Serious performance issue: Dual Opteron won't do realtime?

Johan_Lundberg

Johan_Lundberg

Well-known member
We are having some serious performance issues with our new dual opteron editing station running Vegas 6.0d.

As you can see in the screenshots (links below) there's plenty of horsepower left and Vegas still only gives ~8 fps. It seems like for some reason it's only using one of the CPU cores and it really doesn't take much effects/tracks until it gives up on giving us realtime preview. A simple dissolve between two DV clips can be enough. Even projects that run pretty well on my laptop are having problems on this system.

The thing is that when rendering (exporting) Vegas uses all the CPU cores and everything goes quick, MPEG 2 exports from timeine is about realtime! When working on timeline though, it's like a totally different computer.

We have tried changing drivers for just about everything in the machine and tried both with and without our Decklink HD Extreme and FW800 cards with the same results. We have also tried replacing the ATI graphics card with a Matrox Parhelia, still the same results. Everything else on the machine seems to run fast and the projects open up in Vegas very quickly.

Is Vegas this poor on multi-CPU systems?

Does anyone have any ideas or further suggestions? Any help is appreciated!


Links to screenshots:
http://www.techcrew.se/vegas.jpg
http://www.techcrew.se/vegas2.jpg


System specifications:
O/S: Windows XP Pro SP2
Mainboard: Supermicro H8DCi
CPUs: 2x dual core Opteron 270
Memory: 4GB DDR PC3200 REG/ECC (windows can only use 3GB)
Graphics: ATI Radeon X1800 / Matrox Parhlia APVe (tried both)
Audio: STaudio DSP 2000
System disk: Western Digital Raptor 74gb 10.000 rpm
Raid controller: 3ware® 9550SX PCI-X (running raid 5)
Video disks: 5x Western Digital Caviar 320gb
 
Something is definately wrong---I'm running on a measly Pentium 3.0ghz and I get real time, even after throwing some fx in. The duel cores should improve your performance.
 
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I'm having a similar problem. Running an Athlon X2 3800, 2 GB RAM, 160GB SATA hard drive (x2), XP w/ SP2. I used to get full framerates on the preview with 24P footage and almost realtime (like 27-28 fps) with 60i or 30P material. Now I get around 18 fps on all material. I don't get it either, because nothing changed. Any thoughts? I'd love to hear something good on this.
 
I got this reply over at the Vegas forum:

Subject: RE: Serious performance issue on dual opteron
Reply by: ForumAdmin
Date: 5/20/2006 12:08:38 AM

Vegas 6 supports multithreaded rendering. Vegas 6 does not support multithreaded previewing (timeline playback, w/o rendering).

Ram previews will take advantage of a multithreaded machine, but cranking the ram preview value will ONLY give you more space in the ram cache- it isn't going to speed up playback on an unrendered timeline in general.
 
I understand that, but it still doesn't explain the preview issues you are having. Vegas performance is predicated on processing power, and duel cores work real well on most machines that run Vegas. Again, my Pentium 3.0ghz machine rocks.
 
HunterG said:
Try changing your dynamic ram preview to a lower amount, worked for me.

Hunter
Click to expand...

Dynamic RAM Preview has nothing to do with timeline playback . . . it's like a temporary mini-prerender. The setting has to do with how much RAM you use to temporarily store the render. That's the only time it comes into play.
 
Make sure on your raptor and others are running at DMA mode and not P10 mode. That includes your raid is running at DMA mode. You could find that information in your device manager. Also try updating your SATA drivers to the latest and also flash you bios to the latest. Also checking into your ram situation it is recommended by your MB manufacturer that your ram be setup this way. You should be able to run up to 16gb ram on that board. Please read the manual for correct configuration of 4 dimms in equal settings on the board. It should be 2 dimms for cpu1 and 2 dimms for cpu2. Maybe that is why your only getting 3 gigs instead of 4 and it is affecting your performance. You might run memtest to make sure you don't have bad ram. Another thing check you voltage from your PSU..if your 12v is more than 5% difference then you may need a more powerful PSU. IE Enermax or Pc Power.

For Dual CPUs: Recommended that memory be populated equally in adjacent memory banks


http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron/nForce/H8DCi.cfm

http://www.memtest.org/
 
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It is just this sort of thread that scares me away from building a new system myself.
I say leave it to the pros to build a properly configured video editing computer, if it is your living.
You may save in the short term, but in the long run you lose.
 
Go to other sites to learn to build

Go to other sites to learn to build

Yes..I agree..if you have ZERO experience building then it is a lot to learn..but you don't have to go to medical school to build it. I've built multiple machines for the last 5 years and I'm glad I did it myself because there are a lot of scammers that make mediocre machines and charge the bucks. Especially here in LA ..I've found many vendors to be so bad that I wouldn't spend a nickel for their work. Go to gamer's forums and you will find out what is really the cutting edge since they live for the moment and will spend big bucks for the latest and greatest. You will have to know though that for audio they still use audigy cards because they are gamer. But as far as what processor, MB, ram,PSU or etc...they know what is really cutting edge that works. Here is a site to refer to. Just take the information and make it your own...you don't need to buy a $300 video card to do video or music but it is nice to know what is out there so you know what not to buy. PS Make sure you read the Sticky's first before exploring deeper into their forums.

www.extremeoverclocking.com
 
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Peabody said:
It is just this sort of thread that scares me away from building a new system myself.
I say leave it to the pros to build a properly configured video editing computer, if it is your living.
You may save in the short term, but in the long run you lose.
Click to expand...

This is not a thread about knowing your hardware or how to build a system. This is a thread about how well the NLE you use (or are planning to use) can take advantage of the horsepowers. We have been using Vegas for a few years now on single CPU machines, so we are not in any way newbees to the system. What surprises us though is the poor support for multithreading. Since the future indeed is in dual/multi cores and when it comes to video editing and other heavy applications also multi CPUs are very common, it's strange that a system like Vegas can't take full advantage of it.

If you ask me I'd say it's not the hardware that's the problem, - it's the software. If you are to build a powerful machine that has enough horsepower to support HD editing you will end up with dual cores or CPUs, no matter if you build the system yourself or not.

We can only hope that Vegas 7 will have better support for this, because the lack of support for DVCPRO HD and the HVX200 is a big enough drawback as it is. I really like editing in Vegas and would love to continue doing so, but if it can't do what we need it to do we might have to look somewhere else.

Thanks for all your replies!


Johan
 
Johan, since your are obviously having issues that can't be explained or settled here, have you considered contacting technical support at Sonydigital?
 
Yes we have been in touch with them and well what can I say... they blame windows for the poor performance, that's about it. No efforts to try to solve our problem or any help at all there. No mention of the "only supporting one core while working on timeline" thingie either, that I learned from a rep on their forum later on. We are also trying to get some info from them about Vegas 7 but so far nothing.

Oh well, we'll see where we end up.
 
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