I am sharing this information with the VEGAS community to help those who have the same type of issue I had after recent updates to Windows 10 (probably the Creators Update on Apr. 11, 2017) with the operating system hanging whenever I did a "Render As" from VEGAS Pro 13 or 14. This problem did not affect VEGAS startup or playback, only renders.
Here is a list of my PC gear:
- GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-UD5 TH motherboard with Thunderbolt 3
- Intel Core i7 Skylake CPU with 8 cores
- Intel HD Graphics 530 built-in GPU
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 PCIe Card
- 16 GB system RAM
- Windows 10 x64 Creators Update, build 1703
- The operating system is on an Intel SSD
- The VEGAS project source files are on a separate Samsung SSD
Here is a summary of what I did to remediate the render crashes. I use the term "crashes" loosely. The actual problem was that the Windows operating system would hang every time I did a "Render As" from VEGAS Pro 13 or 14, regardless of which render template was chosen, or which effects or transitions were used. I opened a support case with MAGIX. I included their fix in the first bullet point below.
- As mentioned above, I have two graphics cards on my system, an Intel HD Graphics 530 (with built-in GPU) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 (a PCIe Card). Initially, I had the computer monitor connected to the Intel HD Graphics 530 via the motherboard's HDMI connector. Even with the latest Intel HD Graphics drivers installed with OpenCL GPU/CPU support, the operating system would hang whenever I used "Render As" in VEGAS Pro 13 or 14, requiring a reboot. I tried every option I could find on the VEGAS community forum and the Internet, like disabling VEGAS GPU acceleration, and did a fix as instructed by MAGIX Support, namely re-installing the .NET Framework 3.5.1 through "Turn Windows features on or off". With the Intel HD Graphics in use, no workarounds or software installations fixed the problem.
- Then I reconnected my computer monitor to the NVIDIA Graphics PCI Card. I also did a clean uninstall of the NVIDIA Graphics drivers, and re-installed the latest NVIDIA Graphics drivers downloaded from NVIDIA's Graphics Drivers Website: https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us. At this point, the Intel HD Graphics was not connected, so Windows Device Manager would not show Intel HD Graphics under the heading of Display Adapters, and VEGAS'es GPU acceleration dropdown then showed only two options: "Off" and the NVIDIA Graphics Card.
- Even with the NVIDIA PCI Card in use, the OS would still hang until I made the following settings in the VEGAS Options / Preferences.
- Go to Options, then while holding [CTRL] + [SHIFT], select Preferences. On the tab labeled 'Internal', in the 'Show only prefs containing' search box, type: multi-core. Then update the following settings from their defaults:
- 'Enable multi-core rendering for playback'. Default is TRUE. Change to FALSE.
- 'Disable multi-core rendering'. Default is FALSE. Change to TRUE
- Switch to the Video Preferences tab and change the following settings:
- Dynamic RAM Preview max: set to 0
- GPU acceleration of video processing: set to Off
- As VEGAS Pro 14's Smart Zoom, Smart Upscale and Smart Deinterlacing effects and features require GPU acceleration, turning off GPU acceleration disabled those effects. As a tip, instead of using Smart Zoom, I used intrinsic Pan/Zoom keyframe-able controls on clips.
I hope this fix finds its way to others and saves them time and frustration when figuring out this problem. It took me a week of trial and error to stabilize my renders again.
Chaz