpg2 on the timeline, I can often eliminate green screen problems if I turn GPU accel on, but then I can't render to file -- turn GPU off & I can render, but no idea what I'm editing & later rendering because of the green screens.

* * *

>"...you have paid for v10 and its only right that should be supported for a while further 'after' the release of v11. "
---

Personally I'm not making any judgement on this, but when you buy/install a software product it's like buying any other product, a washer or drier or TV -- depending on the seller you may or may not be able to return it soon after purchase, but other than that it's yours, you own it. There may or may not be any warranty against defects, but then there are always issues around what constitutes a defect vs. what's poor or maybe even terrible performance. Free support, when offered, is driven by marketing -- it's an effort to build brand loyalty in hopes you'll make future purchases & help sales by word of mouth. And if/when you want the new shiny, you have to pay for it.

Now when it comes to software you can sometimes try it out and sometimes return it, but regardless, the license terms most always state that there's no warranty, no guarantee of compatibility or suitability for any purpose. Right or wrong the buyer agrees to the license terms before any software's installed. If a software version has a free update, it's done for the same reason as any other free support, for marketing purposes -- the company's usually under no obligation what-so-ever. That said, things are tempered by the courts & the possibility of lawsuits, so many companies making all sorts of products provide free updates when a problem is so bad that they fear being sued -- that may be where/why many people have come to expect things to be fixed for free.

In the case of people running earlier versions, e.g. your Vegas v. 10, it would seem to make little or no marketing sense for the Sony Creative crew to write any further updates unless some glaringly huge problem surfaced. For one thing they're out of work if nobody buys v. 11. For another, if they spend money employing people to write code, that money's better spent improving v.11 so that they can make more sales, and hopefully more profits -- every copy of v. 10 has not only been paid for, but that money's long spent. That leaves customer relations as pretty much the sole, remaining motivation for any v.10 updates. If you're selling something who's the better customer, the one willing to pay you once every year or the one who only buys once every few years? Which customer would you spend your time pursuing? About all you can do [short of upgrading] is to try & convince Sony Creative that updating v. 10 once or twice more is worth the cost -- you mentioned Windows, & XP is a great example of a version that was extended more or less by popular demand, where Microsoft became convinced that they'd lose more customers & more revenues long term if they didn't. Vista OTOH is an example where Microsoft seems to be sticking to their contractual minimums, which were included in the price of the licenses.
---
>"Now if you said something like, my left hand side headlamp never worked from day one - yes you would be upset and would expect a fix (update) even after they released a new model of car with air bags. And you could still drive the car but would either get pulled by cops or have an accident. "
---
Ran auto service & here's how it works, Paul... If you bought a car you received a warranty or not. If you didn't get a warranty, it was up to you to spot the headlight being out before purchase, or you can only hope that the seller is nice enough to help you out for kindness or PR sake. If you got a warranty, & if the headlight was covered, you'd have to bring it to the shop providing warranty service before the time or mileage limit expired. If you got a ticket or in an accident before you had it fixed, that's entirely on you -- as it says in the manual, it's your responsibility to keep your car in running order, & that includes making sure both headlights work.

Applied to software, in this case Vegas v. 10, you had the opportunity to try it for at least 30 days before you bought it -- if it didn't do what you wanted/needed you shouldn't have, because I'm near certain no one signed a contract saying any changes would be made to the app. Personally I tried v. 10 & it wouldn't work for me, so I had a choice -- I could either buy it with the early discount & hope it was later fixed, or I could wait & see, paying the higher price if I bought it later. I waited, it was never fixed, my gamble playing it safe paid off. Had I bought it I could have raved & ranted all I wanted, but the truth is I'd only have had myself to blame.

* * *

>"... While I like it very much, what is incredibly frustrating is that the graphics card will only accept Lenovo released drivers and they are out of date. When I try to install the direct nVidia drivers I get a "no compatible hardware" message and the install quits. I will start complaining to Lenovo loudly, but I have no high expectations that this will accomplish much"</em>

A regular, so-called desktop PC uses industry standard, often interchangeable parts. Take maybe 20 brands of motherboards & say 10 models per brand, & many will use the same chipsets connected pretty much the very same way. Realtek for example makes some of those chips, supplies reference engineering designs & drivers, & those drivers will work across all PCs using all of those motherboards. Graphics cards work the same way -- they're designed to plug into standard slots, working with standard motherboard chipsets using standard circuitry. Many all-in-ones &/or laptops are non-standard, using boards &/or circuitry designed just for one or a few models, so standard, reference drivers don't apply. 'Bout all you can do is Google/Bing, hoping someone found something that would work, whether a driverset or mod, or get with the manufacturer's rep & see if they'll give you something unreleased that may work, e.g. a Beta.
---
>"Go shout at Lenovo. You need to update and they need to help you."
---

Why? I mean what does Lenovo actually, legally owe? The situation I briefly described re: drivers has been well known for as long as there have been laptops, what's it been, roughly 20 years? I've run into similar issues with printers & other hardware for at least that long. Generally a PC/laptop (or component) manufacturer is obligated to deliver a working product, & anything beyond that is spelled out in the original contracts, including the one for the warranty. Companies making motherboards & graphics cards have always stopped providing new drivers as soon as the product was no longer sold new. If a client paid you 5 years ago for a SD project, are you going to redo it in HD for free today?

* * *

>"..."Vegas has stopped working" dialog. When I reopened the project, all work had been saved but timeline was back on bottom. Put it back on top. Save. Exit. Crash. Reopen. Timeline back on bottom. Third time worked. Exited without crash, reopened with timeline on top. ??
---

If Vegas doesn't exit normally some changed settings/preferences won't be saved -- start a fresh project, & before doing anything set whatever & close Vegas, and next time you start it those settings should be saved.

* * *
>"I still get a crash and a debug message every time I quit Vegas. Preferences seem to be saved thou so it is just an annoyance"
---

Check Windows error logs? Try Process Monitor &/or Process Explorer [both free at Microsoft.com]? Try shutting down running software? Try Google/Bing with part or all of the error message as search string?...

OT but FWIW, people complain about software, hardware, drivers etc. all the time, & almost invariably someone says something about it still being in beta etc., usually saying it should have received more testing. However I've yet to see someone not just willing but equally anxious to pay for it.

There were millions of copies of win7 Beta out there being used on all sorts of hardware, & while MS maybe caught most of the bugs, by no means did they catch them all. And getting those copies of win7 beta out there, then collecting, analyzing, & acting on the data they received was a huge, expensive task. And win7 still wasn't totally bug free out the door.

Sure I wish there were some things that worked better in Vegas Pro 11, but all in all, pragmatically speaking I'm satisfied with what I got for money spent. There are alternatives both better & worse, some cheaper, some not, but again being pragmatic, it's that way with any software &/or any product. It's my money -- it's my job to decide how to spend it -- it's my job to do whatever homework beforehand if I want the most bang for my buck. Or put another way, if I buy a $500 beater & expect it to perform like a new BMW, the only one I can rightfully complain to is the fellow staring back at me in the mirror. :-)