Building New computer around Vegas 8

[Dale C. Elliott]

Hi All,

I am in the process of getting a new computer dedicated to editing with Vegas 8.

I have Vegas 8 already, and a Canopus ACEDVio capture card which will move to the new computer.

Any suggestions as to what is best to use such as, VGA card, ram, hard drives, AMD versus INTEL, dual processors etc.?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I want to get this right the first time.

Dale

[Jason Robinson]

If you expect to do lots of effects work or color correcting or compositing then load up on the cores. A Core 2 Quad or (if ou have the cash for it) a dual CPU Xeon system (with either Core 2 duo or quad core CPUs).

Everything I have read sas to basically avoid Vista and order an OEM XP Pro disc. I played with a Vista system and found it nothing but annoying (pop up after pop up asking for confirmation to run this, change that, etc etc).

Put it at least 2GB of RAM. Currently, Vegas does not support 64bit OSes so any more RAM than that is likely to be wasted by the OS (Windows reserves 1/2 of physical ram for itself even if the remaining half is completely in use and OS ram is empty).

I hope to be in a similar position soon (I mean in the position of building a render monster system). Let me know which way you go (AMD vs Intal ; quad core vs multi cpu xeon).

[Ian Stark]

To add to Jason's comments, a fast system drive is a good investment, eg a WD Raptor, which spins at 10,000rpm as opposed to the more usual 7200.

Also, consider an external soundcard, especially if you plan to record audio, eg voiceovers. I did have a lovely Delta 1010 rackmounted unit but I sold that when I moved everything to a laptop (requires pci slot so no good). I wish I'd kept it as it would have been the icing on the cake in my new desktop system. I compromised here and ended up going with an Edirol UA25 which has performed OK (just OK). I am at a stage now where I try and get my clients to pay for a studio to record voiceovers so it's less of an issue.

FWIW, I have a self built quad core (QX6700) system with 2Gb fast RAM, 150Gb Raptor (operating system and apps) and 2 x 500Gb Samsung Spinrite (project data etc). I also have about 1.5Tb of external storage (USB). I stayed with XP Pro SP2.

My graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX with 768Mb RAM. Not necessary for Vegas but helps with AE and 3d work (and the odd spin on Flight Simulator!). I have had some issues with the Titler in Vegas and so far it's all pointing to a graphics issue (not confirmed).

All in all this is a blisteringly fast system (for me) and I am absolutely delighted I made the effort to build it (first time), especially considering equivalent ready built systems were coming in at almost twice the price. Next upgrade is to add another couple of gig of RAM then I'm probably done, hopefully for a couple of years.

[Sean Seah]

Ah nice thread. I'm also looking to build one with a Q6600 2.4Ghz. I was thinking of a 4GB ram n didnt know the max is 2Gb for Vegas? I have heard a lot of the WD Raptor.. whats the best way to capture? Via the OS HDD or the other drive? I'm thinking of a 1TB as the second drive.

Ian, do u know if an ATI HDMI card would be better? I'm looking to pick up AE as well. Do not know much of that for now but I think i can only afford a 512MB GPU as I like to get 2x24" Dell LCD's and that is oche!

[Ian Stark]

Sean, no experience of ATI cards I'm afraid - maybe someone else can help?

[Fred Helm]

great thread...my custom built machine with 2gs of ram was blistering fast in SD. When we switched to HD (NEO HDV) it became a crashing train wreck, bogged down to the point where even in DRAFT-PREVIEW im only getting 3-4 frames per second...thats what kills me the most. I want perfect realtime monitoring on a real HD monitor. My question is not OS...but best way to spit out to 42" monitor for preview...

[Don Bloom]

Sean,
You never want to capture to your system drive. Capture to another drive cause if the system drive takes a dive you're out of luck and they do die. I just replaced my system drive and it's a pain in the butt. Luckily I had a ghost image of it so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Not to mention that the system drive is generally too small to be of much good for capture.

With Vegas, if you have either 2 cards or a card with 2 outputs you can run an external monitor OR as many of us do I simply run my external thru a pass thru-either a deck or camera, with FW to camera and composite or component out thru the camera or deck to the monitor. Press the icon on the preview screen and there you have it. Of course using that method you won't see the preview screen but you will see the external monitor. With the 2 card or 2 output system depending on how you have it set you should be able to get both.
Don

[Sean Seah]

Hi Don. I do have a dual DVi card at the moment. I guess I would go for the Blackmagic Intensity Pro for preview on a 32" LCD TV (thaz my budget!) at most via HDMI/component.

Ah ok, I will get the WD Raptor in this case for the primary drive and a 7200rpm 1TB HDD for the secondary. Prob wun be doing a raid thingy setup as I'm quite ignorant on that expect it is for backup purpose..

So anyone with ATI GPU experience? Or maybe I shuld go for Geforce8800 series..

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Sean Seah

So anyone with ATI GPU experience? Or maybe I shuld go for Geforce8800 series..

Vegas dosn't use or care about the GPU, unless you have some plugins that can make use of OpenGL or DirectX. Vegas is only about the CPU, RAM, and HD access speed. If you can stream two DV/HDV streams, apply some CC, add o some text overlays (with transparency effects) then that is all you need. And to do that you need a bunch of fat CPUs / cores, 2GB of ram, and a fast HD (or a RAID).