History of render crashes with GPU, put GPU-accelerated fx to most of the clips, any workarounds?

[Norman Black]

OFX has nothing to do with GPU. It is simply a defined portable video effects plug-in format. An OFX plug-in and be GPU accelerated or not.

Nearly all of the Sony plug-ins are OFX. All the OFX plug-ins have a similar user interface. Look at Sony levels, and other OFX plug-ins and then look at Sony Rays which is not OFX.

[John Rofrano]

[Jason Maybrough] “I kind of put myself in a tight spot that vegas would use gpu processing no matter what. Would using OFX instead of GPU-accelerated FX make a difference? Any workarounds to this situation?”

I don’t really understand what the problem is. Are the renders bad? Taking too long? Freezing? You can disable the GPU acceleration under Options | Preferences | Video. Your card is rather weak (only 128 CUDA cores. You could get 3x as many cores in a $79 GTX560) so unless you have an equally weak CPU, just disable the GPU all together. As I said, it’s probably not powerful enough to make a difference anyway.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jason Maybrough]

I’m sorry if I’m not able to communicate my problem well, John. The problem is basically when I reach 75%~90% rendering (at a part where the filesize approaches the 1GB mark; this part also has 3-6 audio tracks playing simultaneously), I receive a ‘Sony Vegas has unnexpected problems and need to close.’ I remember the code being 0xc00005, faulty module being vegas120k.dll and a lot of gpu related files on the error report. And yes, I thought I could just disable gpu rendering by picking it on the render dropdown options, I followed your advice and disabled GPU altogether in the preferences. Now I’m rendering it again using pure cpu, fingers crossed it would finish.

I’m also running a decently powerful Core i7 860 stock. So my cpu is no slouch either.

And to Norman, thanks for clearing that up, I guess I have to tinker around then to learn more about OFX and what its advantages are compared to the other kinds of FX, although I’d prefer ones that would receive help from GPU. good thing I haven’t invested in a rather expensive graphics card yet, only to find out its rather rocky relationship with Vegas.

[John Rofrano]

[Jason Maybrough] “I’m also running a decently powerful Core i7 860 stock. So my cpu is no slouch either.”

That may have been true 4 years ago in 2009 when that processor was launched but today, that processor is now at the bottom of the pack. Check out the CPU Benchmark. The PasMark score for that CPU is 5102 while most modern CPU’s are in the 9,000’s and my two year old Intel Core i7-3930K is at 12,120.

[Jason Maybrough] “I guess I have to tinker around then to learn more about OFX and what its advantages are compared to the other kinds of FX, although I’d prefer ones that would receive help from GPU.”

OFX is an application programming interface (API) that is supported by the open community. It’s advantage is that it’s more widely supported so you should be able to find more plug-ins that are compatible. OFX itself has no other benefit over Direct X. It’s up to the plug-in creators to take advantage of the GPU or not. For example, Boris FX plug-ins are OFX and take advantage of OpenGL GPU acceleration. Sony’s plug-ins are OFX and do not take advantage of OpenGL because they use OpenCL. Turning off GPU acceleration on the timeline will not affect Boris FX plug-ins at all. They will continue to use OpenGL. My point is, that OFX is not a criteria for selecting one plug-in over another. It’s just an API that Vegas Pro supports just like Direct X. You need to check with the plug-in developer to see if they support your GPU or not. In particular plug-ins that support CUDA do not support AMD GPU’s. So this is something to be aware of.

[Jason Maybrough] “good thing I haven’t invested in a rather expensive graphics card yet, only to find out its rather rocky relationship with Vegas.”

Any new enhancement to software is bound to be rocky. GPU is a particularly messy area with multiple competing API’s. Hopefully Sony’s support will stabilize over time. Of course, buying a professional GPU helps. I haven’t had any problems with my NVIDIA Quadro 4000 like others have had with their GeForce cards. This is a case of “you get what you pay for”. Professional cards tend to have better tested drivers.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Stephen Crye]

Thanks for the CPU Benchmark link, John …

My CPU bites.

The Dell T7500 case is very nice, easy to work on, lots of fans, beefy power supply. I wonder if I can fit a better mombo in there.

My only other option would be to install a second Xeon E5620 …

argh.

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T7500, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000, Vegas 12, 11, 10, 9 DVDA 6.0 & 5.2(build 135) Sony HDR-CX550V, Panasonic GH3 with LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm / F2.8 ASPH, LUMIX G X VARIO 35-100mm / F2.8

[John Rofrano]

[Stephen Crye] “The Dell T7500 case is very nice, easy to work on, lots of fans, beefy power supply. I wonder if I can fit a better mombo in there.”

Here is the problem I’ve had in the past with Dell. They make motherboards with special connectors. That means if you buy another motherboard, chances are your nice power supply won’t plug into it because it has a Dell specific power supply connector. Also, none of the lights and switches needed to turn the motherboard on will connect to the front of the case because the case has proprietary Dell connectors.

This is why I would never buy a Dell again. I had a power supply go on the one Dell that I bought way back when, and Dell wanted $200 for a power supply that everyone else was selling for $75 because it has a special Dell connector and so you can only buy it from them. They plan it that way and I’m gonna guess that they haven’t changed their ways.

So off hand, I’d say that you cannot put an industry standard motherboard in a proprietary Dell case and PSU but give them a call and see what they say.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Stephen Crye]

John, how long ago was that? For the last several years at least, Dell has been using industry standard connectors (for the most part). This article is a bit old, but I’m pretty sure it applies:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-specifications-atx-reference,3061-10.html

Although there are plenty of valid things to hate about Dell – I’m not really an apologist for them – I’ve bought 100% Dell for home use since 1998, and I have never had any components fail outside of the warranty period (3 years). Perhaps they use better components in the high-end workstations?

Anyway, right now I’m looking into adding a second Xeon. I can get the procs pretty cheap. It would give me 8 render threads instead of 4, and might tide me over until Vegas/nVidia gets the Kepler thing right.

Finally – I can’t resist, sorry in advance – good luck finding a non-Apple power supply replacement for your Mac Pro 😉 just kidding

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/12/31/teardown-of-new-mac-pro-reveals-surprising-amount-of-accessibility-circular-daugtherboard/

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T7500, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000, Vegas 12, 11, 10, 9 DVDA 6.0 & 5.2(build 135) Sony HDR-CX550V, Panasonic GH3 with LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm / F2.8 ASPH, LUMIX G X VARIO 35-100mm / F2.8

[John Rofrano]

[Stephen Crye] “For the last several years at least, Dell has been using industry standard connectors (for the most part).”

It’s good to know they’ve stopped making non-standard computers. The other nasty trick they would pull is to advertise standard cards but then have them specially made to lower specs. In the PC I bought, they advertise a particular Audigy sound and when I got it, it had MIDI disabled. I bought it specifically because I do MIDI recording so while Dell thought that no one would notice and they could save some money, they actually didn’t mention anywhere on their web site that these cards were modified. Likewise the GeForce graphics card was not as advertised. They used slower and less memory then the stock card I thought I was getting. Needless to say I never bought from Dell again.

[Stephen Crye] “Finally – I can’t resist, sorry in advance – good luck finding a non-Apple power supply replacement for your Mac Pro 😉 just kidding”

Oh yea, there’s nothing standard about that baby. It will be interesting to see if 3rd parties step in an supply parts. I just upgraded by son’s “non-upgradible” MacBook Air with a new larger SSD drive. Companies like OWC make a living supplying parts for Apple products. I personally hate the fact that Apple has made their products so thin that they sacrifice expandability. The fact that I upgraded my SSD drive says to me that Apple should make this upgrade available. It was no harder than upgrading a HDD in any other laptop.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Stephen Crye]

Hey John, do you buy Windows PCs from big names or build your own?

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T7500, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000, Vegas 12, 11, 10, 9 DVDA 6.0 & 5.2(build 135) Sony HDR-CX550V, Panasonic GH3 with LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm / F2.8 ASPH, LUMIX G X VARIO 35-100mm / F2.8

[John Rofrano]

[Stephen Crye] “Hey John, do you buy Windows PCs from big names or build your own?”

I’ve been building my own for years now. If I was to buy from a “big name” it would be HP. I’ve seen the internals of their workstations at NAB and they are quite impressive. For someone who can’t afford an HP Workstation, I would recommend going with a boutique builder like iBuyPower. The reason is because they build from off-the-shelf parts so you can always upgrade them easily just as if you built them yourself. Usually these boutique builders assemble computers for high powered gaming which is also perfect for video editing. Everything on them is industry standard. It’s the next best thing to building it yourself.

I now regret building a new computer last year because now I want a new Mac Pro but I just dumped $2K into my current PC so I’m going to have to wait a while to justify an upgrade. 🙁

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com