Hmm.. So according to the release history, new versions come out around mid August. So If I bought the perpetual license now for v21, it would only give me updates until v22 is released, is that correct? Then again, I've been using v17 for so long, it's not as if I need the latest and greatest all the time. I'd probably keep using v21 for multiple years as long as it's stable.

You should be aware that Derek from the development team has announced, that they have started to update the video engine in Vegas.

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/new-video-engine-in-vegas--143158/#ca895245

And Derek states here also, that we will see something in the "first half of 2024". So that should be with the next update of Vegas Pro 21. So with Vegas Pro 21 you will get a part of that rework - what will be great for some specific footage, and will bring some significant performance improvements.

However, he states here also that this is a long-term ongoing process, means that a part of that improvements will take place with Vegas Pro 22.

I would recommend to test the next update of VP 21 - to see if it suits your needs.

Thanks for that additional information. I was actually considering Da Vinci Resolve, but free or not, there are some total deal killers in that software that I can't get past. For example, why the heck do they group video tracks and audio tracks separately on the timeline? That could get really confusing really fast IMO.

Can I install the trial of v21 on the same system that v17 is running on or will worlds collide?

Yes, you can install the trial but also the purchased version of newer versions side by side with your older v17.

There's also considering Vegas 22 is around the corner...

There is a demo of 21 that you can try to see how it works with your setup.

If you like it, you can purchase the perpetual version, or, you can rent it monthly for a few months, and then when Vegas 22 drops later this year, you can purchase the perpetual version of it.

That way you get to enjoy 21 throughout the end of its life cycle, and then get to come on board with 22 as soon as it drops.

I think the Smartscription option JetDV recommended makes the most sense as you can use the latest version of 21, 22 and beyond and if you don't renew it can continue to use the last version you had.

I'm having no stability issues with Vegas 21; However, hardware does matter and your milage may vary.

fr0sty - nice to hear that Version 22 is in the works...

I've mentioned before that my VP18 uses twice the amount of GPU power than VP21, I think the example was for a given 4K file playing back in Vegas VP18 was using 100w GPU, while VP21 was using 50w. If you have a modern medium to high range GPU that may not matter much, but it could help your RX590 with playback and render performance.

*I"m using Nvidia, this assumes the high wattage GPU use of older versions wasn't a performance bug related to Nvidia GPU's.

I don't think GPU power is a good proxy for performance. VP 21 is faster than 18 for renders and previews for the benchmarks I manage.

If the new video engine improvements come soon it may be a totally different story for how GPUs are utilized.

@RogerS There is the conundrum that most likely people with VP18 could playback 4K AVC with only an IGPU, and no discreet GPU, that certainly doesn't have 100w of processing power so you're probably right.

I'm not sure what you mean. People with VP 21 can also use just the iGPU for decoding (I do) and it performs similarly or better to dedicated GPUs. The rest of the GPU processing capability is really necessary for the timeline and Fx though.

@RogerS I"m not talking about decoding. I was going to check my figures of double the efficiency with VP21 vs VP18 for GPU, but VP18 kept crashing and don't have the time now. it may have been with 32bit precision in the color grading window, and that's the real improvement.

The point still stands though if VP18 actually requires 100w of GPU power it wouldn't be possible to playback 4K AVC when using an IGPU for video processing as it's not capable of such processing power, so that's why I was agreeing with you. What I see on my system may not be attributable to others.

Maybe create a new thread for this topic where we can understand the test conditions better.

FWIW with a 2017 era laptop I can play 4K AVC decoded on the iGPU with nominal dGPU usage. It's way under 100W with VP 15+. However this is not in ACES mode.

I believe VEGAS got ACES acceleration around VP 17 and it's been updated over the years so hopefully is more resource efficient now:
https://techgage.com/article/magix-vegas-pro-17-cpu-gpu-performance/

I had trouble with Vegas crashing until I limited the max number of rendering threads. It was initially set to the max number of threads on my processor, but when I reduced it from 16 to 8, Vegas became very stable. I haven't experimented with other numbers...didn't want to "rock the boat"!!

You can find that setting under Options -> Preferences -> Video -> Maximum Number of Rendering Threads.

I also keep my memory to 50% (the setting just above threads). Both of these can probably be increased without issue, but as it works, I've left it alone.

I came across this https://windowsxlite.com/ Perhaps one of these lite Windows builds will help to run Vegas better. I may install it on an older laptop and if it works well, then put it on my desktop. He seems to get a lot of praise in the comments on his Youtube vids.