Just as an experiment, see if rolling back to the previous studio driver helps. If so, that'll help the team isolate the cause with the current driver.

Happend with the current and previous. No issues with v17. However I used mainconcept hevc. Now im using mainconcept avc awaiting the implementation back into v18 for hevc.

Does using an external renderer like Voukoder produce the same results?

I'm commenting on this forum because I am impressed with the quality and constructiveness of the contributions
(and prepared to overlook users who are clearly venting their frustration).  I trust my contributions are seen
as positive, even if verbose as I attempt to be constructive.

I've been upgrading Vegas Pro since I switched from Adobe Premiere in 2011.
However, the upgrade to VP18 has not been successful, because of the crashes (aka "VEGAS Pro has stopped working").

The first "crash" was immediately after I entered the licence.  Like others, I suspected my own environment
and it took me several days to backup, upgrade to Win10Pro (which I had been deferring because my initial
attempts at Win10 upgrade all failed), and then get all my settings and software back to a working system as
I wanted it.  When I buy new/upgrade software, I expect to be able to use it immediately; I do not expect to
set aside a week of non-productiveness.

After the OS upgrade, I started VP18 again; that made no difference, VP18 crashed immediately.
The splash screen was up for such a short time that I never noticed it at first, but on repeated attempts I see
that it is at "creating fileIOmanager".
The dialog box says:
  VEGAS Pro has stopped working.
  Problem Description
     Application Name:    VEGAS Pro
     Application Version: Version 18.0 (Build 284)
     Problem:             Unmanaged Exception (0xe0434352)
     Fault Module:        C:\WINDOWS\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
     Fault Address:       0x00007FFB016F3E49
     Fault Offset:        0x0000000000023E49
 
  Fault Process Details
     Process Path:        C:\Program Files\VEGAS\VEGAS Pro 18.0\vegas180.exe
     Process Version:     Version 18.0 (Build 284)
     Process Description: VEGAS Pro
     Process Image Date:  2020-07-25 (Sat Jul 25) 03:25:58
I suppose we should be grateful that VEGAS at least reports something, even if this is not particularly helpful.
However, I would ask, since an exception has been "caught", why have the programmers not taken the time to
enumerate all possible exceptions that they catch and provided the user with much more useful information?

As suggested, I then upgraded my GPU drivers.  I have 3 monitors, all with different purposes:
1) 1600x1200 for system monitoring, email, etc.,
2) 3840x2160 [4K] for my main application, e.g. VEGAS Pro,
3) 1920x1080 120Hz [Full HD] as the VEGAS monitor and for NVIDIA 3D (sterescopic) monitoring (with glasses)
and two graphics drivers
1) Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000, for driving monitor 1, Driver Date 2016-05-19, Driver Version 9.17.10.4459.
I could not update the driver for this GPU.
Windows has determined that the best driver for this device is already installed.
I cannot disable this driver, because it is in use for driving monitor 1.
2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX980
I was able to update this driver, from  441.12 to 452.06.  But even the older version is so recent,
that I could not imagine this making any difference to VP18.

Updating the drivers makes no difference; VP18 crashes immediately.

VP17 has no trouble with my system, so I do not see why VP18 should have any problem.
I suspect that the VP18 new feature: "autodetect of GPU" has messed things up, and I can understand that testing
all possible combinations of GPU and system hardware might be impractical.  But surely the developers should provide a
legacy mode option that can be used in the unlikely, though now real case, that such a new feature is flawed.
Getting users to "update the drivers" to me is a bit of a lame excuse, it sort of shifts the "blame" on the user
(for not keeping their system updated) and the driver providers; whereas the real problem appears to be in the
VP18 software for not being sufficiently robust to cope with the range of hardware and drivers currently in use.
I would support the request for a role out to real-world beta testers to iron out this sort of scenario.

VEGAS support then told me to disable the VP18 new feature: "autodetect of GPU" by renaming So4Reader.dll, which I did.

VP18 now starts, but is useless.  When I attempt to render, VP18 crashes.
The dialog box shows:
  VEGAS Pro has stopped working

  Problem Description
     Application Name:    VEGAS Pro
     Application Version: Version 18.0 (Build 284)
     Problem:             Unmanaged Exception (0xe0434352)
     Fault Module:        C:\WINDOWS\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
     Fault Address:       0x00007FFB016F3E49
     Fault Offset:        0x0000000000023E49
 
  Fault Process Details
     Process Path:        C:\Program Files\VEGAS\VEGAS Pro 18.0\vegas180.exe
     Process Version:     Version 18.0 (Build 284)
     Process Description: VEGAS Pro
     Process Image Date:  2020-07-25 (Sat Jul 25) 03:25:58
So yet another unmanaged exception. What can I say?

Furthermore, I am unable to select a hardware decoder under "Vegas | Options | Preferences | File I/O" as the
only options are "Auto Off" or "Off".

To me it seems, again, the root of the problem is still the VP18 new feature: "autodetect of GPU", and
disabling detection of any hardware at startup cripples the entire operation of VP18.

I'd appreciate any feedback, such as weaknesses in my reasoning, or experiments that I have not tried.
I've paid for the upgrade, so I want to get VP18 working.

The Intel card is too old and unsupported by Vegas. For NVIDIA, "NVIDIA® GeForce GTX or RTX 9XX series or higher with 4GB" is the minimum requirement for 18. Do you meet that?

If so, perhaps disable Intel in the device manager and see if that helps Vegas find the NVIDIA card? It sounds like you are already in touch with Magix, so do they have further advice or say if a fix to GPU autodetection is in the works?

(Actually, quite recent revisions to the NVIDIA studio driver have made a huge improvement for stability- I was getting crashes in Vegas, Resolve and Skype before early summer 2020. You can't really blame developers for issues with drivers that cause problems in their software, and I am thankful Magix is working with NVIDIA and AMD to resolve issues as they are found.)

@RogerS Yes. @Bockeman, I’ve got my 40Gb NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 hard wired via HDMI to my ExtMon and this works. Can you do the same with your NVIDIA GeForce GTX980? What happens?

I’ve got my 40Gb NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 hard wired via HDMI to my ExtMon and this works. Can you do the same with your NVIDIA GeForce GTX980? What happens?

I don't think your graphics card is 40GB. Isn't it 8GB?

I don't think your graphics card is 40GB. Isn't it 8GB?

@RogerS - Erm? Doesn't this mean 40GB? My Specs from within Nvidia:

Nope, look at "dedicated video memory." I have 4096 MB for that (4GB card), but 20,405 MB total memory.
(It seems to be 1/2 system ram plus what is on the card.)

. . . plus what is on the card.

@RogerS - And what's on my Card is 40GB. Plain and simple. Now, how my system, or yours, deals with it, it is still 40GB. How else could I reflect this? Should I be saying in my Sig that I have shared GPU Memory of so and so? Always willing to learn something new.

@RogerS Thanks for responding.

The Intel card is too old and unsupported by Vegas.

So what? This driver is in my motherboard, it is enabled and I am using it to drive a monitor.
But, I don't want VP18 to play with this GPU at all. VP17 seems quite happy with the Intel CPU being present in my system, so why should VP18 worry.

There's another point here. If VP18 has a problem with the Intel GPU, then it should report that gracefully and give the user some options like "Intel GPU is not supported, please select another GPU".

For NVIDIA, "NVIDIA® GeForce GTX or RTX 9XX series or higher with 4GB" is the minimum requirement for 18. Do you meet that?

My GTX 980 appears to have 4GB memory. VP17 is happy with this, so why does VP18 barf?

@Grazie Thanks also. My system is not a laptop, so the concept of an external monitor does not make sense to me.The monitors connected to the GTX 980 are mDP and DVI respectively. But I do not see how the connection between GPU and monitor can possibly affect any application. I re-iterate: VP17 is fine, so what is wrong with VP18?

@Grazie We're off on a tangent, but I don't think shared GPU memory is meaningful in any way, so just don't mention it. It is much slower for the GPU to access motherboard ram.

Looking at your signature and using the formula I posted above, you have an 8 GB graphics card and 32 GB of shared memory, hence 40 GB. That seems right as the NVIDIA site indicates this card is sold in 2 different varieties but both are 8 GB.

@RogerS - Thank you.

@Bockeman - What's the result of cabling-up the HDMI?

Owing to my exchange with @fr0sty in another thread:

I should note that disabling "QSV ENCODING & DECODING" from my Internal Menu has made it bullet proof. For whatever reason, even with NVENC selected as the primary decoder, the values that enable the decoding of my Asus' Intel GPU are still turned on. I'm led to assume that this results in VEGAS being forced to deal with 2 decoding processes at the same time. This is of course, an uneducated assumption.

I'm currently running a project file with 64 tracks of 4K Footage (as a result of several duplicates that I tend to make). No sudden crash while playing.

The setting does not affect the ability to render with QSV.



 

@Bockeman - What's the result of cabling-up the HDMI?

@Grazie Thanks for helping. I've spend the last day or so playing round with all sorts of combinations of cabling between GPUs and Monitors. That has caused loads of problems because Windows rearranges everything, including sending some applications off screen.

But nothing I did made any difference to VP18: It crashes immediately on start-up, and if I rename So4Reader.dll it crashes on render. So VP18 is completely useless.

I've also realised that by "External Monitor", you meant the button in the VP18 preview pane which throws the preview onto an entirely separate monitor, full screen. Needless to say, nothing I tried made any difference to VP18 crashing.

And one other little detail: I cannot use an HDMI connection to my separate preview monitor (aka External Monitor) because HDMI only supports 60Hz frame rate and I need 120Hz for 3D Stereoscopic viewing.

It is sort of mute point now, but I'd like to understand why you thought changing the cable to HDMI would have any effect.

I've had no further response from support, so I'm still looking for suggestions of things to try. (Ask for my money back is one option, but that effectively means leaving the VEGAS Pro camp, and I have invested years of effort in learning and tuning VP to meet my NLE requirements).

Owing to my exchange with @fr0sty in another thread:

I should note that disabling "QSV ENCODING & DECODING" from my Internal Menu has made it bullet proof. For whatever reason, even with NVENC selected as the primary decoder, the values that enable the decoding of my Asus' Intel GPU are still turned on. I'm led to assume that this results in VEGAS being forced to deal with 2 decoding processes at the same time. This is of course, an uneducated assumption.

@Mohammed_Anis I noticed a similar thing when I set Vegas 18 decoding to AMD on an Asus system with an Intel iGpu. When I look at performance charts in Task Manager, both the Intel and AMD gpus are decoding at the same time. And Vegas sometimes freezes when dealing with 4K timeline clips. So I leave decoding set to the Intel default.

Owing to my exchange with @fr0sty in another thread:

I should note that disabling "QSV ENCODING & DECODING" from my Internal Menu has made it bullet proof. For whatever reason, even with NVENC selected as the primary decoder, the values that enable the decoding of my Asus' Intel GPU are still turned on. I'm led to assume that this results in VEGAS being forced to deal with 2 decoding processes at the same time. This is of course, an uneducated assumption.

@Mohammed_Anis I noticed a similar thing when I set Vegas 18 decoding to AMD on an Asus system with an Intel iGpu. When I look at performance charts in Task Manager, both the Intel and AMD gpus are decoding at the same time. And Vegas sometimes freezes when dealing with 4K timeline clips. So I leave decoding set to the Intel default.

A pattern...

Generally I agree with originator of this post. Vegas 18 is generally ok but instability hinders productivity. Most of my projects are "add intro picture, put speaker clip, add outro picture, do marginal clip exposure adjust, adjust audio and publish". I would not expect any crashes or application hang ups when switching to application (alt+tab) or closing Vegas after work for example.

I have also installed latest studio drivers, tried to narrow down possible issues. Other software running on my computer do not suffer any weird symptoms so I think .Net frameworks etc should be ok.

It is better to have 80% of features 100% ready than 100% features 80% ready.

I have been running the Vegas Pro 18 trial for just under a month now.... and have not had a single crash.

That's better for me than 16, which I considered stable enough for work (very occasional non-destructive problems), and much better than 17, we gave me some small "surprise" problems, which I didn't want to live with.

Just FYI as another "data point" in this sometimes one-sided discussion.

@Kinvermark - Does your testing include opening a VP17 VEG in VP18?

@Grazie  Hi Grazie, No. I never did any work with 17 as it did not pass my initial trial review. My testing is clearly not "exhaustive" jut really for my own satisfaction (Gh5 files, some Gopro, HDV, jpg stills). I am on holiday now, and using a laptop with intel CPU (so QSV) and Nvidia 2060 (so NVENC) but also tested with my old desktop (in specs) and had no problems. As always YMMV.

OK, for a start I want Vegas Pro 18 to work, because I like the ease of use, but seriously, there are so many crash's.

I also have found bugs, that to be honest should have been picked up before release of version 18.

What I want to know is when they will make a update/bug fix available, even if they do an interim fix for some of the many bugs.

Build (284) is quite frankly a bloody mess, please do something about it, and quickly!!

I agree, the engineering behind this software is pretty sad. Its been this way for about 15 years now. We are the idiot's for staying with them. Since you made this comment an update has come out but sadly it still horrible.

Jeremy, this is a help forum, not a complaint soap box. It violates forum rules to blow off steam, so while I am not going to delete your post, as I believe that VEGAS users should be able to express their disappointments, please avoid further posts that serve no other purpose than to blow off steam. We need to keep this focused on trying to help users that are having issues.

Have you made a thread to seek help for the issues you are having yet?