Quad Core Mobo Can't Render

ChipGallo wrote on 6/16/2008, 6:51 AM
I have a Quad Core Intel 975DX2BX2 motherboard, Q6600 CPUs, 4GB Crucial DDR2 667 RAM, with 250GB Seagate drive (system) and SATA/300 500GB Seagate drive attached in the case. Video is ATI Radeon Pro 2600 PCI-E card and dual monitors. Running Vegas 8b build 217) on Windows XP SP2. Vegas veg and media files are on the 500GB drive with render output going to the system drive. Sound card is an M-Audio 1010 LT.

Computer reliably fails to render MPEG and AVI output. The project is a veg file with 31 nested skating routines of about 3-4 minutes each. The individual routines (on their own veg files) and consist of a 3-camera edit done with VASST Ultimate S 2.3 Quad Cam script as well as audio tracks from each camera, a track with CD mpg of the skating music and a "sweetening" track for extra applause. One of the cameras is HD (Canon HV20) and the Ultimate script matches the aspect ratio with the other two SD cameras. There are a couple of "fade to black" video envelope inserts but mostly dissolves or other transitions between skating routines, made in the composite veg file. There is a short title sequence made with the Sony title software.

The entire project clocks in at one hour twenty-two minutes. MPEG 2 (Architect format) renders fail at between 1-18%. Last night an AVI render went to nearly 78% before failing.

Nothing extra is running, video acceleration is disabled. Anti-virus is disabled. The system drive has been defragged but the SATA II drive is still defragging and shows signs that it may not complete with the XP defragger (4% done last night and 4% done this morning!.) This is where the M2T files are. Captures from all three cameras were done as complete tapes and the Quad Cam script used to make switches in camera after synchronizing the 3 camera files in Vegas. I have noticed that during the render, SD camera motion is sped up and HD camera motion is less than real time.

I am considering chopping up the project into two or more pieces and trying to get a complete AVI pass that way. Another option is to buy Cineform or some other product that can render this. I have posted some of the errors to another thread and am awaiting the 8c download in hopes that I can finish this thing!

Troubleshooting to date includes installing XP SP3, uninstalling SP3 after it appeared to break the sound driver, installing and troubleshooting SP2. Defragging the system drive. Uninstalling/reinstalling Vegas. Creating revised veg files with all SD cameras (based on saving the HD footage as an AVI with cropping to 4:3); disabling the aspect ratio matching in the Ultimate Quad Cam script in the "SD" version of the project.

Ideas, comments welcome.
Chip

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 6/16/2008, 7:03 AM
I wonder if all those 31 nested vegs might have something to do with it. You could try rendering the nested vegs as AVI's and then replacing them in the project. Ultimate S Pro 4.0 can automate all this for you but I see you are still using Ultimate S 2.3.

If you want to try this, download the Ultimate S Pro 4.0 trail which will run, fully functional, for 14 days. Use the new Render tab and place all of your nested vegs in the render list and have Ultimate S Pro render them to AVI in their original folders. Once that is complete, use the Media Swapper (also on the Render tab) to swap VEG files for AVI files and it will replace all of the nested vegs in your project with the rendered avi's of the same name. Finally, save this project under a new name and try to render it.

It's worth a try.

~jr
ChipGallo wrote on 6/16/2008, 7:09 AM
Thanks, JohnnyRoy! I'm going to try that when I get home. What really bugs me is that an MPEG 2 render completed one day last week.Then I tried to adjust color and brightness/contrast on two cameras and after that (even with the plug-ins disabled) I couldn't get a render to complete. Last summer I did a similar show with Vegas 7 on the same hardware but with only two cameras and it worked fine. But the length was a bit shorter, about an hour.

thanks again,
Chip
Coursedesign wrote on 6/16/2008, 8:07 AM
It could also be that you have bad sectors on your media drive.

Do you have a spare drive you could copy all your media over to and render on it?
ChipGallo wrote on 6/16/2008, 8:18 AM
I do have another 500GB drive. If I'm understanding you correctly, I would have to recapture the tapes if any drive sectors are bad. It wouldn't be a simple copy to the new drive. Sounds like a longer effort to do next weekend (but a worthy notion).

In the meantime I can test the theory that nesting 31 veg files is a bad thing. I have access to a 2nd Vegas machine (dual core) with less RAM and it won't even load the master veg file for this project, much less try to render it! I used a removable 250GB enclosure to back up all the files and they were around 300 files and 65GB. That probably includes some DVD Architect stuff ...
David Settlemoir wrote on 6/16/2008, 9:57 AM
I'd load those 31 veg files in the Veggie Toolkit multi render and THEN add the avis to the main timeline.
ChipGallo wrote on 6/16/2008, 10:34 AM
Thanks, David. JohnnyRoy and you are telling me that 31 nested files may be too much. Rendering out to AVI's and referencing THOSE in the master veg file eliminates the nested veg issue. Is it really important what tool is is used to achieve this? I already own VASST S2 so it is an upgrade from there to version 4 whereas I will have to become familiar with Veggie Tools. I also have used S2 to mark the 3 cameras and previously to run a gallery script for an earlier DVD.

I appreciate everyone's feedback on this!
Coursedesign wrote on 6/16/2008, 11:51 AM
It shouldn't take that long for you to copy over the media to a fresh drive, and imho that would be very worthwhile. You may have a write problem, but not a read problem on that drive.

Did you ever do a disk check on the media drive?

(From Windows Explorer, right-click the media drive, then click Properties>Tools>Error-checking.)

ChipGallo wrote on 6/16/2008, 12:26 PM
I agree with you about the drive but the progression of events prior to this render failure makes me think the nested veg files are the best place to spend a few hours this week. I'll work on swapping hardware when more time is available ...

[update] I got the SeaTools Windows diagnostic for the drive and will run this before anything else. If that thing is bad ... (a) get a new one and (b) validate other tests that I might run. Internal 3.5-inch SATA NCQ 500-GB Hard Drive is the Seagate Barracuda part.

I did error check the media drive with no errors but defragging the way you describe had an access error. I kicked off a defrag from the Disk Manager screen in admin tools but it may not be working (4% last night, 4% after 6 hours of processing). That is a clue of course.
[Update -- defragging on the media drive completed successfully. The media drive passed all Seagate testing too, as did my system drive which turned out to be another Seagate but with 8MB buffer.]

thanks,
Chip
Darren Powell wrote on 6/16/2008, 7:07 PM
Mmm ... I have a very similar mobo to you Chip (it could be the same one ... but I don't have the DX2 bit ?) ... an Intel Bad Axe 2 D975XBX2 ... and I can't render on my quad either ... lots of people on the forum have encountered my ranting and raving about it ... I've tried everything and I'm sweating on 8.0c ... could it be something to do with the mobo / quad thing still ... ?

Darren Powell
Sydney Australia
ChipGallo wrote on 6/16/2008, 7:27 PM
Darren -- if it is a Quad thing, why would I ever have gotten an MPEG2 render on this rig? I have done several successful renders. I built several rewritable DVD test discs as I went along culminating in one last week (before I got all 31 veg files completed. It was only after I added the color and brightness filters that things went downhill.

Up until recently my focus was on Quad Cam editing and picking the right shots. I am glad I finished the creative aspect before the rendering troubles began. Now I am in troubleshooting mode, as well as listening to people who somehow make a living doing this :-) albeit on multiple editing platforms in many cases.

Have you tried cutting back the render threads in the extended preferences? You know, holding down the "shift" key while hitting preferences. There definitely could be a Quad Core issue but I would expect that Sony quality would catch it in their compatibility lab or whatever it is called ...
UlfLaursen wrote on 6/16/2008, 9:10 PM
Hi

I have almost the same config as you Chip - just other make of ram and other ati GPU, and I render mpeg and AVI fine from DV matr. I have edited a litle HDV too without probs. but only minor HDV projects so far. It's hard to figure what it is - I think we all wait for 8.0C :-)

/Ulf
farss wrote on 6/16/2008, 10:28 PM
I'm pretty confident I know at least one of the root causes, correctable errors in the m2t file.
On my lowly Core Duo system when it hits one Vegas 8.0b stalls processing the one frame for minutes, at times 5 minutes and the HDD light is hard on. It eventually gets there though. The same hiccup possibly in combination with other goings on a Quad seems to lead to a crash.

Some people don't have any problems. They convert to Cineform, capture from HD60 HDD recorders or use "HDV Tape". Darren seems to have bypassed this problem by converting his m2t files to Sony YUV first.

I don't have any definative answers to why it doesn't seem to crash on a Core Duo or Core 2 CPU. I'd be pretty certain it'd not be a simple problem to track down though. It could even be hardware related, those QCore CPUs seem to need a fearsome amounts of amps at a quite low voltage. The OC guys reckon they can increase the OC capability of their mobos by replacing the capacitors in the on board CPU power supplies. Maybe having all 4 cores running for minutes at 100% ultimately causes a fatal glitch in the supply to the CPU.

Bob.
Darren Powell wrote on 6/17/2008, 3:07 AM
Hi Chip,

Yep, I've tried everything ... I've held down the shift key to get to the extended prefs ... I've taken the render threads and sewn them into a pair of blue jeans ... I've poured coffee into the quadcores just as I've hit the enter button while holding down the alt key ... I've upped the voltage going into the powersupply on the computer by 4000 volts ... and I've removed 666 audio tracks from my project just to free up some RAM!!

Nope, Vegas Pro 8.0b just doesn't want to render!

Catch you on the other side of 8.0c

Cheers,

Darren Powell
Sydney Australia

(PS. has anyone seen my marbles?)

:-)
ChipGallo wrote on 6/17/2008, 9:17 AM
Right now I'm proceeding to validate the hardware (drives, memory, etc.) Then I will simplify the master veg file by rendering out the nested veg files to AVIs.

I think we are looking at multiple causes for this apparently render failure. I certainly didn't set out to "stress test" the software nor did my customer. I appreciate everyone who chimed in with possible solutions, but it would be surprising if Vegas 8c cured even the majority of the issues!

Chip

ChipGallo wrote on 6/18/2008, 9:30 AM
Forging ahead on rendering AVIs from the individual veg files. I am doing this manually for the 31 files and so far around 7 have worked with no failures using 3-5 minutes long files. I rendered a test MPEG for DVD Architect *(25 minutes long) and it was successful using the rendered AVIs in place of a compilation of veg files. Vegas had an error on closing the application at the very end but it did save an MPEG 2 file which had sound and audio.