Which codec are you rendering to?
Although you say you've applied no FXs by any chance have you moved the track level fader off 100%.

If the CPU's cores are running well below 100% like yours are I'm inclined to think the problem lies outside of Vegas. Maybe your HDD is abnormally slow for some reason. The other possibility is that your AVI file is uncompressed. The file size for that will be HUGE and simply getting the data off the HDD takes so long the CPU will be idling waiting for the disk i/o system to deliver the data.

Bob.

Thanks for the advice

All installs have been clean as my previous OS was XP.

My thoughts were of an issue outside of Vegas. The avi event of just over 1 minutes is 260MB (is that excessively large)?

The projects and it's files are on drive G with Vegas's temp files on D.

The track level fader is 100% and no envelopes at all.

I have just pre-rendered another section of exactly the same length (but all PNG files for slide show) which includes transitions, envelopes, and lots of track motion and this took 38 second using the avi (as before - I always pre-render to avi) with Best set.

I then moved to another section (same size) which was all video captured from Mini DV. There is only one Compiosit Level change in part of an event otherwise, all similar to first above. This, too, rendered fast in just under 40 seconds.

So it seems that it is the avi file.

May I ask what the best method for rendering from one project to add to another so that I don't get the above issue?

Thanks again.

Edit: By setting RAM to maximum usage do you mean Dynamic RAM (currently set at 128M)? I have 4G RAM installed but, obviously, only just over 3 available. I'll probably set Dynamic RAM to 1024 - that sound about OK? Although, in this issue I wouldn't have expected it to make any difference.

"The avi event of just over 1 minutes is 260MB (is that excessively large)?"

No, in the right ballpark for it to be DV25 i.e. 25Mbps. Vegas should fly through this in better than realtime on most PCs.

" I always pre-render to avi"

Care to explain this in greater detail?

Do you render to a new file, close your current project and bring the AVI file you just rendered into that?

On the other hand if you prerender to a new track something else maybe going on.

"So it seems that it is the avi file"

I seriously doubt this. The time it takes to render DV File A to DV file B is irrelevalant of the content of the file.

[i"May I ask what the best method for rendering from one project to add to another so that I don't get the above issue?"[/i]

What I do is render to a new file. Then I have a "master" project that I use to assemble the pieces. I close any open instances of Vegas and open a new instance. Just to ensure nothing funky is going on.

Bob.

When I do a selective pre-render (usually to check how a transition looks, etc) I use the avi (DV template).

I seemed to remember reading about doing it this way when I had Vegas 3. Never changed from that since.

What I do is render to a new file. Then I have a "master" project that I use to assemble the pieces. I close any open instances of Vegas and open a new instance. Just to ensure nothing funky is going on.

That's basically how I go about making the final edit.

Thanks.

Maverick,

Well, good thing others chipped in with more relevant tips :) And hopefully you'll slove this soon. As far as the dynamic RAM thing, as you pointed out, that's not really applicable to your situation.

That said, when replying to you in my first note, I was in Vegas so I checked mine and also found the 128 Mb in there -- I swore I had set it to maximum quite a while ago, maybe it reset when I intalled 8.c. Dunnno. Not 100% sure if higher is better but common sense seems to point that way, so I reset it to the 1024 my XP 32 bit allows.

FWIW Maverick, for fastest render times...
The basic setup you have should do fine in 7, 32 or 64... That 64 gave you prob may hint that things aren't all well under the hood so-to-speak. As baseline I'd suggest checking out that end of things -- components, drivers etc -- as well as checkout out how your m/board bios is set up... as you're still at 3 gig, could be it's never been set up properly, & that can have an effect in 7 [only reason to have a phenom black is to o/c, if only slightly, as the 1st extra .2-.3 is free, no hassles involved].

With your PC behaving [& maybe benching] as it should, 1st suggestion would be to duplicate your render conditions in a new project to see if it's the project or what you're doing in the current one. From what you've posted you've more or less done that & it appears to be one avi file. 2nd step IMHO, if it matters [as in you're going to be using that format avi again] would be to determine why -- is that particular avi file screwed up, or is it that you're having problems handling it in 7 &/or Vegas? A known good file in the same format might be the easiest way to confirm a bad file. GSpot, GraphStudio, & Process Explorer [Sysinternals/Microsoft] can help check how the avi is handled in 7 & in Vegas. In my experience so far there are an awful lot of additional files & processes involved in 7 vs XP, just to decode/play most any video. A missing/not installed Direct Show [DS] filter, just like a conflicting one, can drastically effect decoding, & thus (re)encoding performance. Outside of Vegas your graphics card drivers can have an effect, as most of the current crop have some sort of video decoding hardware &/or driver acceleration, but I've had problems there with my ATI & it hasn't been reflected at all in Vegas (knock wood).