Render time keeps increasing...

WolfsDragoon wrote on 7/7/2015, 12:35 PM
I used to be able to render Internet 1080 videos at nearly 1:1 time. As I continue working on my two uploads per week onto youtube the videos have been rendering slower and slower, finally reaching the current video rendering at 1:7 time. I'm using the same settings, the same source folder, the same destination folder, always make sure Vegas is running with no distractions and high priority.

My question (tl:dr): why is my rendering getting slower every video?

Comments

Former user wrote on 7/7/2015, 12:39 PM
Drives getting full, dying or some other process is running that you aren't aware of.
WolfsDragoon wrote on 7/7/2015, 1:25 PM
Still have over half a tera free on both drives, the one I'm using for Vegas and the one I'm using for source/output. Also just checked processes and nope, same as always.

Any other ideas? Really hope it's not the drive dying. :(
dxdy wrote on 7/7/2015, 1:30 PM
Dust build up and heating, CPU slows down to keep from frying itself.

Rogue process running - maybe even a virus.
rs170a wrote on 7/7/2015, 1:44 PM
Have you increased the amount of preview RAM? When I do that and forget to set it back to default (200), my render times are MUCH longer.

Mike
rmack350 wrote on 7/7/2015, 1:45 PM
You could archive the destination drive and reformat. Drives write faster at the edge of the disk than closer to the spindle, and perhaps files aren't being written sequentially anyway. Normally I'd assume that a destination drive doesn't need huge performance but if you were starting with a 1:1 render time then you were writing pretty fast.

Or it could be anything else. Maybe it's the source drive slowing down, for the same reasons.

Rob
WolfsDragoon wrote on 7/7/2015, 1:46 PM
Hadn't considered the possibility of a virus slipping through my defenses. Will have to run a scan. I doubt it's dust build up due to the time changing every few days. CPU is running cool at all times, 11 fans, heat sink, etc keeps the CPU happy, but it is still only running at 60% or so in most cores. I feel like it's a hard drive problem more than CPU but before I assumed the HDD was failing I wanted to see if there were other possibilities. I'll run a render to my document HDD when I get a chance and see if my AV HDD is the culprit. Will report back with results.
WolfsDragoon wrote on 7/7/2015, 1:49 PM
That's a shiny idea. Before buying a new HDD I'll be sure to try archive-reformat. Maybe even defrag would help, now that I think of it.
Chienworks wrote on 7/7/2015, 3:30 PM
Defrag will make just about zero difference. You'll waste far more time running it once than you'll save in renderings over the lifetime of the drive.
WolfsDragoon wrote on 7/7/2015, 7:11 PM
So moving the source videos and destination to one of my SSDs did seemingly nothing to help the render time. Running a scan for malware and viruses now. May try reinstalling sony Vegas if nothing turns up. This is making no sense to me. Processor isn't overloaded, Hard drive doesn't seem to be the culprit, only thing I can think of now is either software error, RAM, or Graphics card.
WolfsDragoon wrote on 7/7/2015, 8:03 PM
Checking my settings I have been using CPU only rendering, so graphics card is off the hook. Bout to boot into BIOS to check that my RAM is still functioning properly and will edit this post with the results.

RAM is functioning flawlessly. I'm hoping this is just a software issue. Unless there's some kind of buffer folder Vegas uses that is getting full despite the HDD having plenty of room left on it. I'll wait til morning to see any suggestions that may crop up before uninstalling and reinstalling Vegas Pro.
WolfsDragoon wrote on 7/7/2015, 9:39 PM
Ok. I got impatient and reinstalled Vegas Pro... I'm back to 1:1 render time... I am happy, but confused.

How do I prevent the slowdown from happening again? What did reinstalling do?

My only thought is that there is some buffer folder or something hidden somewhere that gets wiped on a fresh install. Any thoughts?
Former user wrote on 7/7/2015, 9:55 PM
Might check the location of your temp folders. Maybe something balling up there.
rmack350 wrote on 7/7/2015, 11:13 PM
Rs170a's note about preview RAM is certainly a possibility because a high Preview RAM setting takes RAM away from general processing. If you have it very very high you can force Vegas (or Windows in general) to start caching to disk. A reinstall would've set the preview RAM setting to its default value.

Your profile says you're running with 32GB of RAM. It seems illogical that Vegas would hit a roadblock there but if you run into this again you should consider resetting Vegas to it's default RAM Preview value, then rebooting and testing your render time again. Just because you have 32GB doesn't mean that Vegas is using it.

Rob

WolfsDragoon wrote on 7/8/2015, 9:02 AM
Judging by the increase in render time each video I am inclined to believe it was the temp folder or some similar feature building up. I didn't touch my settings between videos, all my RAM was functional, and Vegas was detecting all 32 gigs. Not sure how to check if it was using all 32, but I'm not sure how RAM could be detected then ignored by the program.
rs170a wrote on 7/8/2015, 9:45 AM
Options - Preferences - Video - Dynamic RAM preview max (MB):
What is this value set to? 200 is the default (on my machine anyway).

Mike
WolfsDragoon wrote on 7/8/2015, 9:50 PM
3200, Same as it has been set to since I installed Vegas Pro. Max available is 31642.
rs170a wrote on 7/9/2015, 2:53 PM
Just for a test, drop it down to 200 and see what happens.
I was doing some renders earlier today and they were very slow and Vegas would periodically stop rendering on me :(
I looked and I had forgotten to change it from 2,000 back down to 200. Once I did that everything worked as it's supposed to :)

Mike