What video card will not CRASH?

Steve Grisetti wrote on 6/24/2013, 7:19 AM

Have you installed the latest drivers for your video card(s) from the nVidia site?

With the Dell, have you gone to Dell's site and downloaded all of the updated drivers for its hardware? (Dell often has proprietary drivers for its hardware.)

Meantime, are you saying that these programs crash as soon as you open them -- or do they only crash after you've added media to them? And, if the latter, what model of camcorder is your video coming from?

thetempy wrote on 6/24/2013, 8:08 AM

Thanks for the reply Steve.
All drivers are up to date.
Crashes happen during editing at random times, not as soon I open them but while editing. Crashes also occur while rendering, usually about a third of the way through.
Camcorders are: Sony NEX-EA50EH, HVR-HD1000e (rarely used but media still crashes), Panasonic GH2

thetempy wrote on 6/24/2013, 8:12 AM

While editing a wedding recently Sony Vegas Pro crashed 7 times and then again while rendering. All footage from the NEX-EA50.

It worked in the end but was very frustrating and took me a lot longer to do the job.

OldSmoke wrote on 6/24/2013, 8:21 AM

@thetempy
"The other Intel i7 920 @2.67GHz, 8Gb memory, 500Gb boot drive and 1Tb other, running Windows 8 Pro with AMD HD 5670 graphics card. On Dell XPS M/Board"

According to SCS, the HD5670 is not a supported card, you need a HD57xx or higher.
The GTX650Ti is a Keppler chip based card that isn't yet fully supported under VP11&12. It will work but not as good as a Fermi based card like a GTX560Ti or higher. All that information can be found here: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/gpuacceleration

Here is my recommendation:
a) switch the two cards; run the GTX650 in your i7 system and the AMD card in your AMD system.
b) ensure a clean driver removal and clean new installation of the drivers.
c) Disable GPU acceleration on the AMD system with the AMD card as it is not supported.
Also look into your RAM configuration, if your RAM is specified for a certain speed run it a setting lower. If you have overclocked your CPU, turn it down a bit.

Since you don't get immediate crashes, I suspect you are having timing issues in your system or heat issues; that can be on your PCIe bus, memory, CPU and many other places.

Laurence wrote on 6/24/2013, 9:33 AM

Before you switch cards, turn off GPU acceleration and see if you still get the same amount of crashing. My guess is that you will, and switching cards would make very little difference.

craftech wrote on 6/24/2013, 3:26 PM

What video card will not CRASH?
=======================
Any video card in a system running Vegas 9 or earlier.

John

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/24/2013, 3:56 PM

10 never crashes for me. :D

I'd go with the suggestion to check heat/etc. I've had crashes because the RAM is junk, heat, bad files, but when I've eliminated those Vegas (up to 10) has never given me much issues.

barfnuts9000 wrote on 6/25/2013, 1:55 AM

I have two systems - both running Win7-Pro 64-bit, using AMD video cards. I can't remember the model at my one at work but I have an HD Radeon 6800 in my home computer.

Both setups never "worked" when VP11/12 were installed when GPU acceleration was enabled.

Somewhere along the line, it just started... working.. I think it may have been on the video card driver side of things because there was no update from SCS between the time it didn't work and the time it did.

Seemed to happen to a lot of people as well.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=852882

Best of luck...

NormanPCN wrote on 6/25/2013, 9:26 AM

I have AMD cards. Previously a 5850 and now a 7950. I am a recent user of Vegas and the 13.1 driver from AMD has been pretty stable.

The 13.4 driver unfortunately created a new problem in the New Blue titler 2.0. It works, but the first letter of text is dim.

VMP wrote on 6/25/2013, 9:35 AM

My Vegas 9 crashed all the time on W7 64 during editing. Especially while scrubbing and pressing enter (to play) on an video event.

Disabling ram preview/ setting it to 0 seem to solve the crash problem.
Remember to restart the application after setting the ram preview to 0.

See how long Vegas goes without crashing after that.

xdcamer wrote on 6/25/2013, 10:07 AM

Not sure what driver you are using for your GTX 650ti?

I have GTX 680 with driver 314.22. This same driver will work for your 650ti and I have found it very stable on my system. The latest 320.18 driver has been found to be very unstable for video editing. Hope this helps your GTX

thetempy wrote on 6/25/2013, 10:53 AM

Things are better on both PC's with the GPU acceleration turned off. However it is still buggy and crashes more than I want.
My AMD system has 4 x 12inch fans as well as advanced CPU cooler and graphics card fan. Graphics card temp is 21 cent. and 30 when clocked, CPU sits about 30 degree centigrade and around 47 when clocked.
Crashes happen clocked or normal.
I have tried swapping graphics cards with no improvement.

I think if this is meant to be professional level software it should behave like pro level software. At the very least I expect - detailed - guidance from the manufacturer on the system requirements.

If my camcorders were this bad I would never buy Sony again, fortunately the Sony Camcorders are superb!

VMP wrote on 6/25/2013, 11:08 AM

Have you tried disabling ram preview/ setting it to 0? (+restarting Vegas after that)

xdcamer wrote on 6/25/2013, 11:29 AM

I have tried GTX 560 580 with various drivers and finally settled on GTX 680 driver 314.22. the most stable for me. Turning off GPU is a solution but then you might as well have v10 or older. I would concentrate on getting an NVidia driver that works for your system.

To be fair to Sony I know they need to get more compatible especially with the 6xx series Kepler cards but my experience was a hardware and driver issue rather than Vegas Pro 12 itself. I had a stable system and then updated to the latest 320.18 driver only to find Vegas crashed regularly, once I reverted back to what was stable 314.22 everything was fine again.

If you find the hardware and suitable driver that works for your system Vegas Pro will run like a dream.

OldSmoke wrote on 6/25/2013, 11:45 AM

Here is the thing: "Professional" software requires "professional" hardware. Lucky for us, although a professional software, Vegas runs on many different systems and that is also a reason why it is difficult to pinpoint problems. In your initial post you ask which video card will not crash Vegas and all I can do is refer you to the SCS website about GPU acceleration. Both of your cards are, according to that website, not meant for VP11&12. SCS used to have pre-build systems but, from what I know, sales wasn't good because those systems where expensive and many customers thought they can do better and cheaper themselves.

I always build my own systems because if I have to make compromises due to budget, I want to make them myself and I have good 30 years of experience in builing systems.

When you swapped the cards did you make sure that all previous drivers where completely uninstalled including any entries in the registry? Which driver did you install for the GTX650? How many components have you changed on the Dell system? How big is your power supply for each of the systems? Power supplies are the most tricky component to source as there are many misleading statements about their power out put; meaning amps per lane/voltage; an information you can usually only find on the label of the PSU itself and hardly on the packaging. Are you using a UPS too? Many systems fail because of power fluctuations in the mains supply and I always use a good UPS to provide stable power to the system to begin with. Even with one GTX570 on my system, when GPU acceleration is on and I render to MC AVC you can see the lights in the room flicker, not a lot but the do and my house is build in 2010. I can see a peak of 500W with two GTX570 and close to 400W with only one. Your i7-920 and the GTX650 would require a minimum of 500W(40A) on the 12V lane alone and not in total.

There are many areas to look into, I know, and it can take a while to get a good and stable system but it is always worth the effort.

thetempy wrote on 6/25/2013, 12:19 PM

For the last year I have used Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects without crash or problems on my systems.
I spent considerable amount of cash on Sony camcorders and accessories and I have spent a reasonable amount of money on getting Vegas Pro 12 Suite which I really expect to work! This is not the case.
I really want this to work but I cannot afford the time extended on each job by crashes and bugs. I do video, I'm not a computer expert.
All I need to know is what works and if it is competitive with adobe I will invest in new hardware.

OldSmoke wrote on 6/25/2013, 12:41 PM

Well, mine works and always has since VP7. I never had an issue with GPU acceleration the moment it came out in VP10 and later in VP11 & 12. You can lookup my system spec and I am sure there are many others here with different systems that work too.
Oh, and prove is here: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=859391
I usually work on mulicam projects, 2-4 cams HDV and AVCHD footage and it's all good and fast. I don't use 3rd party plug-ins which may also be a reason why I don't have issues.

VidMus wrote on 6/25/2013, 1:49 PM

Vegas 12 is rock solid on my system. No crashes!

I am using driver 296.10 with the 560ti which is slightly manufacturer overclocked.

barfnuts9000 wrote on 6/29/2013, 5:03 AM

@Oldsmoke: I have to agree with you on most things you said. Professional software requires professional hardware. Coming from a television background, the Sony logo was emblazoned everywhere on most of the equipment (except for sound gear, obviously). All of their broadcast equipment always worked flawlessly and was a dream to work with. The camera quality was second to none.

That being said, I believe Sony's broadcast equipment and software divisions are very different in terms of level of corporate priority. It is apparent how much money they invest in SCS as I have never used a more unstable piece of software in my life - professional or consumer level. I'm not saying that VP12 isn't a slick piece of software - because it is- I love it. But I hate it at the same time.

Although it is recommended to have "professional" hardware to run VP12, I am quite surprised that SCS markets this to the con/prosumer level without at least warning that it is variably unstable on the average consumers setup running all the features that they whore out in their marketing (IE: GPU acceleration). I don't have the best setup in the world but when VP12 has a fatal unrecoverable crash while trying to adjust the in-point on a clip, or something as simple as hitting UNDO, I get a little exasperated. I have resorted to saving my project after every single change that i make.

Being present in the industry for when the digital AVID systems first came out, I am aware of the standard of hardware required to run a program like this professionally and efficiently. To have a ceritified AVID system back in the mid-90's, you had to invest as much as a bare-bones luxury car costed - but it worked (for the most part).

*Sigh*

OldSmoke wrote on 6/29/2013, 9:12 AM

@barfnuts9000: Well there you go. One would have spent a fortune on a Avid system but on the other end doesn't even want to spent a fraction of it on a working Sony system. If you had a Avid system in those days, would you put Office software, CAD software, Internet Explorers and games on it? I have all on my system with the exception of games and yet all works very well. Having said that, I don't render a project in the background and do other things in the meantime, but I can leave a project open and work on other stuff. People that use VP for what it is on a professional level will have dedicated systems or like me, dedicate the system for the work at a time.
I would rather say that SCS is an island in the ocean of Sony companies and certainly doesn't get all the funding we would like it to have, but VP11 and 12 are a leap forward for me and I can finally work on projects with higher resolution and have a preview that allows me to see the timeline in full resolution and realtime. The days I worked with Media Studio Pro I needed a hardware de/encoder from Canopus, which was limited to mpeg, to get a full resolution preview and close to realtime rendering; and it was expensive too.
I have spent a considerable time to build my system and the current one is the third I build in less then 2 years because I was not satisfied with the earlier ones. They worked but still where too slow to do more. There is a phrase that applies to almost anything: You get what you pay for. The next system, I still need to safe up for that, will certainly be a dual Xeon platform because things like scrolling text and compositing are still not satisfying on my system. The only thing I blame SCS for is not making a longer list of systems or at least combination of hardware that is tested and recommended, including brand names; doesn't even have to be certified because not many would buy that anyway due to cost.