Vegas 2.0f BUGS !!!

GregDalbey wrote on 10/23/2002, 1:15 PM
Hello all -

I've been learking for what seems like many months now trying to get answer to my questions. The problem has occured exatly the same on 2 different hardware platforms, which leads me to believe it has to do with the software.

Here is my error - it occurs in 2 parts:

1) Vegas locks up - 'Not Responding'

I open a project. Having only about 8 tracks total, the project is relatively simple. It uses some compression on each track, a little DX plugin action and that is all. I select about 30 seconds of the tune, hit 'l' for looping, and hit the space bar. Let it go for about 15 minutes or so and Vegas happily loops the selection.

BUT NOW when I select a point outside the selected part of the tune, say, to the right Vegas STOPS RESPONDING. Task Manager says that the application is 'Not Responding' and no amount of waiting around frees it up, so I inevitably stop the process.

Next comes part 2 ...

2) 'Vegas.exe has generated an error ... '

After part 1 above, I relaunch Vegas and setup the same scenario, looping a 30 second selection of my tune. After a few minutes Vegas simply 'up and dies', throwing up the friendly window which states something like 'Vegas.exe has generated an error. A log is being generated in blah blah blah'.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Here are some stats on the machines I've observed this with:

Machine 1:

PROC: AMD 1700+
MOBO: QuikSilver 2 - CMT (never heard of this before)
CHIPSET: VIA KT133 I believe ... yucky, I know.
1G PC2100 DDR SDRAM
Motu 2408 w/ PCI-324
Adaptec 29160 w/ latest BIOS flash, latest drivers
Seagate Cheetah - 10krpm
nVidea GeForce 3 Ti 200, latest drivers
OS: Windows 2000 - service pack 2
Directx 8.1

There were all sorts of audio pops/crackles that I attribute to the VIA chipset. Various Usenet posts suggest moving away from VIA and I picked up an ASUS A7S333, which I installed a day ago ... now I have MACHINE 2:

MACHINE 2: Same as above, but different MOBO ...

PROC: AMD 1700+
MOBO: ASUS A7S333
CHIPSET: SIS 745
1G PC2100 DDR SDRAM
Motu 2408 w/ PCI-324
Adaptec 29160 w/ latest BIOS flash, latest drivers
Seagate Cheetah - 10krpm
nVidea GeForce 3 Ti 200, latest drivers
OS: Windows 2000 - service pack 2
Directx 8.1

The results were promising at first - I was able to get up and running, no pops and crackles ... just a tiny bit at first, which I was able to tweak away ...

Sounds Great! And by all accounts I should have a pretty good DAW ...

I was begining to feel good about all of this and wanted to run the above tests (part 1 and 2 above) ... which produced the SAME RESULTS.

I am REALLY confused ... I've spent quite literally hundreds of hours tweaking OS settings, studying the Usenet knowledge base, hanging out here and on other boards, installing Windows 2000 or XP time after time with different variances ... and it comes down to this.

PROPOSED SOLUTION

1) Get the latest Vegas 2.0 patch. Hopefully this will help.
2) Get the latest DirectX patch - MS has released a DX 8.1b.

QUESTIONS

Has anybody had experience with anything like this ??? I really hope these updates solve my problem. I've read every available post on this board, through Usenet ... I can't find anything that matches. Seems that I have tried every suggestion that has been put on the table.

*** Is it DirectX 8.1 ? I tried the utility that uninstall DirectX versions on MACHINE 1, but not here ... how do you all feel about that ?

*** Someone mentioned something about certain plugins not playing well ... like the TC Native Reverbs ... I maybe using that very same Reverb, which I will experiment w/ as well before applying any patches ...

I dunno ...

Comments

Former user wrote on 10/23/2002, 1:27 PM
Greg,

First off - calling this a bug is a strong statement. Couple of questions for you:

1. How many drives do you have in your system?
2. What is this Adaptec 29160? A controller? Or what? If it's a SCSI device, that may be your problem.
3. What DX plugins were you using? Please list them in order for each track.
4. Did you run your tests with the same .Veg project on both machines?

Also - Vegas 2.0h is the latest issue of 2.0.

Update when you can.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 10/23/2002, 4:12 PM
Have you contacted SF tech support ?
g.
Sari wrote on 10/23/2002, 5:14 PM
Your setup is OK, especially if you correctly configured your computer for audio. I suspect one of your direct x plugins is the culprit. What plugins are you using ?
Maybe you can delete all the plugins and save the session under another name then see if you have the same problem.

Rednroll wrote on 10/23/2002, 5:21 PM
You're also 2 updates behind on the 2.0 list. The current version of 2.0 is v2.0h. Goto the updates page and see if your problems go away.
GregDalbey wrote on 10/24/2002, 11:26 AM
Hey everybody -

Ok - first off, to call this anomaly a 'bug' does not seem to be too extreme a description. I am in the software industry and understand that bugs are a fact of life. I'm not in the business of trashing Vegas - I adore Vegas!

ANYWAYS - the problem is fixed. I did know about the updates as I'd indicated in that long email up there, but thought I'd try my hand here. Hopefully folks will be able to benefit from my experience.

I did update 2.0f to 2.0h and updated DirectX 8.1 to 8.1b. This did not correct the problem.

I uninstalled the TC bundle plugins of which I was using the reverb in the scenario I'd described previously. Problem fixed! We have further confirmation that these plugs are not playing right.

Strange stuff -

IN TERMS OF SCSI ... why would I NOT want to go with SCSI? All indication seem to say that SCSI is a solid way to go. The good folks who bring us ProTools recommend SCSI; do they not know what they are talking about? Just curious about why you think that, what you may know that I haven't read yet ... ]

Maybe with todays standards going with SCSI may not make sense, but if I'd purchased the device a few years ago prior to todays faster hard drive technology ... reusing the SCSI device today should not present a hinderence, should it?

Anyway - thank you to everyone who replied to me! All of these posts and ideas help so many folks like me trying to eak-out a decent DAW. Its good for the community!

- greg
Former user wrote on 10/24/2002, 2:42 PM
Greg,

Glad to hear the problem was solved. And it wasn't Vegas after all. Hence the gentle warning about calling every strange issue a bug on the part of Vegas...

Onto SCSI - you just don't need that these days - a well tuned EIDE (like the real cool Western Digital JB drives with the 8 MB cache) will run just as good if not better than any SCSI drive out there. The cost is lower and the bus/controller communique is kept to a minimum. A SCSI controller generally (I say generally) can lead to bus traffic that can effect audio performance on some DAWS. (Not all).

And just cause DigiDesign says SCSI is where it's at, doesn''t really mean too much. They may recommend SCSI to run their overpriced and ancient software suite but for the SF toolkit...EIDE rocks at my studio. I have had more than one Protools guy look at my EIDE rigs with disbelief when the editing heats up in Vegas...

Cuzin B

Rednroll wrote on 10/24/2002, 5:28 PM
I have seen this bug you're referring too, when using v1.5 TC native reverb in Vegas 2.0. I just wanted to make sure we where not chasing ghosts before, trying to help you find where the issue lies. I pointed it out, when doing Vegas 3.0 beta testing and it doesn't seem to happen in 3.0 any longer.

As far as SCSI goes, SCSI has a lot of benefits because it takes less CPU to run and you can get more devices without taking all your IRQ's. I have SCSI drives, but I was surprised the first time I compared my 10K rpm Seagate SCSI to my EIDE66 7200RPM Seagate running on the same system. I was actually able to record more simultaneous tracks on the EIDE than the SCSI. I think it was like 44 for the SCSI and 62 for EIDE before gapping occurred in the recordings. Now this will change with faster SCSI cards, but the cost I paid for my SCSI set up was 3 times what I paid for the EIDE and I was highly let down by the performance of my SCSI drive compared to the EIDE. I've always believed that SCSI was better, but I've proved myself wrong, and now I have lots of doubts.