What sort of audio?

Working with 44KHz Stereo 16-bit WAV files.

I use Vegas to edit only audio - I produce radio shows in it for broadcast. Vegas Pro 18 is molasses when rendering vs older versions. A segment of my show renders in 1m 22s in Vegas 16 and 4m 2s in v18. Running on an AMD 3900X with 32gb of ram.

@pmjm Also found v18 running slower for audio but not quite that badly on my 9900k system. Here's what I got rendering a project with 1 track of camera audio (16-bit 48k stereo) with 23 tracks from an x32 mixer (24-bit 48k mono) to a Sony Wave64 48k stereo track: {link}.
 

As I had just installed v18, I had failed to modify the properties of the launching shortcut so that it would run in Administrator Mode as v17 is setup to run in. When I made this change to v18, the render runs at an average 24.83fps and nearly completes in 57 seconds, but twice now it gets to 84% complete and then just hangs (spinning blue circle).

@Jonathan-Burnett Same here. Vegas 18 also hanging during my renders if I check "administrator mode" on the Compatibility tab. I had that checked already on V17 to enable my old audio editor to run under Vegas so maybe that's why I get better performance with it. But there's another place to choose running as Administrator... on the Shortcut/Advanced tab. Vegas 18 does not hang for me if I check it there and it does enable my audio editor to work and seems to run closer in performance to v17. Go figure.

As I had just installed v18, I had failed to modify the properties of the launching shortcut so that it would run in Administrator Mode as v17 is setup to run in. When I made this change to v18, the render runs at an average 24.83fps and nearly completes in 57 seconds, but twice now it gets to 84% complete and then just hangs (spinning blue circle).

@Jonathan-Burnett Same here. Vegas 18 also hanging during my renders if I check "administrator mode" on the Compatibility tab. I had that checked already on V17 to enable my old audio editor to run under Vegas so maybe that's why I get better performance with it. But there's another place to choose running as Administrator... on the Advanced tab. Vegas 18 does not hang for me if I check it there and it does enable my audio editor to work and seems to run closer in performance to v17. Go figure.

Howard, thanks for that observation. I had not previously known you could set Administrator Mode under Advanced. Not real sure what difference that makes but the icon is no longer flagged as running in that mode as it previously showed. Probably something to do with permissions setting at execution time or something.

As discussed in the other thread I created to understand why v18 was hanging on one of my projects, that problem is understood and alleviated (though the Vegas team might still want to understand why v18 and not v17 had an issue with it) I've now been able to benchmark the same project render times between v17 and v18:

So at 52 seconds under v17 and 62 seconds under v18, v18 doesn't show any improvement for me at identical render settings.

@Jonathan-Burnett

In Vegas 18, "levels management" was implemented where Vegas 17 had none. See here:

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/vp18-notes-on-the-8-bit-full-level-option--122749/

I suspect that feature has some overhead, though I've no effort to quantify it.

I don't usually watch renders, so 10% here or there wouldn't ruin my life.

@Jonathan-Burnett

I don't usually watch renders, so 10% here or there wouldn't ruin my life.

Oh I agree. I just wanted to see for myself if there was improvement (even a little) as some had suggested there might be. By the way, I had thought that 8-bit levels change was really something that only impacted previews and not the actual output created by the renders. Am I mistaken?

If you use the new 8 bit full level project property and render your project with limited levels meta data (which is the default render setting), then a computer level to video level transformation will be applied for the render process.

If you use the new 8 bit full level project property and render your project with limited levels meta data (which is the default render setting), then a computer level to video level transformation will be applied for the render process.

Marco, at my level of expertise I'm not sure I can appreciate if this is good thing or not, but thank you!

Same Vegas project, same computer, same render settings, all variations of same plug-ins/filters on/off, V18 is 2X longer render time as my V16. MAGIX is trying to sell V18 - shouldn't have to suffer computer gymnastics to make it work or go faster. It needs to be immediately better compared to old versions, or at least not obviously worse. If it requires a certain computer or processor to do better than prior Vegas versions, please say so. Otherwise, disappointing.

"Marco, at my level of expertise I'm not sure I can appreciate if this is good thing or not, but thank you!"

I think I know what your concerns are. Though this new mode is just an option which then I think is good.

Same Vegas project, same computer, same render settings, all variations of same plug-ins/filters on/off, V18 is 2X longer render time as my V16. MAGIX is trying to sell V18 - shouldn't have to suffer computer gymnastics to make it work or go faster. It needs to be immediately better compared to old versions, or at least not obviously worse. If it requires a certain computer or processor to do better than prior Vegas versions, please say so. Otherwise, disappointing.

I feel the same way. I'm using a latest gen CPU and v18 has tripled my render times. If it was just a few seconds of difference it might be worth the new features, but as it stands right now, upgrading would be a significant disruption to my workflow and that makes it a non-starter.

Just run a render for two Sony XAVC clips with a 2 sec fade, no other effects. Length 14.08s. render Sony AVC template BluRay (1920x1080, 24p GPU where available selected). V16 45sec, V17 21sec, V18 19sec

To those who've posted on this problem.....don't you find it odd that Magix isn't supporting its users, in this post or with many who send messages direct to Magix? Vegas Pro has been a good program, but it seems that instead of fixing issues, they wind up saving the fixes to the next version of Vegas Pro.

To those who've posted on this problem.....don't you find it odd that Magix isn't supporting its users, in this post or with many who send messages direct to Magix? Vegas Pro has been a good program, but it seems that instead of fixing issues, they wind up saving the fixes to the next version of Vegas Pro.

They fix dozens of issues with several patches that get released throughout the life cycle of any particular version of VEGAS, as well as add new features free of charge. VEGAS Creative Software developers also regularly comment on these threads, when they're not busy coding up the updates.

I like to feel of using v18 more than v17... little things like it remembering were you were when you bounce out and back in, not over sizing video clips when you drop them in, the love handles (wishing for more discriminating fade-handles to go with it), etc. Also found linear timecode embedded wav and video clips aligned more easily with v18. But v17 is clearly more bullet proof at this point. They should bring back the 17+18 deal. I'd buy that if only to get 2 more licenses for both. Is it still possible to even buy v17?

 Is it still possible to even buy v17?

The vegascreativesoftware Shop does not sell old versions, but VP 17 seems still available from reliable 3rd party online stores.

Hi. I have purchased VP18 and own also VP16 (almost 18 years on Vegas!). I tried to render a MTS 50p 1920*1080 clip of 50 seconds using the Magic AVC mp4 (Internet HD 1080p 50fps - NVENC) and MainConcept Mpeg-2 (DVD Architect Widescreen video stream) in both VP18+VP16...the result is that VP16 is faster in both the formats: MP4 (45s VS 43s) and Mpeg-2 (57s VS 47s). In Mpeg-2 a big difference. I know is an old format, but why?? And about MP4 also, not a big difference for 50s video, but I would expect to be the opposite situation, eventually!? Should not be VP18 faster? I noticed also that VP18 for Magix MP4 NVENC is using a NV12 codec, VP16 the YUV...do anybody knows what is the difference!?
By the way, I am editing on a laptop ASUS ROG GL702VM (i7-6700HQ, 32GB Ram, NVidia GTX 1060 6GB, 1TB NVMe SSD (S.O.) + 1TB SSD (Video disk). Thanks for your help, I just would like to understand why a newer software is working slower than the older :)

...the result is that VP16 is faster in both the formats: MP4 (45s VS 43s) and Mpeg-2 (57s VS 47s). In Mpeg-2 a big difference. I know is an old format, but why?? And about MP4 also, not a big difference for 50s video, but I would expect to be the opposite situation, eventually!? Should not be VP18 faster? I noticed also that VP18 for Magix MP4 NVENC is using a NV12 codec, VP16 the YUV...do anybody knows what is the difference!

I don't see that and with me both rendered files are exactly the same because they use the same Magix AVC 1080 50p Nvenc codec, but sometime at very heavy files V18 is a tiny litle bit slower because the 8 bit full range pixelformat is used by default and switching that (as in VP16) off helps a little.
Look at my both rendered files on laptop from signature out of Panasonic MTS 50 p FHD files

...the result is that VP16 is faster in both the formats: MP4 (45s VS 43s) and Mpeg-2 (57s VS 47s). In Mpeg-2 a big difference. I know is an old format, but why?? And about MP4 also, not a big difference for 50s video, but I would expect to be the opposite situation, eventually!? Should not be VP18 faster? I noticed also that VP18 for Magix MP4 NVENC is using a NV12 codec, VP16 the YUV...do anybody knows what is the difference!

I don't see that and with me both rendered files are exactly the same because they use the same Magix AVC 1080 50p Nvenc codec, but sometime at very heavy files V18 is a tiny litle bit slower because the 8 bit full range pixelformat is used by default and switching that (as in VP16) off helps a little.
Look at my both rendered files on laptop from signature out of Panasonic MTS 50 p FHD files

I see.... Tried now going back to legacy 8 bit-video levels and VP18 and VP16 needed same 50 sec to render the short clip! Tried again also with the Mpeg-2, several times, this time using also Vegas 12. But now (I don't know why) VP18 stops rendering all the time, around 65%-85% and have to close the procedure and the program using Task manager :(((. Anyway, showing a rendering duration of 1m03s (VP12: 58s, VP16 48s)!! Very frustrating to me... Now also the new problem about freezing/crashing :(

No idea what the reason could be. With me the same 50 sec renders in 24 sec to a DVDA mpeg2 widescreen

No idea what the reason could be. With me the same 50 sec renders in 24 sec to a DVDA mpeg2 widescreen

Hi again. Wow that's huge!! Are you starting from MTS 50p FHD file?
Making some tests with 1 minute clip MTS 50p FHD:
- to Mpeg-2: if in properties->File I/O I select "auto" in hardware decoder to use, no crashing anymore. Than in Properties->Video->GPU acceleration: OFF, I get a 57s (1.10s with GPU acceleration on "Optimal-Nvidia....").
- also rendering to MP4, if I select GPU acceleration to OFF, the rendering goes from 57s to 49s.... Very strange all this!?