Vegas Pro 21 stutters preview constantly and also crashes.

Justin-Oakley wrote on 11/17/2023, 5:03 PM

The issue:

When editing video, things start off working OK, but quickly a bunch of lag and stuttering occur in the preview window. It makes it nearly impossible to do anything more than a quick simple task. And even then, it's sketchy if it will work properly the whole way through. This appears to be either a memory leak issue or memory mismanagement of some sort. But I don't know the true cause. I paid for the 2 year 360 plan and am barely able to use the software. I don't remember Vegas 20 being this bad, but it might have been similar.

My computer:

Windows 10 Pro
Intel Core i9 10900K
64GB Ram
MSI MEG Godlike Motherboard
EVGA 3090 Ti Graphics Card
m.2 NVME SSD drives
- Temporary Files location is on a separate drive from the drive the videos and audio are stored.

Video sources:

GoPro MP4 4K video
1080p MTS video files from a Cannon video camera
Other OFX and misc MP4 video clips.

What I've tried:

Setting preview window size to 1/4 (no scaling)
Testing video memory settings from various ranges to 0 to let it use as much as needed.
Monitored system memory during using the app and it has never maxed out.
Dedicated GPU memory gets close to completely used up, but not always when the behavior is observed
Shared GPU Memory stays fairly low. (NOTE: Observing the most recent crash, I saw the Shared GPU memory drop to nearly 0 from around 8 / 32GB
I've tried with both Exerimental HEVC decoding and Legacy AVC decoding. It makes no difference.

This is incredibly frustrating. I've seen several other people list the same issues. But I have not yet seen a solution that actually works. Has anyone gotten past this issue? Does anyone know if there will be an update soon that maybe fixes it?

Comments

RogerS wrote on 11/17/2023, 11:06 PM

VP 21 and 20 are similar programs though 21 has some improvements to HEVC media.
So step one is understanding what your media is exactly, especially the GoPro and misc MP4 (MP4 is a container and says nothing about what is in it). The Canon MTS isn't likely an issue.

So please start with Mediainfo: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-how-to-post-mediainfo-and-vegas-pro-file-properties--104561/ and paste it in here.

Then please share a screenshot of preferences, file io in VEGAS.

Next I'd keep dynamic ram preview on the default for now (I assume that's what you mean by video memory). Increasing it won't help with crashes.

Reyfox wrote on 11/18/2023, 5:12 AM

Also mentioned was OFX. Which ones specifically? Are they GPU accelerated?

VEGASDerek wrote on 11/18/2023, 7:06 AM

It seems like you have been playing around with your settings quite a bit...the first thing you might consider doing is resetting you preferences and start from a clean slate. For what you are working on and the system you have, you should not be having significant issues like you are seeing.

fr0sty wrote on 11/18/2023, 10:15 AM

To restart VEGAS with stock settings, hold CTRL+SHIFT while launching the program.

Also:

Other OFX

Can be a source of performance issues. Some effects are going to slow down your performance no matter what system you are on. For example, NeatVideo, as fantastic of a plugin as it is, is a performance hog. It will quickly turn 60fps playback to 5-10fps playback even on stronger systems. There are other plugins that are just as bad, such as some motion blur plugins/effects, AI effects, etc.

Justin-Oakley wrote on 11/18/2023, 12:54 PM

Thanks for the suggestions. @VEGASDerek, That is a great idea. I'll try that now to start over and see what's happening.

Regarding the MP4 video, Looking at the CODEC info in VLC it's HEVC (H.265) (hvc1). The audio is MPEG AAC Audio (mp4a). For any of the stuff I'm working with right now, it is nearly 100% the GoPro footage and the Cannon MTS. Anything else added would be a graphic or something that's put on an overlaying track. However, the issue is there with or without graphics.

As for the OFX plugins, I'm only using Boris Continuum and the built in ones that come with vegas. However, the issue is there if I have any effect applied or not. It will show the same behavior when editing a single video file (GoPro MP4 4K @ 24fps). The only possible "Effect" that could be considered is the default transition that fades between the first and second clip when you push 2 clips together and overlap them slightly.

One other thing since posting and now is that I updated to Windows 11 from Windows 10. Vegas behaves the exact same way and I don't think it's an OS issue. But I wanted to point that out.

I'll attempt to reset the settings and see what that does. I'll post some screenshots after my next test.

Thanks again for the assistance.

Justin-Oakley wrote on 11/18/2023, 2:06 PM

Resetting the settings did nothing but make it so I can't drag-n-drop video clips form explorer into the project media panel. Apparently, that's a thing I need to enable somewhere?

Anyway, the same issue is happening. 1 single video file (Properties included below). I would be shocked if my machine is not strong enough to handle this simple task. It basically starts out working *ok*, then gradually gets more and more choppy and laggy. Please see the screen captures below for setting details and others.

Settings:

Media File

Product version:

Former user wrote on 11/18/2023, 4:34 PM

@Justin-Oakley The new GPU decoder doesnt work correctly, it can't play more than 1 file at a time without lagging, a transition requires playing 2 video files at a time so won't play smoothly. I"m speaking about your Go Pro HEVC files. If you loop the transition enough times it will eventually play but it's not playing live, it's playing a cache. Compare how long it takes to cache that transition to how long it takes to cache a single piece of video of the same length, that's the problem.

I don't know why you have the same problem with your 1080P AVC especially using the Legacy AVC decoder. Maybe it's not the same problem, your AVC should be able to smoothly play a basic fade transition, but a BCC plugin transition won't necessarily be able to be played back in real time, it may be too computationally expensive.

Justin-Oakley wrote on 11/18/2023, 8:46 PM

@Former user That is definitely the same behavior I'm seeing. The AVC video might not be acting up or maybe I only noticed the issue when mixing the 2 types in the same timeline. Anyway, is there any work around for this or is the software just bad? Can I turn off the GPU processing so it will only use my CPU in order for the video to preview properly?

RogerS wrote on 11/18/2023, 9:38 PM

I'd enable your Intel iGPU in bios for better decoding than NVDEC in VEGAS.

If you can't do that, transcode HEVC or proxy it for now and keep the GPU on would be my choice. HEVC development appears to continue with 21 but isn't where it needs to be, especially with NVIDIA GPUs.

Justin-Oakley wrote on 11/19/2023, 6:15 PM

Thanks @RogerS. That suggestion seemed to work. Or it's at least definitely better than it was. Now I just need to search through the preferences to see where I can enable drag and drop of files into my project media tab. But I'll search that out on my own.

Thanks to everyone who gave advice. I'm able to use the software now.

RogerS wrote on 11/19/2023, 6:19 PM

For drag and drop don't run VEGAS as administrator.