Which GPU tech moving forward - Future of Vegas???

Cliff Etzel wrote on 5/7/2018, 3:45 PM

What are others thoughts about GPU tech moving forward? Do others feel MAGIX will still support AMD as the best option for Vegas Pro?

I'm trying to convince myself to stick with Vegas if a Radeon card is still the way to go. Vegas 14 is still pretty mediocre for timeline playback performance with my current GTX-660ti no matter what settings I change and the only thing I can think of is getting a newer GPU. Since Vegas 15 now supports nVidia, I'm torn which way to go as I don't want to invest in inferior tech for Vegas - Resolve is an amazing tool as it's color grading and rendering blow anything else I've tried, but Resolve hardware specs for GPU are over the top and outside of my budget, and you have to use a decklink mini monitor card for secondary monitor support. -I do edit on a laptop at times when traveling and Vegas is so much more forgiving on the GPU front for basic editing and color correction - albeit at the expense of RT timeline playback performance. The cost for a current laptop with decent specs also falls outside my budget - I can find Refurbished Dell Precision M4700/M4800 laptops with i7 quad core, 16-32gb RAM and 2GB GPU's (Either nVidia or the occasional AMD Firepro) for around $600 - a pretty big upgrade from my old M4500 with 16GB RAM and 1GB Quadro FX880M I've had for close to 7 years now.

Others say they still use AMD cards even with the latest Vegas Pro 15. I have again run into issues with Vegas randomly crashing on exit and a basic project I have with the following plugin chain applied and it can't play back in Preview Full any better than about 12-14fps on a 1080-30p project using Cineform clips. The interview material has key framed clipping masks applied at the clip level for tweaking the lighting on the subjects faces, a simple key framed motion title created in Vegas and a second timeline with stills. Same project in Resolve just plays and renders like butter. Premiere Pro falls in the middle of the three NLE's editing the same project.

Here are the all Vegas only plugins chain in order from left to right at the track level: Levels - Brightness and Contrast - Saturation Adjust - Vignette

At the Clip level each clip has a clipping mask applied - these Vegas only Plugins are applied to the clipping mask: Fill Light - Brightness and Contrast (clipping path applied around face to add emphasis)

Any thoughts given my new hardware upgrade is pretty nice: An ASUS ROG Strix Z370-H Mobo with an i8700K hexcore OC'd to 4.7ghz and 16GB RAM (will be adding another 16GB later this month). Boot drive is a 240GB SSD, Project files are stored on a separate 7200RPM spinning drive, video and audio temp is located on a separate 160GB 7200rpm drive solely for this purpose and all assets are on a 2x1GB 7200rpm Raid0 via eSata.

What would others recommend as the best bang for the buck GPU - I've been looking at the 8GB versions of the R290, 390 series as well as RX470, 480, 570, and 580 cards from AMD (all seem to be close in price on eBay). If I do go nVidia, I have more or less decided on the GTX-1060 6GB card. I could go with a 4GB card if needed but that's not really future proofing myself for the eventual move to 4K - right?

I'm still editing 1080p footage but do eventually plan to move to 4K later this year but I'm pretty happy (and so are my clients) with the image quality of the current 1080p footage I'm shooting. I've tested XAVC-I vs Cineform as converted clips and have seen no difference in performance of Vegas timeline playback and XAVC doesn't support Alpha Transparency where Cineform does - and I do need that option on occasion. File sizes are similar depending on the clip converted.

I'm torn about upgrading to Vegas Pro 15 given the mixed reviews from other users.

Any advice based on this information?

Comments

BruceUSA wrote on 5/7/2018, 4:12 PM

Cliff, my r9 290x work great on timeline performance on vp13 14 and 15. Absolutely no complaint there with AMD card.

Cliff Etzel wrote on 5/7/2018, 5:14 PM

Cliff, my r9 290x work great on timeline performance on vp13 14 and 15. Absolutely no complaint there with AMD card.

I'm leaning towards either the 290 or 390 8GB cards right now...

SphinxRa40 wrote on 5/8/2018, 12:15 AM

http://www.sapphiretech.com/productdetial.asp?pid=C436E37C-8A09-48B6-9F2B-F4AF86E377B6&lang=eng

Wolfgang S. wrote on 5/8/2018, 4:32 AM

Resolve is an amazing tool as it's color grading and rendering blow anything else I've tried, but Resolve hardware specs for GPU are over the top and outside of my budget, and you have to use a decklink mini monitor card for secondary monitor Support. -I do edit on a laptop at times when traveling and Vegas is so much more forgiving on the GPU front for basic editing and color correction - albeit at the expense of RT timeline playback performance. The cost for a current laptop with decent specs also falls outside my budget - I can find Refurbished Dell Precision M4700/M4800 laptops with i7 quad core, 16-32gb RAM and 2GB GPU's (Either nVidia or the occasional AMD Firepro) for around $600 - a pretty big upgrade from my old M4500 with 16GB RAM and 1GB Quadro FX880M I've had for close to 7 years now.

The free version of resolve can be a great choice, even the studio version of resolve. But true, Resolve has some Hardware requirements.

The most important one are GPUs but also a videocard for the preview (I have here the Decklink 4K 12G, especially for HDR a nice but relativ expensive choise).

What would others recommend as the best bang for the buck GPU - I've been looking at the 8GB versions of the R290, 390 series as well as RX470, 480, 570, and 580 cards from AMD (all seem to be close in price on eBay). If I do go nVidia, I have more or less decided on the GTX-1060 6GB card. I could go with a 4GB card if needed but that's not really future proofing myself for the eventual move to 4K - right?

I'm still editing 1080p footage but do eventually plan to move to 4K later this year but I'm pretty happy (and so are my clients) with the image quality of the current 1080p footage I'm shooting. I've tested XAVC-I vs Cineform as converted clips and have seen no difference in performance of Vegas timeline playback and XAVC doesn't support Alpha Transparency where Cineform does - and I do need that option on occasion. File sizes are similar depending on the clip converted.

I'm torn about upgrading to Vegas Pro 15 given the mixed reviews from other users.

Any advice based on this information?

I still have good experience with my older 8core System but also the R9 390X with 8GB RAM. And I use in Addition an nvidia 4200K with other 4GB.

If you go for an R9 390X or newer with 8GB Ram you have a solid Workstation for both Vegas and Resolve. The actual beta2 of Resolve is able to utilize both cards in my machine, and this combination allows also fast nvida based Rendering. But the combination of those those two Cards is tricky in the same System.

Trensharo wrote on 5/8/2018, 9:52 AM

Resolve is an amazing tool as it's color grading and rendering blow anything else I've tried, but Resolve hardware specs for GPU are over the top and outside of my budget, and you have to use a decklink mini monitor card for secondary monitor Support. -I do edit on a laptop at times when traveling and Vegas is so much more forgiving on the GPU front for basic editing and color correction - albeit at the expense of RT timeline playback performance. The cost for a current laptop with decent specs also falls outside my budget - I can find Refurbished Dell Precision M4700/M4800 laptops with i7 quad core, 16-32gb RAM and 2GB GPU's (Either nVidia or the occasional AMD Firepro) for around $600 - a pretty big upgrade from my old M4500 with 16GB RAM and 1GB Quadro FX880M I've had for close to 7 years now.

The free version of resolve can be a great choice, even the studio version of resolve. But true, Resolve has some Hardware requirements.

The most important one are GPUs but also a videocard for the preview (I have here the Decklink 4K 12G, especially for HDR a nice but relativ expensive choise).

What would others recommend as the best bang for the buck GPU - I've been looking at the 8GB versions of the R290, 390 series as well as RX470, 480, 570, and 580 cards from AMD (all seem to be close in price on eBay). If I do go nVidia, I have more or less decided on the GTX-1060 6GB card. I could go with a 4GB card if needed but that's not really future proofing myself for the eventual move to 4K - right?

I'm still editing 1080p footage but do eventually plan to move to 4K later this year but I'm pretty happy (and so are my clients) with the image quality of the current 1080p footage I'm shooting. I've tested XAVC-I vs Cineform as converted clips and have seen no difference in performance of Vegas timeline playback and XAVC doesn't support Alpha Transparency where Cineform does - and I do need that option on occasion. File sizes are similar depending on the clip converted.

I'm torn about upgrading to Vegas Pro 15 given the mixed reviews from other users.

Any advice based on this information?

I still have good experience with my older 8core System but also the R9 390X with 8GB RAM. And I use in Addition an nvidia 4200K with other 4GB.

If you go for an R9 390X or newer with 8GB Ram you have a solid Workstation for both Vegas and Resolve. The actual beta2 of Resolve is able to utilize both cards in my machine, and this combination allows also fast nvida based Rendering. But the combination of those those two Cards is tricky in the same System.

I'm leaning towards the Resolve Studio, myself. They don't charge for upgrades, so I don't mind paying :-P There are some nice features in the Studio version that I'd want.

Cliff Etzel wrote on 5/8/2018, 4:10 PM

The biggest issue I'm having with Resolve is the fact that it requires alot more in hardware and you HAVE to use a decklink mini monitor card for secondary display and it can't be used for second monitor support outside of editing. That brings me right back to Vegas and Premiere Pro as I have limited space and no room for adding a larger third monitor for playback preview. The other two apps provide that natively - something that is pretty important for my style of editing.

Wolfgang S. wrote on 5/9/2018, 2:47 AM

The biggest issue I'm having with Resolve is the fact that it requires alot more in hardware and you HAVE to use a decklink mini monitor card for secondary display and it can't be used for second monitor support outside of editing. That brings me right back to Vegas and Premiere Pro as I have limited space and no room for adding a larger third monitor for playback preview. The other two apps provide that natively - something that is pretty important for my style of editing.

Sure, with your Hardware your GPUs on both your laptop but also desctop do not have a lot of ram for Resolve. At least not for 4K. And true, one will not always need a grading suite like Resolve.

steve-kauzlarich wrote on 5/9/2018, 1:31 PM

I'm also looking into a newer card for my system. Currently I have a Sapphire 290x which works great with my Boxx Apexx 2. I need a second card for an older backup system, so the 290x will go in there and the new card will go in the Boxx.

I looked at the GTX 1060 but I don't see that it supports openCL, which is apparently critical for smooth timeline performance - especially with filters turned on such as 'unsharp mask'. I'm leaning heavily towards the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon™ RX 580 8GD5.

Magix states that a requirement for AMD is an "OpenCL-enabled GPU", and doesn't state that for Nvidia or Intel. Real clear in my opinion...

I have yet to see the above spec actually stated by Sapphire or AMD, but since the 290x works better in Vegas than any Nvidia card I've ever owned, and Vegas has been crawling at a snail's pace with technology innovation for a decade now, I'll stick with AMD.

Here's Magix's AMD card requirement:

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/vegas-pro/specifications/

AMD/ATI

"Requires an OpenCL-enabled GPU and Catalyst driver 11.7 or later with a Radeon HD 57xx or higher GPU. If using a FirePro GPU, FirePro unified driver 8.85 or later is required".

I don't know what all that means so I can only make an educated guess at this point. After all, I'm a working videographer, not an engineer.

OldSmoke wrote on 5/9/2018, 1:37 PM

Those specs are from the Sony Vegas Pro 11 days and have never been updated.

steve-kauzlarich wrote on 5/9/2018, 2:32 PM

That being the case, is there an update somewhere? Or, do the current recommendations still apply to Vegas architecture?