My current system seems a bit sluggish editing hdv in Vegas. (AMD 64 4200 x2, 1gb ram). Playback is studdery. I am considering adding a new pc, I could get a dell with a quad core 6600 w/ 3gb ram for under $700. In the mean time I was thinking about adding some ram. Is this worth while? What is causing my system to be sluggish? RAM? Processor? Video card? Thanks

Ram would help a bit, but your processor is a tad old. If you're going to keep your computer for more than a couple of months you might add RAM, but if you could hold out and save your money, you'll get double the speed for rendering etc and much improved performance with a Quad-Core.

Have you reformatted your hard drive and reinstalled everything? That can help if you haven't done that for awhile and doesn't cost a thing.

The age of your processor combined with lack of RAM is definitely not an ideal situation, but with a reinstall of everything and some additional RAM you might be satisfied for a while longer. Thing is, when you do get a faster machine you'll very much wish you had done it sooner! Of course we can only do these things when the money is there, and we all know how that can be!

Thanks for the input Jeff.

Thanks for the input Jeff.

I do a complete system wipe about twice a year. Helps a ton. Also, if you just stick the the vanilla plain XP pro and don't do any OS updates / service packs, then it is pretty zippy.

the largest culprit of system resources is going to be a bloated system registry with all the dozens and dozens of installed codecs, share ware FLV converters, etc etc. Wiping the system every once and a while helps a lot. IT also forces you to do a complete system backup with is never a bad idea. Helps you know what is important, and what is "the crap that accumulates on the temp folder".

So this is what I am looking at. Will this solve my problem and be able to smoothly edit HDV m2t files in Vegas?

intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
MEMORY 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 4DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
Radeon ATI HD 2600 XT 256MB

Your "new" system sounds good and would be a great improvement, but HD will be brutal even with that, but it will MUCH improved. At the prices for the Q6600 it's a smart move.

For conversation's sake, think about the following.

Vegas 64 bit is coming, if you'd consider Vista 64 bit, you might want to have 8GB RAM or more to be ready for it.

Also for your system drive, the new VelociRaptor is quite nice (brand spanking new and very fast) and is 300GB.

I thought about that. The system I am looking at is a Dell for around $800 or so with a 22" monitor seems like a good deal. They do not support 64 bit editing systems/ drivers. I thought about building one but do not have the time or the patience right now with projects waiting to be edited. I would love to go 64 bit though.

BTW Jeff. It seems like it takes forever just dropping clips in the time line in HD compared to Dv. When I look at my task manager while working in Vegas, one core is maxed out while the other is barely being used. Is there a setting to use both cores? Thanks.

I have seen that discussed on this forum, or at least something similar, and there seemed to be disagreement as to the why and wherefore of that. I don't have an answer to that frustration, wish I did. At least with the Quad Core you would have two cores (which will show up as one in Task Manager) working at least. I hate HD, and I'm not even doing it yet. I have just resigned myself to the fact that it will take a lot longer and be much less fun.

But I think your move to a Quad Core would be a great move, and I wish you luck on getting your Quad sooner than later. You will, I'm sure, be pleased.

To answer your question, there is a setting in preferences but if you haven't changed it from the default than there isn't much to do about it, at least as far as I know. Maybe you should post this in a new thread and get some opinions?

"I have just resigned myself to the fact that it will take a lot longer and be much less fun."
You said it !!!
thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it.

Anthony,

You should be fine with the system you stated. I am using a dual AMD 6400+ @ 3.2, 4GB Ram; 6600GTS video; and I can edit 3 layers of HDV in the timeline @ about 25 - 30 FPS. 2 lines of HDV or @ 30 FPS. I never pre-render anymore.

HD is a different matter and I'm not sure what it will take to process 1920 @ 30FPS! I'm sure the lights will dim when you turn whatever it is on.

Roger,
That's all I need. Tops 3 tracks. It is taking me forever to load clips into the timeline which is wasting so much time. I think I'll have to bite the bullet and go for it. I might try to add some ram anyway as I will still be using this computer. Thanks

Just hooked my Sata external hd usb2 to my Dell T7300 laptop. 2.0 core duo 2gb ram. With external secondary monitor for preview. Smooth as silk. This will buy me some thinking time. Thanks all.

Keeping the editing files off of the same HD as the OS is pretty important, otherw By the way, I'm also using Vista64, which has worked well so far.

I like to use 3 drives, one for the OS, one for the project, and one to render the final project. My project HD is an external 0.5TB and I bought 2 extra extra power supplies to hook to my other two computers (one at work, one across the room). I can just power down the drive, take it over to the other computer, and use that one for rendering, adding music, or portability for work.

Hi

If you are doing simple editing (just cuts, and not using colour correction filters, and 1 or 2 video tracks etc) on very short movies, then your setup will be fine. and will last several years BUT that didnt work for me ......

I went thru PAIN in Sept when I got my Quadcore 2.4ghz machine with 2Gb RAM and standard SATA 7,200 rpm drives - here are the lessons I learnt BECAUSE I started to get adventureous (tons of filters for colour correction, multiple video and audio tracks with filters, and long movies that needed rendering for DVD:

- spend as much money as you can afford on the processor - get > 3Ghz
- get the fastest hard drives you can afford, raid arrays are cheap, and put in >7200 drives, eg 10,000 or 15,000 rpm for the drive that will hold your raw clips
- Windows XP can only see up around 3Gb (it varies between machines) but I would get 4Gb for when you go to 64bit or Vista

Honestly, I wish I had spent more because I had the money but the advice I was getting said the 2.4Ghz spec would be OK. It was, but only for a while....

BTW Jeff. It seems like it takes forever just dropping clips in the time line in HD compared to Dv. When I look at my task manager while working in Vegas, one core is maxed out while the other is barely being used. Is there a setting to use both cores? Thanks.

Interesting clue here-- not firing on all cylinders?
First- a warning. We're monkeying with some basic stuff here, impacts whole PC, so usual caveats about the (slight) possibility of turning your pc into a brick apply here -like don't do this if the power could go out and create restore points before updating the AMD/Windows part apply.
That said, I've not had any issues doing this, but I've been working with PC's for years, I don't know your skill level. If in doubt get a pro, or maybe you'll be upgrading afterall.

First: ensure the PC's BIOS is current. There were a number of different steppings of processors, this ensures compatibility with what I am suggesting you do below.

Second: Apply the Windows dual core hotfix:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256

Next:
Go to the AMD.com website and look for the AMD CPU SETUP file.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html
This is likely the root cause, the other stuff is supporting this patch.

Finally -- I am not using this (I think it is for gamers), but you can try this too: AMD Dual-Core Optimizer
same location as AMD CPU SETUP file.

Now the threads should go between both CPU's. If it is still stuttery, go to START, RUN, MSCONFIG and turn off all the stuff you can get away with on STARTUP TAB. rEBOOT. tRY IT.
You can also try services (hide ms services), the OS generally won't let you stop critical stuff so reasonably safe.
Enable stuff slowly, I usually pick 1/3-1/2 see if performance degrades. If not, issue is in second half of currently stopped items.
Remedy as you observe the issue goes away.
I put a post that antivirus can cause issues too, just can't remember where... recommend you (temp) stop that too.