Hi,

I'm using Vegas Pro 12. Build 770.

First time editing 4K video: 3840 x 2160 x 32, 29.970 p
The video in the Preview window is extremely jerky.
Best and Good are almost frozen.
Preview, even at Quarter is intermittently jerky.
Even Draft - Quarter is somewhat jerky, and the pixelation hurts my eyes.

Am I correct in thinking that I need a more powerful PC?

The specs are:
Dell Precision 3600
Windows 7 Professional, SP1, 64 bit
Intel Xeon CPU ES-1620, 3.60 GHz
16 GB RAM

What should I shoot for with regards to the specs of the new PC?

Thank you!!!

what video card?

NVIDIA Quadro 600.

According to this article, it may be my graphics card that's the weak link.

https://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/SonyVideoCards.htm

Hi Norris,

According to this article, it may be my graphics card that's the weak link.

https://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/SonyVideoCards.htm

As you have discovered, the Quadra 600 card isn't the best with Vegas Pro. Going down to a GTX 460 or up to an AMD R9 390 or 390X, may provide smoother preview. But you may not get the utmost out of the newest cards, as you may find other bottlenecks in your system RAM or hard drives.

Are you viewing and editing with proxy files? If not, using a proxy file should provide you better previews. I think in version 13 they added a feature you can set to automatically convert 4k source to a proxy file when it is added to the media bin and then the source file is automatically used during renders.

I think the 4k proxy file is about HD quality, but not sure of that part. If version 12 doesn't have automatic proxy file building and you would like that feature, I think the version 13 platinum trial version is still available from the Sony website. And, of course you can always build your own proxies outside of version 12 and do a swap before rendering. On the other hand, you may already know this.

Thank you George for the explanation. I heard of using proxy prior to getting my 4K capable camera, but have never had the need to do it. There are so many features of VP 12 that I have no clue how to use. I just do the basic editing, cut , paste, add in a few effects mostly just text to indicate place and time of the footage. So, I'd like to keep things real simple, if VP 13 has the automatic option to do the proxy for me, then I'll go for it. My cousin has a spare AMD R7 350 graphics card that he'll let me try out. We'll see.
Thanks again!!

Hi Norris,

Keep in mind that Magix Software (new owner of Vegas Pro) has a special on until the end of August.....$200 USD for Vegas Pro 13 which includes a free upgrade to Vegas Pro 14 when released at the end of September.

Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do.
Thanks,