Vegas Effects 3D Best Performance Settings?

Willowvayle wrote on 2/7/2022, 12:48 AM

Hello everyone! I am using the Vegas Pro Suite, so my version of Vegas Effects is always at the latest.

I've been looking around and not finding much support in this area, I'm working with Vegas Effects to implement 3D environments into my videos (for context, I included a quick screenshot. I could post a video link as well to see it in motion, but didn't want to be thought of as trying to self-advertise).

 

However, a frequent issue is that (for 3D files with more individual pieces like dungeons) the preview is SO slow and makes adjusting the virtual camera angle a nightmare because each adjustment will cause the playback to take up to 10 to 15 seconds to show in the preview (which is a major pain when I'm trying to get the angle just right and the 3D space is finicky enough as it is without slowdowns getting in the way).

I messed around with the proxy and cache settings but (if I'm understanding this correctly) they're more focused on the 2D videos and not my 3D models.

I messed around with the "playback" settings and that also seemed to only affect my videos and not the 3D models.

Recently I upgraded my desktop to some slightly better specs and I'm now seeing SOME improvement (I couldn't afford the best equipment in the world) but the biggest improvement is that instead of my program going into a "not responding" state for upwards of a whole minute it now does the aforementioned loading process of 10 to 15 seconds. However, I haven't edited a video on the new rig yet, I've just opened some old project files to compare.

Additionally, if this means anything, I am able to view these models PERFECTLY in 3D gaming engines such as Unity3D or Unreal Engine (being that my 3D models are from gaming assets, I would open them there first). Even on my old desktop this was the case that it would render perfectly within a gaming engine. So something about how Vegas Effects handles 3D objects is far less effective (but I would like to use Vegas Effects because of how more precise I can track my videos within the 3D space, so I would really like to make something work within here).

My current specs (if relevant):

  • AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-core
  • 32 GB RAM
  • MSI Ventus GeForce GTX 1650 4GB (If I had to guess, I'm assuming this is a culprit but graphics cards are expensive)

Any help whatsoever would be amazing as I feel like I'm missing something very important here (or maybe I'm just not using Vegas Effects the way it was designed to be so I'm at a disadvantage there).

 

Thank you all in advance!

Comments

Dexcon wrote on 2/7/2022, 1:23 AM

As Vegas Effects is a trimmed down version of HitFilm Pro, it might be worthwhile having a look at the minimum system requirements for HitFilm Pro - https://fxhome.com/support/hitfilm-pro

Minimum system requirements

Apple: macOS 11.0 Big Sur, macOS 10.15 Catalina or macOS 10.14 Mojave

Windows: Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit)

Internet connection: Required for online activation

Processor: 6th Generation Intel® Core™ i5 (2015), AMD Ryzen 5 (2017)

RAM: 8GB (16GB Recommended)

Graphics card:

Minimum

2 GB of video memory (4GB or more and NVIDIA or AMD card required for 8K UHD)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10 series (2016)

AMD Radeon RX 400 series (2016)

Intel HD Graphics 620 (2016)

Recommended

8 GB of dedicated video memory

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 20 series (2018)

AMD Radeon RX 5000 series (2019)

I suspect that you are correct in identifying your GPU as the likely culprit.

One thing that may help is to make sure that you have the latest NVIDA Studio driver installed which should be version 511.65 which was released on 1 Feb. You can check this in Vegas Pro 19 via menu item Help / 'Check for Driver Updates'.

Last changed by Dexcon on 2/7/2022, 1:48 AM, changed a total of 1 times.

Cameras: Sony FDR-AX100E; GoPro Hero 11 Black Creator Edition

Installed: Vegas Pro 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 & 22, HitFilm Pro 2021.3, DaVinci Resolve Studio 20, BCC 2025, Mocha Pro 2025.0, NBFX TotalFX 7, Neat NR, DVD Architect 6.0, MAGIX Travel Maps, Sound Forge Pro 16, SpectraLayers Pro 11, iZotope RX11 Advanced and many other iZ plugins, Vegasaur 4.0

Windows 11

Dell Alienware Aurora 11:

10th Gen Intel i9 10900KF - 10 cores (20 threads) - 3.7 to 5.3 GHz

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB GDDR6 - liquid cooled

64GB RAM - Dual Channel HyperX FURY DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz

C drive: 2TB Samsung 990 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD

D: drive: 4TB Samsung 870 SATA SSD (used for media for editing current projects)

E: drive: 2TB Samsung 870 SATA SSD

F: drive: 6TB WD 7200 rpm Black HDD 3.5"

Dell Ultrasharp 32" 4K Color Calibrated Monitor

 

LAPTOP:

Dell Inspiron 5310 EVO 13.3"

i5-11320H CPU

C Drive: 1TB Corsair Gen4 NVMe M.2 2230 SSD (upgraded from the original 500 GB SSD)

Monitor is 2560 x 1600 @ 60 Hz

Former user wrote on 2/7/2022, 3:11 AM

@Dexcon @Willowvayle Hi, i bought Hitfilm Pro just so that i could use OBJ 3D files, but just recently upgraded to inc V Effects, yep agree with Dexcon, it's just a trimmed version of Hitfilm but so far it's handling the 3D files just as well.

Thought i'd show you this, I have an AMD CPU & Geforce card so i think yours will prob use similar system amounts?

CPU & RAM is doing very little, the Video Encode box is the screen capture, when i stop recording that goes flat so ignore that, The GPU is doing all the work.

Willowvayle wrote on 2/7/2022, 2:45 PM

@Dexcon, well that's unfortunate. Getting a newer graphics card is quite expensive.

@Former user, mine handles 3D fine up to a point. Simple objects like what you show run just fine (for example, a simple plain with mountains is just one big piece so it runs seamlessly). But as soon as they implement more pieces (such as a dungeon with floors, walls, ceilings, torch handles, doors, etc) even on a small scale (like a single hallway) is when I run into issues. Same thing happened with a pirate ship model I used.

 

Is there any way to lighten the load with proxies or cache? Because upgrading my graphics card further is not in the budget as this is just a hobby of mine, but I have the disk space if I can lighten the load through proxies. Or maybe there's a way to move the workload to the processor instead of the graphics card? Is that something that's even possible?

Former user wrote on 2/7/2022, 3:56 PM

@Willowvayle I don't think proxies or cache will help, every move you make creates new information & that's what your system/GPU is dealing with, I'm not sure about proxies but cache becomes redundant after each 'move', There's no way of moving the workload, as you can see i have a 32core CPU, some fx's use more CPU than others but generally Vegas uses very little of those 32cores, so if i could i would inc it in the process with the GPU, Bottom corner of the preview screen in VE is playback resolution, etc. setting them to Draft is the only thing i can think of,

I just had a play, i put 5 3D objects in, i got the GPU up to 83% but they still rotated fairly well, so added a couple of BCC filters to the back image, playback dropped to a stutter, I left it for 20mins+ & Cache in the background still hadn't started 😕

I always find it interesting that it will play 3d files without too much problem, but add a bit of colour, glow or sharpening & it has a hissy fit 🤯🙃🤷‍♂️😂

Doubt this vid be any help to you 🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️

Former user wrote on 2/7/2022, 4:51 PM

@Willowvayle BTW it's been nearly an hr since made that vid above, still no cache made, the background is a jpg i used & i now know from a couple of experiments that it doesn't create a cache if i add a 3D model on a jpg,

but if i add an mp4 it creates a cache, if i then add a 3D model it again creates a cache.

3D model on a jpg no cache

3D model on an mp4, blue line at top of timeline showing cache, I don't know if this makes any difference to what your doing, or if it's caching the 3D model as well as the mp4 🤷‍♂️

 

Former user wrote on 2/7/2022, 5:04 PM

@Willowvayle 

In the video i posted above & quoted here i added the fx's to the jpg pic of the trees in the background, no cache was ever created, & playback was terrible.

so after those JPG vs MP4 tests, i added the same 2 fx's on an MP4 & added the 3D Model, cache was created & the fx's played properly, again i don't know if the 3D file was inc in the caching, but if you don't get caching happening & have a pic file as the backdrop, maybe try converting it to an MP4 vid file 🤷‍♂️

Willowvayle wrote on 2/7/2022, 8:09 PM

I think you're right that caching and proxies won't help. Because you're right that moving the model changes everything about it (my brain just kind of hoped it would work some way).

I think a few differences between your example and what's happening to me is that I have those MP4 videos in a 3D plane and 3D models in a 3D Unrolled setting (as shown below):

And the reason for this is because I'm placing these green-screened videos into a 3D world (and not the other way around with 3D models into the video's world).

And this particular 3D model is imported with a LOT of stuff going on:

 

And this contributes heavily to my slowdowns. My hope is to find a solution where I don't have to compromise my 3D models. Do you think there is a way to redirect the processing from the graphics card to the processor (or even at least a portion of the rendering away from the graphics card) that way I can at least make my current rig KIND of work until I can fork over another grand to upgrade just the card?

Former user wrote on 2/8/2022, 12:16 AM

@Willowvayle Hi, at the moment i'm just using simple OBJ 3D models with no texture or materials, it's all i need but maybe one day i'll venture into the world of Blender or even Cinema 4D, but I'm a bit reluctant, i have a £1000+ 3D CAD program that i draw my work plans on & although Blender is free knowing me i'd end up paying for the more expensive 3D software if i started going down that route, 🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️😂

'redirect the processing from the graphics card to the processor? I think the simple answer is no, what i was initially trying to show in this thread is that Vegas uses mainly the GPU & very little of the CPU, sometimes a frustratingly small portion of the GPU while it struggles to play some things, I'm lucky to have the GPU i do have but i paid a lot of money for this system & would really like Vegas to fully utilise the available power in the combined CPU & GPU, I tried out many of the other programs, some didn't do 3D models, (I already have HitFilm Pro & VE for that) some programs focus on the RAM because that's easy to upgrade & some programs like MEP concentrate on GPU power, same again because it's easier to upgrade the GPU then it is the CPU, it maxes out my GPU whist rendering in a 3rd of the time of Vegas & MEP plays 4k vids at full res no prob, but apparently to make Vegas do this it would mean rewriting the program, there's been quite a few posts about this, I like the layout & workflow of Vegas so I'm waiting for the day when there will be a dramatic makeover ,.......

RogerS wrote on 2/8/2022, 12:45 AM
 

And this contributes heavily to my slowdowns. My hope is to find a solution where I don't have to compromise my 3D models. Do you think there is a way to redirect the processing from the graphics card to the processor (or even at least a portion of the rendering away from the graphics card) that way I can at least make my current rig KIND of work until I can fork over another grand to upgrade just the card?

In Vegas Effects? Shifting to a CPU would likely reduce performance. GPUs do a few things well and 3D calculations are very much what they do best. A general purpose processor, even a very fast one, will struggle to keep up with the same tasks. Maybe there will be a service where you could offload processing to a server in the cloud and stream the results back for viewing but I don't think that exists today.

Former user wrote on 2/8/2022, 1:26 AM

@Willowvayle just had a thought, don't know if this is poss but the CAD program i have is 
TurboCAD Platinum, Professional 2D/3D CAD Software, retails at £1299.99 from their site 😮 it uses just a few percent of my CPU & GPU so not a comparison,,
But if i create a simple 3D model, there's quite a few options of viewing it, mainly Wireframe mode, Supress hidden lines (Solid), Draft & Quality,
Wireframe is just a bunch of lines, i can manipulate this as i please,
Suppress makes the object solid, you can't see through it but it's white, no materials shown, this i can manipulate this as i please
Next option is Draft, that fills in the colour but doesn't show shadows & the details are ok but could be better, i can still manipulate & move the model easily
Next is Quality, this looks like the final thing should be, but if i move the model the screen blacks out for a second or two, 
So my thoughts were could you remove all excess additions like textures etc, until you have the parts in place in the order you want?

@RogerS If i create a project, 1920x1080 for eg. but import 3840x2160, click no i don't want to change project settings to match media, do my work & editing but then render at 3840x2160, would i still get the quality of the 3840x2160, or does the 1920x1080 project have some impact along the way? Could @Willowvayle work on a smaller project but still render at the quality of the orig files?

My system handles a project of 3840x2160 quite well but if i add some of the fx's i have playback can drop dramatically even if i drop preview down to ½ or ¼, but in 1920x1080 playback with the same fx's is a huge amount better, but i don't add 3840x2160 to a 1920x1080 project & then render at 3840x2160, so i don't know if quality is lost,

RogerS wrote on 2/8/2022, 2:52 AM

Assuming you are talking Vegas projects I think quality would be lost with a lower project resolution but depending on the tools you are using you could possibly switch back to UHD before the render.