Thanks astar. An AMD processor and a Gigabyte board for the AMD chipset is what I have. The processor is an AMD Athlon II x 4 620 The boardis a 78LMT-USB3. The computer is an HP Media Center that I bought in 2008 that I upgraded to 8 gigs of DDR 2 memory and the GTX460 which was the bomb according to some at the time. The et up served me well with few problems thatr were easily corrected. The Nvidia card is a 756 mb with DDR5 memory made by Sparkle.....I think?

The 6 gig memory is in two slots. One being a 4 gig stick and the other a two.. It is what the tech had on hand. The board can take much more. 32 gb I believe The processor that was with the ASUS board didn't fit in the Gigabyte so he put in an AMD he had that fit.He did not consult with me before putting all this together. He said I would have more speed and such with this set up. I don't think he ever read any SCS message boards on the ills and kills of rendering in Vegas on different brands and specs of hardware. If i wasn''t a little strapped on funds i'd just go get the right pan for the bacon.

"Can you post the "speecy" file or text output on your system the way it is configured?"

I did this one time before but as with a lot of this computer stuff I'm out of practice. I'd be happy to get that for you, but I need some coaching, lol. I do appreciate your help on the matter.. Thanks again

What OS are you using? Have you updated video driver? There are performance issues with default microsoft video drivers and there are some minor performance issues for CUDA rendering with recent drivers. Depending on operating system you have different options...

Thanks, I have to look and see if I have the last driver in my back up drive. I did have trouble with updated drivers before.. That would be a plus for sure.

Well, I found the drivers and installed them. The computer worked as it should on its side, but when standing the computer in the upright position the glitches, funky screens, and hair pulling returned. Shut it down, laid it on its side and it was fine again. It has me puzzled to say the least. The only thing I can think of is maybe a stress issue on the connections within the card. Scratching my head on this one

i would definitely think it was a stress issue, especially with the weight of some of the new gpu's.

Hi Mikey, I see this display card issue a lot. Is it retained using a screw or a clip-on plate at the back? If it is the latter, then rather use a screw and also ensure it is one of those with a larger head. If it attached using a screw, then make sure that it is firmly attached. If the above doesn't solve the problem, you can use a piece of plastic tubing or similar to brace it against the bottom of the case. Once it is in place and working, use a little silicon or contact glue to keep it in place on the case - NOT the display card.

In terms of the RAM, I see that your board has 4 RAM slots. I understand that your funds are restricted at the moment, but try to get another 4GB module. DDR3 RAM is pretty cheap at the moment. Then, rather remove the 2GB at this stage and ensure the two 4GB modules are running in dual channel mode. On your board I think you just have to put the two modules in the same colour slots, but you can easily verify this when you boot up.

If you still experience issues in Vegas, try switching GPU acceleration off. If this improves the situation, then your display card is most likely responsible. If not, then the issue is elsewhere.

Thanks Wayne, I'll give that remedy a try. I really appreciate the help. I was counting the ways to maybe get another card if I didn't beat the issue. i am going to purchase more RAM. Are you saying to keep the 2gb stick or replace it? Also, would adding more memory improve the rendering time since I now have a board that can handle it? Thanks again

Yep, that did the trick, WayneW. Made a little card support from a plastic cymbal protector and the machine is standing as it should without any glitches. Now to catch up to some projects.. Thanks much.

Can someone answer my memory question in this thread. I know it helps in Building Dynamic Ram so I am assuming it would help the processing overall?

Hi Mikey, I posted a response about a day ago, but somehow it didn't appear here 😠. Perhaps there are still some teething issues. Anyway, I suggested that additional RAM would definitely be a good idea and that you could perform an easy test to see whether it would improve your rendering speed. Open Task Manager, go to the Performance tab and check how much RAM your system is using. Then, open a typical project in Vegas, start rendering it and go back to Task Manager to see how much RAM is being used. If it is consistently using more than 5.5GB of your existing 6GB then the RAM is causing a bottleneck and affecting the rendering speed. If not, increasing the RAM to 8GB running in dual channel mode will still improve your system's responsiveness, but will not have much impact on rendering.

If your system is maxing out your RAM when rendering, then you clearly need to upgrade. The question is "How much will be enough?" It may be a good idea to see if you can borrow another 4GB module and then run the same test with the two 4GB modules installed in dual channel mode, as you may find that is sufficient for your current system configuration. If not, then rather opt for two 8GB modules if your budget allows. You could also start with a single 8GB in conjunction with your existing RAM and then add another 8GB later.

Just a few additional points that may or may not be relevant to your decision:

The Vegas rendering engine is not particularly optimised and does not make the best use of your system's resources, so if you are only using Vegas then increasing your RAM beyond a certain point will give you diminishing returns and you will be better served spending your money elsewhere, such as on an SSD, faster CPU or more current display card if you want to take advantage of GPU acceleration.

My current system has a 2nd gen i7 CPU (quad core with hyper-threading) and 8GB of RAM. If I have nothing else running in the background, my system uses about 2GB RAM and less than 2% CPU when idle. This goes up to around 4GB and 80% when rendering an average 1080p project using the Intel HEVC CODEC and not more than 3.5GB and 65% using any other CODEC. I can get it up to 90% of the CPU and 6.5GB of RAM when rendering 4K HEVC, but this is not typical for me. Vegas2Handbrake by comparison uses consistently close to 100% CPU, but even that never exceeds 7GB of RAM.

In my specific case, the CPU is the bottleneck and a system with a substantially faster CPU would be able to take advantage of increased RAM. Upgrading my CPU would require a new mainboard and DDR4 RAM, so is not a viable option for me right now. I recently had some funds available and opted to upgrade my system drive to an SSD rather than increase my RAM. Anyway, my point is that any workstation used for video editing relies on a combination of components that will determine its effective performance. So, regardless of how much you increase your RAM, at a certain something else will limit the performance. The idea is to find the sweet spot that will give you the best expense to performance ratio for your specific system.