[Kell Hymer]

Personally, I have found it very difficult to determine with any certainty why my GPU and CPU do not seem to be utilized more. This applies to both rendering and previewing. Oftentimes, my preview window frame rate is low and my CPU and/or GPU utilization are low. CPU utilization is not necessarily the best measure from what I gather. If you think about it, the various codecs and effects may not be able to fully utilize parallel processing (hyperthreading and multi-cores). Other determinants are the motherboard bus speeds, RAM speeds, GPU to onboard memory bandwidth limitations, and PCI-E lane restrictions and bandwidth. Sometimes a modern CPU can process the data faster than the time it takes for the CPU to offload it to the GPU, the GPU to compute and move data back and forth between the on-board memory, package it up and send it back to the CPU. Removing known bottlenecks is the best thing to do to speed up this process. I recently upgraded to an i7-4930k and have dedicated OS, read, and write solid state drives to work from. My working read drive is a PCI-E SSD that is roughly double the read and write speeds of the best Samsung SSDs on the market. I use SATA 3 ports for the remainder of my drives. I have plenty of RAM on a P9-X79 deluxe board that is still top of the line for consumer boards. Despite this, I still have bottleneck :). Simply put, a high level of complex multi-layered video with effects will tax any system. The only thing I see as being a possible bottleneck to real-time high frame rate previews is getting a better GPU that will utilize OpenCL.

Current System: Intel i7 3930K | Asus P9X79 Deluxe | Nvidia Quadro 4000 & 2000 | OCZ Revo 480 GB PCI Express SSD | Windows 7 64 bit | Vegas Pro 12 (64)

[Kell Hymer]

Update: So I upgraded to a 4930K and have overclocked it. I have barely got it installed and have yet to test it with Vegas Pro. I have been doing tons of research on GPUs and I realize that there is no good answer. However, depending on the codec, it seems the GTX580 and the R9 290 have the most positive results reported by other users. Rendering is not a concern to me, but a high frame rate on the best preview settings is. From what I gather, Sony Vegas uses OpenCL for real-time previewing/playback. It seems the R9 290 is best for this. However, I am curious to know if anyone has had success with high end Firepro cards. These are expensive, so there is not much information specific to Sony Vegas online. These forums, among many others are flooded with GPU compatibility questions as are the SCS Support tickets. I think it will be only a matter of time before the industry responds. The demand for better NLE/GPU solutions is very apparent. We will see what Vegas Pro 14 brings to the table.

Current System: Intel i7 3930K | Asus P9X79 Deluxe | Nvidia Quadro 4000 & 2000 | OCZ Revo 480 GB PCI Express SSD | Windows 7 64 bit | Vegas Pro 12 (64)

[Kell Hymer]

Thanks for the information and the link. Sometimes the “enhancement” features on a tv are nice depending on what you are viewing. However, the auto-motion gets dizzying fast and would be bad for editing.

Current System: Intel i7 3820 | Asus P9X79 Deluxe | Nvidia Quadro 4000 & 2000 | OCZ Revo 480 GB PCI Express SSD | Windows 7 64 bit | Vegas Pro 12 (64)

[Kell Hymer]

Thanks John,

This has been very helpful. I started out video editing for fun on Windows Movie Maker and while it is still a hobby, I have taken it to a much higher level with a high end PC and Pro software and plug-ins. When I started, I had no idea how complex video really was. I now can say I can wrap my head around a lot of it and actually enjoy the challenges I have encountered as it has forced me to learn. Considering it is a non-monetized hobby, I am surprised I have stuck with it and not given up, but I find it fascinating. I primarily work on home videos of vacations and the family. No one ever really goes back on to a PC to look at the thousands of video and photo taken now days unless it is posted to Facebook. However, it is another story if you are able to turn the memories into a stunning video, delivered as a Blu-Ray disc with printed art on the disk and a professionally printed case insert. People are more interested when it is presented well and they do not all have to crowd behind someone’s laptop as they click through 500 pictures, giving commentary on each one!

Thanks again for the help.

Current System: Intel i7 3820 | Asus P9X79 Deluxe | Nvidia Quadro 4000 & 2000 | OCZ Revo 480 GB PCI Express SSD | Windows 7 64 bit | Vegas Pro 12 (64)

[Kell Hymer]

Thank you John. I assume that 24p content and 60i content on the same disk will have to be authored to the disc as separate videos. In other words, I imagine it is not possible to render a single video to play a 24p at some points and 60i at others. Can DVD architect stitch video together seamlessly? For example, let’s say I make a video that consists of 24p video and still pictures. Could I render the video to 24p and the stills to 60i, and then have DVD Architect play them back-to-back without pause so it appears to the viewer seamlessly as if it is one video? This probably sounds crazy but I am just learning all of this and these forums have been a great help.

On a related note, If I have a 24p project and I want to add 30p stock animations or backgrounds without the animations losing 6 frames every second, could I stretch the 30p animation out on the timeline until it slows down to 24 frames a second? It will affect the speed of the animation, but in theory I should not lose any frames. Someone mentioned this to me and it seems to make sense.

Current System: Intel i7 3820 | Asus P9X79 Deluxe | Nvidia Quadro 4000 & 2000 | OCZ Revo 480 GB PCI Express SSD | Windows 7 64 bit | Vegas Pro 12 (64)

[Kell Hymer]

Looks like you are right. I have seen all kinds of posts and dialog since this posting and everyone seems to have different findings based on their system. I tested the following GPUs by monitoring frame rate playback in my full res preview: CPU only, Quadro 4000/ Quadro 2000, GTX 660ti, GTX460. Of all of these cards, the Quadro 4000 performed best. However, using CPU only produced a much higher frame rate than any GPU.

I have had similar findings in the past. My CPU utilization rarely reached 60% in any test and I am not sure why Vegas did not tax it more extensively to reach the highest possible frame rate. when I previewed with the Quadro 4000, my CPU utilization was the same or more as previewing with CPU only and the Quadro utilization was very high. Despite using both the CPU and GPU, it STILL played at a lower frame rate than the CPU only. I emailed Sony about this once and they told me it was because my CPU was stronger than my GPU. This finally makes sense now. The only thing that REALLY boosted frame rates was overclocking my CPU. Maybe if I really dove into all of the intricacies between my PC, my Vegas projects, and CUDA/OpenCL I could find the “perfect” GPU…however, I could probably go to med school and become a brain surgeon in half the time it would take to figure out the best GPU. I would love for Sony to make improvement in GPU compatibility. In the mean time, I think I’ll just by a better processor…

Current System: Intel i7 3820 | Asus P9X79 Deluxe | Nvidia Quadro 4000 & 2000 | OCZ Revo 480 GB PCI Express SSD | Windows 7 64 bit | Vegas Pro 12 (64)

[Kell Hymer]

Hi All,

Thanks again for the advice! I got almost 125GB of video and photo. The trip was amazing! I was unable to get all of the various shot types i wanted as I only had one camera and myself for filming and I did not want to leave the camera unattended in urban areas. After using some stabilization software, the footage should be spectacular though.

Current System: Intel i7 3820 | Asus P9X79 Deluxe | Nvidia Quadro 4000 & 2000 | OCZ Revo 480 GB PCI Express SSD | Windows 7 64 bit | Vegas Pro 12 (64)

[Kell Hymer]

Thanks for the advice. My wife told me I better not hold everyone up lol. I am not Vietnamese, but I speak a fair amount of it so this trip will be fun as I have never been to Vietnam or Cambodia. I would love to get spectacular camera shots, but I will also likely get a bunch of POV or “selfie” angles with an extension rod so that I can focus on having fun too.

Current System: Intel i7 3820 | Asus P9X79 Deluxe | Nvidia Quadro 4000 & 2000 | OCZ Revo 480 GB PCI Express SSD | Windows 7 64 bit | Vegas Pro 12 (64)

[Kell Hymer]

Thanks All for the advice! I have bought a number of accessories so I should be able to mount the GoPro almost anywhere. I have 5 batteries, 4X 64GB memory cards (Sandisk Extreme Plus and Lexar 633x). I am even bringing a battery pack to charge on the go. I have found that Vegas can remove the fisheye effect without a problem. I am just debating if I will film in 1080p or higher resolution. The higher res will allow me to stabilize shaky video in post at the expense of storage space.

Current System: Intel i7 3820 | Asus P9X79 Deluxe | Nvidia Quadro 4000 & 2000 | OCZ Revo 480 GB PCI Express SSD | Windows 7 64 bit | Vegas Pro 12 (64)

[Kell Hymer]

Thanks Mark! I have been paying attention to videos/TV now and seeing how film is used. Most shots really are short!