This is for Vegas 10.0e, but I think this may affect Vegas 11.x as well.
I have a very simple project consisting of 1920x1080 60p AVCHD video from my Sony CX700V. Cuts-only (with transitions), plus some audio work. Half hour in total. The only "fX" used was the Mercalli 2.0 plugin (the purchased plugin, not the built-in plugin, version 2.0.96 r77). I documented in another thread that Vegas would not retain the Mercalli stabilization in the rendered version (when rendering to MPEG-2 for DVD), so the workaround suggested was to render individual events to Cineform (which did retain the stabilization) and put these individual Cineform video files on the track above the original event (you can't add them as takes because Mercalli then applies the stabilization to the already-stabilized event, creating the mirror image of the motion in the original clip!).
There are two 1600x1200 still photos at the end, a single MP3 audio track used for opening and closing music, and a title track with about three dozen lower-thirds using the old Vegas text generator. In short: one of the simplest possible projects.
Here's where it gets interesting.
When I tried to render to MPEG-2 using the DVD Architect Widescreen template (modified to 2-pass), Vegas crashed every single time, after about twenty minutes (it should take about ninety minutes to complete). The crash was accompanied by a "low on memory" message, despite the fact that Task Manager showed plenty of memory.
I tried changing the RAM Preview memory, but that made no difference. I tried re-booting and then immediately opening Vegas and rendering. No luck.
I then went back to the project and removed all events to which Mercalli had been applied. Remember, these were on the track below the Cineform clips that I created for each stabilized event so, theoretically, they should not be accessed at all (I left them there so I could still access the original media).
After removing these events, I went to the Project Media list, and clicked the lightning bolt to remove all unused media. I saved the VEG under a new file name/version number.
This time I was able to render without a crash.
So, while this is just one single situation on one individual user's computer, it does seem to confirm what I have suspected, namely that any non-Sony software or plugin must be the first thing to look at when dealing with instabilities or odd situations. It also tends to support the dichotomy that I have witnessed the past few years (since Vegas 10 was first shipped) that some people report no stability problems, while others can't get past first base. While it is possible that some issues may still relate to hardware, I haven't seen much evidence, from those who have reported solving their problems, that this has much to do with anything, other than the very real issues surrounding GPU rendering (my particular problem has nothing to do with GPU, since GPU assist for MPEG-2 rendering does not exist on Vegas 10).
Oh, and for those who want every last detail (system specs, you know), this was rendered on my Polywell custom computer using an i7 Intel processor, under Windows XP Pro SP3 32-bit with 6 GB of RAM (obviously more than can be used by 32-bit Windows) and an nVidia GeForce 9800 GT video card.
I have a very simple project consisting of 1920x1080 60p AVCHD video from my Sony CX700V. Cuts-only (with transitions), plus some audio work. Half hour in total. The only "fX" used was the Mercalli 2.0 plugin (the purchased plugin, not the built-in plugin, version 2.0.96 r77). I documented in another thread that Vegas would not retain the Mercalli stabilization in the rendered version (when rendering to MPEG-2 for DVD), so the workaround suggested was to render individual events to Cineform (which did retain the stabilization) and put these individual Cineform video files on the track above the original event (you can't add them as takes because Mercalli then applies the stabilization to the already-stabilized event, creating the mirror image of the motion in the original clip!).
There are two 1600x1200 still photos at the end, a single MP3 audio track used for opening and closing music, and a title track with about three dozen lower-thirds using the old Vegas text generator. In short: one of the simplest possible projects.
Here's where it gets interesting.
When I tried to render to MPEG-2 using the DVD Architect Widescreen template (modified to 2-pass), Vegas crashed every single time, after about twenty minutes (it should take about ninety minutes to complete). The crash was accompanied by a "low on memory" message, despite the fact that Task Manager showed plenty of memory.
I tried changing the RAM Preview memory, but that made no difference. I tried re-booting and then immediately opening Vegas and rendering. No luck.
I then went back to the project and removed all events to which Mercalli had been applied. Remember, these were on the track below the Cineform clips that I created for each stabilized event so, theoretically, they should not be accessed at all (I left them there so I could still access the original media).
After removing these events, I went to the Project Media list, and clicked the lightning bolt to remove all unused media. I saved the VEG under a new file name/version number.
This time I was able to render without a crash.
So, while this is just one single situation on one individual user's computer, it does seem to confirm what I have suspected, namely that any non-Sony software or plugin must be the first thing to look at when dealing with instabilities or odd situations. It also tends to support the dichotomy that I have witnessed the past few years (since Vegas 10 was first shipped) that some people report no stability problems, while others can't get past first base. While it is possible that some issues may still relate to hardware, I haven't seen much evidence, from those who have reported solving their problems, that this has much to do with anything, other than the very real issues surrounding GPU rendering (my particular problem has nothing to do with GPU, since GPU assist for MPEG-2 rendering does not exist on Vegas 10).
Oh, and for those who want every last detail (system specs, you know), this was rendered on my Polywell custom computer using an i7 Intel processor, under Windows XP Pro SP3 32-bit with 6 GB of RAM (obviously more than can be used by 32-bit Windows) and an nVidia GeForce 9800 GT video card.