I have a Pentium III 733 with 1 GB ram and 7200 drives. Overall, I have no problems editing my rather simple video projects with Vegas 4.0 For me, it's a breeze! However, rendering is an issue. Plan on taking a little (or not so little break) when rendering a longer project.

Especially when using DVD Architect (and probably any other DVD authoring program, for that matter)! I had a 2 hour project and it took hours to ready the project for DVD use.

Just a little aside. Rendering 3D animation projects with my current computer set-up? For ever! I had one 30 second animation (using Caligari's trueSpace 6.5) which took over 10 hours to render to an AVI file. Of course I utlizied lots of "bells and whistles" (plug-ins) which added to the time, I'm sure!

I have a p3-667 with 512mb DDR ram and 2 80gb drives. I have NO problems with using vegas on my computer. I just made a fairly complex 1:10 promo (http://www.vegasusers.com/vidshare/textdisp?thehappyfria-pep_rally.txt) for my local school and it only took about 35 minutes to render (which is long, but chicken winges take long to cook at 8 at a time. :) ).

If use edit youe video in DV instead of another codec (like Huffy) you will get the best playback/responce time with vegas when editing. Just don't use highly compressed files (ie Windows Media files, mpeg's, divx). They slow down the editing process a lot. I ended up converting all of my divx AVI's to DV for editing purposes.

Ditto. I've a Dell Inspiron - P3,1ghtz, 256 ram, 7200rpm + 4 ext hds [7200].

For all other office type functions and graphics work, great, my dream machine - I do a lot of report writing. However, I now feel it is now containing and hobbling my DV work. That's why I'm contemplating, for me, a major ug to a separate "box" solely for DV work. Vegas4 deserves it - come to that so do I! This "minimum" spec just can't give me the speed to explore the massive virtues of V4. As Efiebke states "rendering is an issue" - as the finished product is THE only way one can sit back and view one's work - yes I know I can view on ext monitor through firewire - but this is still hampered by the lack of speed and RAM, any fxs will make the flow stop and start for the purposes of re-comp.

And yes, I too have found my setup more than adequate for editing both video and audio of simple projects. I can have credit rolls and pull in stills and produce Picture in Picture quite efficiently, and view them in Preview. But, and this is a sizable "but" go beyond this and the kit starts to creek - really. V4 is a tremendous NLE, however with the kit I've got I might as well have stayed with Video Factory - truthfully! Yes the Split A:B editing feature in V4 is superb and many other "front-end" features would not now make me migrate back to VF. I do now realise that for me, V4 does need that extra territory and real estate to expand into.

Will I ug? - Mostly likely, yes. This setup got me so far. And to be honest, I wouldn't have thought that I would now be in the position and have experienced the joy of NLE creation, I am now, if it hadn't been for my Dell Inspy. - It's just not got what it takes - for me - to develop. Was it ever thus, with PC work.

I suppose the question you need to ask yourself - "Where will I be in 6 months, 1 year or 2 years time with V4?" - I can't answer that for you. However, take on board what others say and you may well get there faster and less frustratingly if you had a bit more "beef" for V4 to deliver your dreams and creations. - Would I have done anything differently? Hmmm... interesting. But here I am trying to impress on you to open up to the idea of "bigger is better" - I suppose that is all I can do. If you are anything like me, I am always trying to "squeeze" the last "GBpound" of value from my machine, no one wants to "spend" cash when it maybe hard won money to start with - yeah? And also there will be others who will say that they have bought, built and bolted together some superb machine for 10%-20%-30% cheaper than an off-the-peg piece of equivalent kit. For me, that makes me jealous - just don't have the PC savvy.

So, in summary, it's about the management of mine and your expectations of ourselves AND what we think is a wise investment. That my friend is wisdom. Looking back at what I could/should have done - that is called hindsight, which all of us have first class honours in! Yeah?

Simple advice? - If you got the cash do it. If you do it, do it with a machine that can be quickly upgraded within the next 6 or 12 months - here I mean actual "space" within the box. Physically - "How many extra 'slots' has the MoBo?" - "How many drive/aux bays can be utilised?" - that type of UG.

UGs are part of the evolution of this crazy world of IT - IT can be expensive. IT can be frustratingly wasteful in terms of redundant kit - ask anybody how much they have "ditched" over the past 5 - 10 -15 years! IT's where I jump on and jump off, with the set-up at that time, that provides me with some option to develop a particular IT skill that is the Elysium I try to focus on. Do I listen to people's opinions and their collective wisdom? - Listen, yes. Do I act on it? not as much as I tell myself OR others I do!!!

Ho - sorry to bore you - but as I'm in the "World of UG" at present, this thread sorta took my fancy - hmmm... thanks for asking the question.

Best regards

Grazie

Sony Vaio GR390 Laptop, P3 Mobile Processor, 1.2 GHz, 512 MB Ram, ATI Mobility Radeon-D w/ 16 MB DDR SDRAM, 30 GB HD, XP Home ---- Not a single problem running Vegas!!

--Jay Mitchell

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SoCalVegasUsers/

Southern California Vegas Users Group

Membership Open to All Vegas Users

I have no problems with mine, but I am running W98SE and feel that is better suited to my system. It is also proprietary for VV4 and DVDA. If you are running a do-all machine you are making a huge mistake.
John

Try this test.

Run any mpeg2 file you may have available in Windows Media Player. Open the "statistics" window in WMP and check the playback framerate. On the machines I've checked, the WMP playback framerate has been a good indicator of how the Vegas preview window will perform.

If the WMP playback rate is low (less than 27 frames per second), you may be forced to operate the Vegas preview window in draft mode a lot more often than you would like.

To answer the simpler question - will it work? Yes. It will. I run Vegas 4.0 on a 450 mhz PIII with Windows 98. I have to deal with crummy previews and overnight renders - but it does work.

JackHughs

Yes it is! The previews aren't uber-high quality, but it's snappy enough to be very usable!

Until I upgrade, this is my machine as well, and I've had no trouble with it so far! :)