Preview window is choppy in Vegas 4 (11.43fps)

JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/16/2003, 7:04 AM
I’m hoping this is just a parameter tweak somewhere. In Vegas 3 my preview playback is as smooth as silk. In the Vegas 4 beta my preview playback was as smooth as silk. Since it was about to expire, I uninstalled the beta and downloaded the demo of Vegas 4 until I can upgrade in March. When I preview the exact same video clip in Vegas 4 it plays back very choppy using Preview (Auto). Like it’s stuttering. The voice seems almost out of sync with the picture. I even changed the preview window to Draft (Auto) and its still choppy. What’s strange is that when I play the clip in Vegas 3, my hard drive light is almost steady and the video is smooth. In Vegas 4 my hard drive light is pulsating (i.e. choppy) just like the video. I tried a rolling credit and got the same choppiness. There wasn’t any hard drive activity to do that. The same credit in Vegas 3 rolls smoothly.

In the status area of the preview window on Vegas 3 it says Display: 360x240x32, 29.97 when playing a clip. In Vegas 4 status area is says Display: 360x240x32, 11.43. Why can’t Vegas 4 display faster than 11.43 fps with just one track with a DV AVI on it? I also noticed that when I start playback in Vegas 3 the status immediately says 29.97 and stays there, but when I start playback in Vegas 4 the status flashed 29.97 for a brief second, and then drops down to 7.xx and slowly climbs up to 11.43fps after about 5 seconds. It never gets faster that 11.43fps from Draft (Auto) right up to Best (Full). Same results every time. Even if I just play back a solid color generated media. I can’t get it to play back faster than 11.43fps.

What changed from the beta to the real product that could cause this? What can I look for in the preferences to possibly change? I haven’t tried yet but I usually PTT from the timeline and this doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy that its going to work smoothly. I have a Dell 8100 P4 1.7GHz, 512MB memory, 60GB primary/30GB separate capture drive, nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200. I don’t think its my computer since Vegas 3 and the Vegas 4 beta ran smoothly. Anyone got any ideas?

~jr

Comments

Tyler.Durden wrote on 2/16/2003, 7:59 AM
Hi JR,

You might try disabling "smart" resampling on a test event to see if it makes a diff...


Worth a shot...


mph
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/16/2003, 9:09 AM
Hey Marty,

Nope. Disabling smart resample had no effect. Still plays back at 11.43 fps. It's so frustrating 'cuz the beta ran so smooth.

~jr
Tyler.Durden wrote on 2/16/2003, 9:19 AM
Motion blur bypassed at the track header?

Temp and prerender files same folders?

mph
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/16/2003, 10:46 AM
Nope, tried motion blur bypass on the track but it didn't change anything and the temp and prerender folders are the same.

What’s really strange is that if I just load Vegas 4, don’t add any tracks and just press Play it still slowly works it way up to 11.43. So I don’t think this has anything to do with the media. I’m beginning to suspect video drivers. Perhaps Vegas 3 used DirectX 8 but Vegas 4 uses DirectX 9 and my video drivers are not optimized for DirectX 9 video overlay? (ok, ok, I’m really shootin’ the dark here now, I know...) It’s just weird that with no media on the timeline I’m still limited to 11.43 fps.

~jr
Tyler.Durden wrote on 2/16/2003, 10:57 AM
Hi jr,

ram settings?

jkl shuttle settings?


ps I'm still dx8, i think...
JJKizak wrote on 2/16/2003, 11:54 AM
Check your IRQ's to make sure nothing got flopped around during some
of the upgrades especially video drivers. Sometimes (ATI) will dump
an IRQ for another which might cause you some compatibility issues.

JJK
DataMeister wrote on 2/16/2003, 12:04 PM
Does the clip preview (from the media pool) play full speed or does it also loose frames?

JBJones
vitamin_D wrote on 2/16/2003, 12:30 PM
Check to see if you've got your scopes open, as well. Closing them stopped momentary shimmers I experienced with V4, but not VV3.

- jim
PDB wrote on 2/16/2003, 12:45 PM
Have you tried preveiwing at "preview full" on external monitor? Seemed to work for me...
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/16/2003, 8:05 PM
You guys are really great for helping me with this. I know how difficult it is to debug something remotely. It’s usually my friends who are calling me on the phone to help them debug a computer problem and I’m trying to visualize the screens in my head as I walk then through various scenarios.

Marty, Dynamic RAM preview was set to 16MB. I changed it to 32MB and created a RAM preview but the results were the same. Vegas 3 only had Dynamic RAM set to 16MB. I have 512MB of RAM and a fixed 768MB swap file. The JKL settings are set to medium.

JJK, I didn’t play with the video drivers yet. Just uninstalled the Vegas 4 beta and installed Vegas 4 demo.

JBJones, Yes, when I preview the clip from the media pool its looses frames as well. Although it’s not so much I’m loosing frames as the playback seems to be capped at 11.43. Remember, just a solid color generated media (which is all in memory) still plays back at 11.43.

Jim, Haven’t even played with the scopes yet. Just installed it, dropped a clip on the time line and couldn’t believe the choppy video.

PDB, External monitor preview is choppy too.

OK... so just to be sure I wasn’t loosing my mind, I uninstalled the demo build 115 and reinstalled the Beta (Build 74) (2 days left) and I’m back to 29.97 fps playback, smooth as silk. This is most puzzling. Something changed from the beta build 74 to GA build 115 that my system doesn’t like.

So just to confirm: I changed nothing else on my computer. Just reinstalled the beta and it plays back all my clips at 29.97 fps. Uninstalled the beta and installed build 115 and I’m back to a top speed of 11.43 fps. I’m hoping that when the SoFo comes in tomorrow they see this post and have an idea of what they may have changed between these two build.

Thanks for all your help guys.

~jr
Tyler.Durden wrote on 2/16/2003, 8:15 PM
Yeah, looks like ya got it nailed to the release ver.


We'll be keeping tabs on this one.


mph
DataMeister wrote on 2/17/2003, 12:59 AM
Ok. So all clips play at the 11.43 frame rate, whether they are coming off the time line or a straight preview. That should eliminate any possibility of a hidden plugin being turned on or something.

You didn't say whether you computer is running DirectX 9 or DX8. If you are still on DX8 then I suppose there could be something in the final release of V4 that uses DX9. Try installing that I guess. I have DX9 running fine with my GeForce2 card and the 40.72 drivers. If DX9 is already installed on your system then I would not expect it to be causing the problem difference between the BETA and the final.

Something else you might could look at is whether the square pixels are turned on by default in V4 Final. That uses up CPU cycles trying to squish everything into the right aspect ratio. But even still, I wouldn't expect it to cut the frame rate in half.

I'll keep thinking in case these don't work.

JBJones

Tyler.Durden wrote on 2/17/2003, 6:15 AM
This just in...

Ed K on the Cow, just resolved jerky playback by modifying pagefile settings, on the suggestion by Craig F:

"[Ed Kinnear] "Windows XP Home.........what is a pagefile? "

Sorry, I take things for granted sometimes... Pagefile is virtual memory. A file on the disk that is used as "extra memory"....

Right-click "My Computer", click properties. On the "Advanced", you will see section called "Performance". Cick "Settings".

On this property sheet, click the "Advanced" tab. At the bottom there is a section for Virtual Memory. Click the "Change" button.

You can have a system managed pagefile or a custom. Set it to custom, and make sure the pagefile is on your C: only... Rule of thumb is that your pagefile should be about 2 times your RAM. Windows also likes to set this as a variable size...like 768-1024MB. It is actually better to use the same value for min and max size...so if you have 512MB of RAM, just use 1024 for min and max.

Craig "



Might be worth lookin into...



mph
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/17/2003, 9:07 AM
JBJones, I checked and it’s not using square pixels. I’m running DX8.1 and I also suspect it may be something in DX9 that SoFo took advantage of in the final release. I’m using the Detonator 40.72 drivers with my GeForce4 also. I have Ulead Cool 3D Studio and there is a support person on the Ulead forums that said nVidia admits to a bug in their 40.72 drivers that causes Cool 3D Studio to render slower and nVidia said they would fix it in their latest drivers. Ulead is suggesting customers use an older driver as a workaround. Nvidia only has the WHQL Candidate on their site so I was waiting for that to be the “official” driver and try it. (I hate to put beta drivers on my video PC). Maybe I’ll try that next.

Marty, I doubt that this is a performance related problem since in-memory events are also locked at 11.43 fps, but you did remind me that I bought more memory last month and never increased my fixed swap file so I just booted into Safe mode (WinMe) deleted my swap file, defragged by C: drive, and reallocated a fixed 1024MB swap file (which is 2X my 512MB memory) and rebooted. I still can’t get better than 11.43 but at least that’s one thing less on my list of todos. ;-)

~jr
Tyler.Durden wrote on 2/17/2003, 1:07 PM
Hi jr,

Yeah, At least *that* is checked-off... without re-reading I recalled you mentioning the drive activity...

Having just re-read, You also mentioned the credit-roll not using drive accesses, but still stuttering....

FWIW, I have no evidence DX is involved, other than one of the SoFo techs inquired a user about versions here on the board... Considering the SoFo folks were all over the board, and now are sporadic again; I'd guess they are busy combing the last build for stuff like this. You can be sure they are following our comments to see what clues are turned up.



mph
DataMeister wrote on 2/17/2003, 1:45 PM
That's interesting to know about Cool3D Studio. I upgrade at the first of the year to the Studio version but I haven't had an extensive need to use it yet (other than just playing around to learn the interface). I was also waiting for the 41.09 nVidia drivers to be WHQL approved before upgrading. I do have a project coming this spring that requires the use use of Cool3D, so maybe nVidia (or Microsoft) will have the new drivers WHQL ready by then.

I kind of figured nVidia was probably waiting for the Geforce FX before they finalized the WHQL on v41.09.

JBJones
DataMeister wrote on 2/17/2003, 2:46 PM
Something else I just noticed on the Vegas specs, is the minimum requirements which says DirectX 8.

Perhaps the problem is only with the nVidia drivers. I'm personally still waiting for the boxed version of Vegas 4. So I can't tell if my drivers will cause a problem or not.

Does anyone else out there with nVidia Detonator drivers v40.72, NOT have this frame rate problem in the Vegas 4 final release?

JBJones
SonyDennis wrote on 2/17/2003, 2:56 PM
JohnnyRoy:

I just sent you an email.

///d@
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/17/2003, 10:47 PM
Dennis, Got it and sent a reply. I really appreciate your help.

~jr
pike_bishop wrote on 2/18/2003, 7:43 AM
I've been experiencing exatcly the same thing Johnny Roy, Vegas 4 beta smooth playback, if I turn the scopes on I had to render to ram but got got smooth playback then. Now with the final version of 4 I get 10 or 11 fps (I use PAL). If I ram preview I still get the same ammount of fps. I did wonder if it was due to not having Direct X9 on my machine. Did you manage to sort this out? If so I'd be very grateful to find out how you did.

Thanks
Martin
Jessariah67 wrote on 2/18/2003, 9:31 AM
Same problem here, too. I'm on DirectX 9, just installed the new drivers for my video card (Radeon 9000, 128MB) and VV4 is stuttering video playback AND audio playback. VV3 was sweet, as was VV4 Beta. This is extremely frustrating, considering I'm in the middle of a 14-segment project and can't "go back" to VV3 until this is resolved.

If anybody discovers a fix, please post it.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/18/2003, 10:55 AM
Dennis is working with me on this via email. I will absolutely post the result here once we figure out what it is. It’s interesting to see people with DirectX 9 have the problem too and that its not unique to nVidia cards either. I tried turning off graphics hardware acceleration and it had no effect. I also upgraded to the 41.09 drivers with no change.

This is very strange. I’ll keep ‘ya posted. (no pun intended) ;-)

JBJones, Ulead has a patch for Cool 3D Studio to increase the performance (and fix some bugs). Make sure you get it. Also Cool 3D Studio renders twice as fast if your desktop is 16 bit vs. 32 bit. Very strange but true. It has some nice particle effects but not as nice as ParticleIllusion. I think it was well worth the upgrade.

~jr
pike_bishop wrote on 2/18/2003, 11:27 AM
Thanks Johnny

Martin
SonyDennis wrote on 2/18/2003, 3:03 PM
To: Anyone who is seeing this problem as described by JohnnyRoy

What audio hardware / sound card are you using, and which settings in the Options > Preferences > Audio Device page (type, buffering).

Many thanks.

///d@