@Former user so I pay a huge amount of money for a Xeon CPU (which might fit straight into my machine or might not) and then should enable me to render an 11-minute GoPro clip in approx half the time that I can at the moment using Vegas 18 while at present without doing anything to my computer I can render the same clip in approx half the time of Howard's machine (with the Xeon CPU) using Davinci, or Power Director, or Movavi Video Editor Plus. I'm sorry but the question has to be asked as to why Vegas takes so long to render. So please don't go down the easy route and say it's your machine it's just not fast enough. 🙂

@Richard-Green By all means use the software that does the job you want faster, higher quality, or more easily. And if you already know how to use Resolve, that sounds like the right fit for you. Particularly if all you want to do is transcode or trim clips. Ffmpeg can do that too, and it's free. There's just an ffmpeg learning curve and its command line. And the Resolve studio you paid for and already know how to use has the exact same libs built in. The strength of Vegas is that it can do allot of other creative editing things that might be harder to learn or more complicated to accomplish in Resolve if you don't already know how to do them.

@Howard-Vigorita To do a good faith comparison you would have to do a software mp4 encode with Vegas and turn off GPU decode, it would then be apples to apples, that could indicate if it's worth buying the pro version with GPU decode and encode

@Former user Ha, ha, when I turn off my gpu, I also turn off my cpu and call it a night. Seriously, I'm only citing results I get on my hardware with software I have. But to your point, metrics with the gpu off seem irrelevant to my decision on purchasing resolve studio. It's gpu performance reported here by OP and others is more relevant. But I'd also want to know how it performs on high-end AMD gpus like what I use. I'm under the impression, however, Resolve studio does not work well with AMD gpus generally. That's an inference I've drawn based on comments I've seen and my familiarity with the ffmpeg libs Resolve incorporates. Though I've only ever seen Resolve's Nvidia metadata, like that posted in this thread... perhaps Resolve's AMD gpu support is totally different, developed more as in Vegas with AMD commercial support.

I would love to leverage all the hardware I have in timeline viewing and rendering. Hoping VP19 addresses these things better. It's a short ways away for release!!

I'm under the impression, however, Resolve studio does not work well with AMD gpus generally. That's an inference I've drawn based on comments I've seen and my familiarity with the ffmpeg libs Resolve incorporates. Though I've only ever seen Resolve's Nvidia metadata, like that posted in this thread... perhaps Resolve's AMD gpu support is totally different, developed more as in Vegas with AMD commercial support.

That is a good point, the way your AMD GPU is performing better with Vegas over your Nvidia, and my Nvidia, could be a reverse with Resolve Pro

I would love to leverage all the hardware I have in timeline viewing and rendering. Hoping VP19 addresses these things better. It's a short ways away for release!!

A few things to consider...

19 was developed during a pandemic with a small team that has been working long hours to try to give us as many of the features we have been asking for as they possibly could. I can't say whether or not 19 will have what you mention, but I do know 100% that it is high up on their to-do list, so even if you don't see it on launch day, do not give up hope. You may not have to wait long to see the feature you'd hoped for. I'm sure there's some things the team will add in future updates that they had hoped to get in the initial release build, VEGAS 19's feature list will evolve in time just like previous versions.

@fr0sty thanks for the information. Certain things aren't "show stoppers" for me, but they are for others. What I like about Vegas is the ease of editing. While I have other editors, Vegas is the one I open first.

Please note that I do not have any solid info to share on whether or not any feature will make it into 19 or not, for all I know, what you are asking about may be included with it right out of the gate, I have just seen enough such product launches to know that you can't base your opinion about a software version on its initial release (and the pandemic only amplifies this), not everything makes the initial release date, and many times features get added via updates.

I would imagine that the team does have some performance improvements planned, if not ready out of the gate. Based on what I've heard, they're trying their hardest to satisfy as many people as a few folks coding away during a pandemic possibly can.

Here's hoping to continued improvements and I will happily update benchmarking tests when VP 19 is released (and later updated) to see if there are hardware improvements. I'd like to see less of a performance penalty for 32-bit editing and for GPUs to help with certain Fx that playback poorly today.

Thanks for all your comments, please don't think I'm criticising Vegas 18, I love Vegas, always have. My post was just to question why Vegas rendered my GoPro clip slower than other editors on the same machine. I have a mixed bag of answers from people more knowledgeable than me, I will take all information and suggestions on board and come to my own conclusions and also look forward to any improvements in version 19.

@Howard-Vigorita
Little better on a 9900k machine with a Radeon VII...
4:44 on Magix avc vce with decode: 20% and encode: 88%.
Handbrake on the same machine got 4:21 if I checked Turbo-1st pass.

My Magix AVC VCE results w/ AMD VEGAs & Intel iGPUs (decoding), both w/July 2021 drivers:

9900K @5.0 ghz & VEGA 64 LQ = 3:57 60% CPU, 92% VEGA, 21% Intel UHD 630 (decode)

11700K @5.0 ghz & VEGA 56 fan = 4:49 50% CPU, 80% VEGA, 50% Intel UHD 750 (decode)

On other benchmarks, the 11700K system is also slightly slower due to the VEGA 56, but not by as much as this test indicates... BTW the memory timings are the same (3000) and both have fast M.2 & RAID0 source & target drives...

 

@Howard-Vigorita
Little better on a 9900k machine with a Radeon VII...
4:44 on Magix avc vce with decode: 20% and encode: 88%.
Handbrake on the same machine got 4:21 if I checked Turbo-1st pass.

My Magix AVC VCE results w/ AMD VEGAs & Intel iGPUs (decoding), both w/July 2021 drivers:

9900K @5.0 ghz & VEGA 64 LQ = 3:57 60% CPU, 92% VEGA, 21% Intel UHD 630 (decode)

11700K @5.0 ghz & VEGA 56 fan = 4:49 50% CPU, 80% VEGA, 50% Intel UHD 750 (decode)

 

@TheRhino How do you explain the results between the 2?

Is the 9900K able to drive more frames into the GPU?

Would be good to see those GPU's swapped over to see what changes

@TheRhino Water cooling is quite impressive! Is it just the gpu or cpu too?

@Former user The 11700K provides 19% more instructions per cycle (IPC) & generally shows better CPU-only results than my 9900K... It also has the improved UHD 750 iGPU, so it may just come down to the VEGA 64 LQ vs VEGA 56. On other tests, my VEGA 64 LQ is pretty close to Radeon VII performance. If I have some free time, I might swap GPUs just to see for myself, but my systems are loaded with RAID arrays, etc. & there are a lot of cables to move... Maybe when V19 arrives...

@Howard-Vigorita I got a refurbished/open box Powercolor VEGA 64 LQ in 2019 for $350 USD from NewEgg but both internal boxes were fully sealed & it appeared unused... The liquid cooling / single-fan radiator is permanently attached / sealed. I just connected the radiator/fan to one of the fan openings in the back of the case... The 9900K is liquid cooled by an all-in-one Corsair H150i that has a 360mm radiator with 3 fans. It too is fully sealed so I'm not really worried about either system leaking. I've got quiet Noctua fans elsewhere in the case, so this system runs very quiet so I can use it for sound recording / voice-overs, etc. sitting right next to it...

@Former user The 11700K provides 19% more instructions per cycle (IPC) & generally shows better CPU-only results than my 9900K... It also has the improved UHD 750 iGPU, so it may just come down to the VEGA 64 LQ vs VEGA 56. On other tests, my VEGA 64 LQ is pretty close to Radeon VII performance. If I have some free time,

@TheRhino

When you say your Vega64 is 92% and Vegas56 at 80% what are those values, they look too high for 3D engine with Vegas when it's doing nothing but transcoding, could they be your GPU encoder speed?

@Richard-Green

Hi Richard, FWIW, 
I checked out your Hero 8 Go Pro Clip on both Vegas Pro 19 and Cyberlink PowerDirector 19 and used Nvida nvenc on both programmes.
Output size, Data rates etc same as your Resolve output file.
Results 
Vegas Pro 19   8:09s
Cyberlink PowerDirector 19  4:04s
See my profile for hardware specs.
 

I have found VP19 playback smoothness is much worse then VP18, but it's render speed is much faster. I would like that VP18 smooth playback back

Hopefully there will be a release to fix some of the early bugs soon that we can try.

It's great to see Vegas19 using 100% CPU now when rendering a particular project where VP18 does not, VP19 render complete in 29seconds, VP18 39 seconds, but playback without lag is much worse. I hope that's a bug and not a compromise for the faster render. It sounds like a bug

I can't say if it's a bug or not, but I do know they have further performance improvements in the works. Hopefully we'll see those soon.