How to choose a Video Card for Vegas

S

sonisfear

Well-known member
Know that Vegas can preview to a secondary display (good work guys) how do I make the right choice in buying the best video card for HD preview?

What criteria is most important, Ram amount or speed?
GPU speed?
Multithread capabilities?
Does the highest price mean the best for Vegas?
Does 3D algorithms help 2D preview render?
Does a more power card mean less or greater drain on the motherboard and CPU?
Which is better analog RGB vs DVI outputs?

Is there a video card or up-and-coming card that is the NEO of all cards for Vegas preview purpose only?

The nVidia Quadro 4400/4500 seems interesting.

Trying to find the cost on one of these puppies.

It seems that Magic Bullet coded their plugs to utilize the GPU.

Thanks
Sonisfear
 
Doesn't matter. Vegas doesn't use the video card.

Just get something dual-headed. Multiple monitors are a big plus.

As for analog v. DVI, it depends on your monitor. You probably need DVI for many digital monitors, but you can get an adapter to use DVI with analog monitors.
 
David Jimerson said:
Doesn't matter. Vegas doesn't use the video card.

Just get something dual-headed. Multiple monitors are a big plus.

As for analog v. DVI, it depends on your monitor. You probably need DVI for many digital monitors, but you can get an adapter to use DVI with analog monitors.
Click to expand...

Perfect timing for this question, I was just reading an article about building a Dual Proc Video (render) machine:

http://www.videoguys.com/DIY3.html

...and they said the same thing about Vegas and the video cards:

We've been getting lots of emails ever since our DIY2 article when we strongly urged going with a Quadro card over a 3D gaming card. We still stand behind this recommendation. Yes, you can get a good 3D gaming card with twice the RAM for about the same price, but we feel the added OpenGL performance of these cards makes them a better choice with Avid Xpress DV/Pro/HD, Adobe After Effects & Premiere Pro, Canopus Edius, Boris FX/Grafitti/Red and other NLE software.

Videocard Notes:

Sony Vegas software does not see any benefit of OpenGL at this time, or a really fast 3D graphics card. Vegas relies on pure CPU processing power for it's performance.


Why is it that Vegas doesn't take advantage of the card or OpenGL, is it not much of a gain?

If anyone knows of a good article on this subject, please post here, in the mean time I'll google around a bit to see if I can find anything.

Thx.
 
Choice of video card makes no difference whatsoever. Vegas doesn't use any features excepts for drawing windows and overlaying video.

Multiple monitors and analog out are nice, and almost all cards have these as standard options. My cheesy $30 "gaming" card has all of these features, and I can also use the onboard video to drive an additional two monitors. I tried it as a lark and got six displays working with Vegas (including 1394). Neet, but more confusing than useful!

Most important for Vegas is CPU speed and memory bandwidth. I just got an 3 GHz EMT64T processor, and it screams with Vegas. Vegas utilizes the dual pipelines and I can get close to real-time DV rendering with several tracks, effects, and CC. Several other apps only use one pipeline, so it's nice to see that Vegas' programmers are oriented towards performance.

A lot of memory doesn't seem to make much difference. I have a Gig, but Vegas rarely goes over 400 Megs even with huge projects.
 
FYI: I have two laptops One brand new with an ATI X600 PCI express video card and one Older one with an NVida gerorce 5700.....
Just installed the magic bullet 2.0 demo on both and rendered an 11 second video file with a magic bullet preset...
I was surprised to see the slower older laptop render the file in less than 4 minutes (nvida card) And the newer computer (faster computer, too took about 14 minutes. So it is true, if you use magic bullet, that the Video card does matter for rendering times. Especially the new 2.0 version...
 
It would be nice if Vegas took advantage of the GPU. That's one thing I do miss from Liquid Edition. Well, that and the background rendering.

Perhaps a later incarnation . . .
 
It is a little perplexing to me not being a programmer on how a plug-in can easily code for a GPU and themain NLE can't.

These render times are significant increase that I/most people who use professional would pay real money for.

It makes me feel like I may be growing out of Vegas, hence my resent research in other NLE and other platforms.

Don't get me wrong I just need power. HD has changed the whole game.

I don't mind spending serious dough on a high end 7800GTX video card if it could provide a better preview which prevents edit errors that have me going back and fixing little issues wasting more time. With multicam preview, HD and insane amounts of footage I could use all the help that is available.

I believe the at Sony should realize their product is a lot more valuable to us now than version 3 and 4.
 
sonisfear said:
It is a little perplexing to me not being a programmer on how a plug-in can easily code for a GPU and themain NLE can't.
Click to expand...

They could make Vegas rely on a GPU. That sound like a good idea to you? Not to me. I think it's much better to make the program hardware-neutral, and not force users to go out and buy a special video card for it. (And then you'll run into compatibility problems with different brands, almost guaranteed)

Yes, they could write it to use a GPU if present, otherwise just use the CPU.

But not at the present price-point.
 
I just copy pasted this into the Sony forum and added that exact comment.

Raise the price point. The type of user using Vegas now are generating business and won't mind spending a little more dough.

In my opinion :^)
 
I spent 1 hour editing yesterday and 8 hours rendering...How much did that cost me in lost editing fees??
 
And it shouldn't *cost* you anything...rendering is part of the process, so you should get paid for those 8 hours. (Even if you, personally, spent them retiling the bathroom.)
 
also.. Vegas has outer node rendering, where you can get clients on your network to do the rendering for you, so you can rock on and keep working on your main system. Even better, if you use external drives with all your project info you can just unplug and plug into a vacant client and render on that machine.. so your main system is free to do the work. If you need to edit the project thats rendering, Vegas 6 has a crafty way of using linked VEG files so you can cut parts of a project in different files and render them out on seperate machines and keep on working on the same project.
 
"It wouldn't be any faster if Vegas had GPU support"


Dosen't the GPU help with rendering as well? I was under the impression that the two way pciepress allows the gpu to assist in render like a DSP process?
 
Poya, to make your current system render faster (without having to upgrade your hardware):

Turn off any antivirus you have running. If you don't, you'll take a HUGE rendering hit. I couldn't believe it when I did a test of my own. It was something like 25% slower when my antivirus was running. Also, don't use Magic Bullet. It is notoriously slow. I've heard great things about David Jimerson's Celluloid plugin for Vegas. Very similar looks but 85% faster! (Why don't I just buy it? It's only $24! Soon...)

http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=86a3c0d0-67d6-4e7b-8219-d80848cbd5ca

Also, take a look at your system tray (down by the clock) and whatever is in there, if you can stop it, stop it. Firewall software too. Instant messaging programs. WindowBlinds or other memory/CPU intensive background services. Just be sure to disable your LAN connection so you don't expose your system to attacks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top