John Matchett
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks Graham,
I’m glad it’s not just me then!
I normally get our systems made up by Chillblast as their technicians are courteous and well informed but I can’t expect them to know the ins and outs of VEGAS software architecture. Their current suggestion is i7-9700K with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 + 64GB RAM, but frankly the first time I know whether this works will be when I switch it on! Previously I have bought recommended cards that specifically offered Open CL – when that was the latest thing – but they have still given me rendering issues. Asking real world users seems a better approach.
You idea is a sound one so I shall give that a try.
John M.
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Hi all,
Having wasted a day trying to get my Windows 10 workstation to launch Vegas 16 Pro without freezing on ‘Creating Windows’, any more bright ideas appreciated. I am a very long-time Vegas and PC user so it is rare that I have this much trouble solving a problem.
It was working fine this morning, as far as I know I have done nothing to the PC. Suddenly it started to throw a white screen into my central (3-screen) monitor set up – along with the Creating Windows message – and refuses to boot up. VEGAS 15 Pro (still installed) is doing the same thing, which must be a significant clue. The question is what is the software trying/failing to do?
I have a number of external/internal drives but they are all on/live so it can’t be failing to find media.
I have tried the various suggestions about replacing damaged/missing d3d9.dll files and removing ExplorerFavorites.txt files – not working for me, sadly. If I do a Ctrl+Shift start on Vegas it will start, once – but all my panes are in the wrong place so this sin’t a long term solution.
From the mass of people clearly suffering from this issue, are MAGIX showing any intelligent leadership in identifying the issue to this annoying problem? I have sent a service request and will post it if I get an answer.
John M.
Update: MAGIX totally failing to engage so far, which is poor – and and problem persists. I have done two complete re-installs including deep registry cleans; no difference. Starting software with Ctrl+Shift works but gives me ‘vanilla’ single screen set up – I typically work on three screen set up. As soon as I move a window and re-start the system freezes up again at ‘Creating Windows’. Someone out there (or at MAGIX) must know what the software is trying/failing to do at this point.
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Thanks Graham,
Yes – the trick seems to be to add the mask generator to the FX on the top track header (not the track), set the Compositing Mode switch to Multiply but the Parent Compositing mode to Source Alpha.
Glad to have that figured out!
John M
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Ha – no you may have missed the point of the exercise! I’m not trying to get the text done I could do that whistling in 10 seconds.
My example was just so you could check it was working your end using the layers and masking technique – which you may have done; the result is exactly what I would expect to happen in my example, but it ain’t happening at my end. (Typically I’m doing complex brain surgery and nuclear physics videos; generating text is the least of my problems!)
The issue is how you set the switches in the layers to stop the upper mask blowing right through the bottom layer. In my numpty example, I have the top two layers (red layer and text) parent/child grouped, and Green layer below, outside this group. The mask is currently affecting the green layer, which I don’t want.
John M
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Hi John,
Quite so and I agree, but I’m working on incoming graphics that elements that I’m not controlling. So I have several splash-screen/bumper media elements that needs to be conformed to specific colours.
Clearly After Effects allows us to add a colour layer and change blending mode to ‘colour’ – this can be 100% or just 80%. I’ve come across this problem before in Vegas, so I’d be glad if there was a simple solution within my day to day working NLE.
John M.
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I’m glad it’s not just me then! I think this started with the very first version of Vegas 10, but I may be wrong.
FYI: Whilst this seems to be a mayor problem on our Windows 7, 64x machines, it seems to work OK on our one remaining 32x XP machine.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it were possible to open the Vegas 10 projects in the earlier v.9 software.
Apart from letting the crash reports go through, I’ve generally given up on reporting problems to Sony directly, as they typically just suggest that you re-load the software, so – like you – I’m just hopeful they pick this up in one of their patched versions somewhere down the line.
JM
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Thanks John,
That was the kind of solution I was expecting. Long-term the VASST script has to be a sensible investment for us. I’ve had a few scripts written for as bespoke items for specific jobs, but a lot of the day-to-day stuff must be out there already on these packages.
We’ve solved this one now with Mike’s suggestion, but the feedback is appreciated.
Regards,
John M.
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Bless you Mike,
I thought there must be an easier way than individually changing the properties on 500 files!
Worked perfectly – thanks,
John M.
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Hi Scott,
I’m glad it’s not just me being an idiot then! If you’re using Vista or Windows 7 you can easily put one of those sad boy-racer CPU gadgets on your desktop – I now have one on my right-hand monitor below the preview pane, but don’t tell anyone!
I’ve tried several settings now and the results are suprisingly different both in terms of how much of the % of the RAM is being used, but especially in terms of how hard the processor cores are working. I’ve now got my CPU peaking at 90-97% which is way better than before (20-25%).
Interestingly (and kind of counter-intuitively to me) setting the ‘Dynamic RAM preview max’ to zero as i’ve seen suggested elswhere, doesn’t seem to give the best results for me. FYI: I currently have mine at 3GB – my machine total is 8GB – and this seems to give a sensible balance.
Either way – like you – I’d assumed that this RAM setting would be over-ridden if I wasn’t actively using the RAM preview (i.e. once the machine was in full rendering mode) and that’s where the confusion was coming from.
John Matchett
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Thanks for the reply John. That’s interesting, and I wouldn’t have guessed. I’ve been doing this wrong for ages. I was very enthusiastic about finally getting access to all that RAM on a 64 bit machine, but it looks like I’ve actually been making it worse!
Whilst I fully understand what the RAM preview is doing – and find it very helpful on complex HD projects – it’s less-than-obvious that ‘allowing’ the machine to use a given percentage of the RAM means that it’s unavailable for anything else. Perhaps Sony ought to clarify this within the preferences dialogue as I’m sure I can’t be the only one generously allocating all my precious memory resources.
Any pearls of wisdom about ‘maximum number of rendering threads’? Is it safe to leave this max’d out or should I be throttling this back? I’m never sure how smart PCs are at negotiating the use of their cores.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply.
