Optimal Settings for Render Speed

[Stephen Mann]

I’ve read these type of posts for the past ten years with some amusement. Rearranging the deck chairs might give you a few percent speed boost, but there are only two ways to get faster render speeds.

1) Faster processor (more cores helps, too).

2) Less video to render. That means lower resolution or smaller image size or using an uncompressed source. (Uncompressed sources are rare these days, but Vegas renders them an order of magnitude faster than uncompressed sources).

Some have seen some small improvement by adding more RAM to the PC and applying less RAM to the render. The RAM you set aside in the preferences is only used for pre-rendering (CTRL-B). If you never use CTRL-B, then you don’t need to set aside RAM for it.

[Red-rob Rothkopf]

” there are only two ways to get faster render speeds”

I would venture to guess, besides the two things Stephen mentions, there are many other things that can impact render speed 😉

– Changing settings to use (or not use) your graphics card can help.
– Changing which effects you use can help — some transitions and VFX are way more processor intensive (e.g. noise reduction) than others.
– Changing the target render format — it’s not only the source video decoding that takes processing — the target format/compression also can make a big difference.
– Your target drive — if you’re rendering to a device on a USB bus and you’re having issues with bus speed, that could impact your render times.
– Have you looked at Windows Task Manager to see if any resources are being maxed out when the rendering takes place? CPU? Disk I/O. RAM? Video card utilization? May give some insights.

If you could post some examples of the render speeds you’re getting, the source media format and target render settings, we can get a better sense if what you’re experiencing is below-average or actually pretty good.

[Graham Bernard]

You haven’t given us a base level of information. If you are going to ask for help, we need to know more detail than what you’ve offered.

Present Render Outcomes: How long is too long? Minutes, hours, or days? You haven’t said – yeah? How long IS your Project? What format is your Media and what are you rendering to?

Project Setup: Match Media to Project settings OR, this is what I do, Match Project Settings to Media

Regressive Testing: Start removing Events or FXs and rendered until you find the Culprits.