Best computer setup with Vegas???

[Steve Kahn]

Hi all,

I've editing in SD using vegas 6 and 7 and am moving to HD editing and upgrading my computer.

Any advice on what's needed for a good setup and what is overkill?

I believe I am staying with XP but is there any advantage to move to 64bit processing?

Thanks,
Steve

[Bill Bradley]

I think staying with XP at this point is a wise move. Any Intel quad core machine with > 2M memory will probably be sufficient for Vegas at this point.

[Keith Malone]

My PC spec is listed in my signature below. I was on Vista 64 bit but got sick of it after six months use. I am back to XP again and find it very robust for video editing and rendering.

Rendering a 2 hour standard definition PAL widescreen MPEG 2 takes approximately 50 minutes on my PC. I'm very happy with this performance.

[John Miller]

Originally Posted by Steve Kahn

Hi all,

I've editing in SD using vegas 6 and 7 and am moving to HD editing and upgrading my computer.

Any advice on what's needed for a good setup and what is overkill?

I believe I am staying with XP but is there any advantage to move to 64bit processing?

Thanks,
Steve

Vegas is 32-bit so running it on a 64-bit platform won't provide any significant advantages as far as processing speed goes etc.

However, with more than 4GB RAM fitted, you will be able to run multiple 32-bit applications much more efficiently. e.g., if you have a graphics package, an audio editor and Vegas running at the same time, there will be less thrashing to and from the hard drive etc.

Though I use Vista pretty much as my default OS now, I always recommend XP for NLE's until they become Vista-savvy and handle audio correctly.

[Mark Stavar]

Originally Posted by Steve Kahn

Hi all,

I've editing in SD using vegas 6 and 7 and am moving to HD editing and upgrading my computer.

Any advice on what's needed for a good setup and what is overkill?

I believe I am staying with XP but is there any advantage to move to 64bit processing?

Thanks,
Steve

Hi Steve,

My recommendation is a quad-core CPU, and mid-to-high end motherboard, 2 - 3 gig RAM, a reasonable graphics card (and something for decent sound for the sound edit)

For performance, I would also recommend getting several hard-drives (probably SATA II), so that you can spread your source, temporary and output files. In my experience, a lot of CPU power gets unused simply because Vegas spends a lot of time waiting on I/o (disk reads and writes). E.g. if you have a long project with many tracks (5, 10, 20, ??) all of different media, well Vegas can only cache so much, so it will eventually have to go out to disk to read the stuff. The more it does this, the slower the performance will be in renders, etc.

I just upgraded to a AMD Phenom 9500 (smoked a BIOS, and $'s were tight). This is not the fastest option you'll get, but I still find it hard to get the system to break a sweat.


Good luck.

marks

[David Hadden]

Stay 32 bit until Sony releases 64 bit. I'd set up a dual boot to Vista 64bit though if you've already got an XP OS (or a friend/family member who works at microsoft) that can get you that sweet family microsoft. I'm quite sure that Intel procs were rated the fastest with Vegas when they tested them on anandtech.com and so i'd suggest a quad core Intel ( haven't seen if anything's been posted regarding this in the past couple months or so ).

4 GB of Ram ( it's so cheap right now just buy it on newegg and install it yourself)

same with HDD's Get 2 pair of at least 500 GB drives for storage and then a raptor drive for your OS installations.

Run the storage in a RAID 0+1 or 10 and use it for capturing (or a raid 1 for mirrored data redundancy), output your final media for long term storage to an External Drive and store that in a Fire Safe somewhere safe.

That's what I'd do, and if you're comfortable enough to buy all the parts etc... yourself and put it together, you should be able to buy it all for under 2K (not including monitors and software ( assuming you already have your OS ).

Dave

[Roger Shealy]

I've run a little with Vegas 8 and I've decided to hang my hat with Vista 64 (Home Edition). I find it runs stable and renders at pretty much the same speed as XP32, except XP is significantly faster rendering to .wmv for some reason. I've been double and triple booting for a while, and I'm ready to get back to maintaining one OS. My experience with Vista 64 has been much more pleasant than my brief encounter with Vista 32. I still have a 320HDD with XP in case things go sour. My main thought is that when Vegas does go 64, I don't want to have to reload all the programs again.

My system is a AMD 6400+, 4GB Ram, FoxConn 590 MB, nVidia 512MB 8600GTS video, (2) 320GB HDD, (1) 500GB HDD, (2) External 500GB drives. I currently run the OS on a 320GB, and mirror the OS about once every couple of months on the 2nd 320GB. I run active project files on the 500GB Internal, and store rendered projects and idle projects on the 500 externals. I also store duplicates of rendered files on the 320GB HDD's & DVD. Total cost with Samsung 22" monitor around $1,700.

I've done several rendering comparison tests on my AMD 6400+ @ 3.2GHz versus my Dell 390 with an Intel 6750 @ 2.67GHz. They render at almost exactly the same speed; within about 2 seconds of each other on a HDV project with a 20 minute timeline. Somehow Intel squeezes out more work per GHz, but not quite as much work per $$$. The AMD pumps out a tad more heat. I have found some hangups between the AMD and Vegas Movie Studio, but Vegas seems to run really well. My highest priority was to be able to edit m2t files real time without rendering, which my system does. I can stack 3 video m2t tracks and still run around 25 fps. I think the next real boost in rendering speed will come from 64 bit software rather than from chip speed. Until then, whether a project takes 43 minutes or 37 minutes to render isn't very meaningful to me. My next investment will be either in another 22" monitor and perhaps even a 2nd video card and a 3rd 28" monitor to spread things out. Having visual space is a higher priority for me than incremental rendering speed. I think that would give me a very nice editing system for around $2,700 total. Next would be a 2TB External HDD...

[Scott Brickert]

Hey Roger,
what other 32-bit apps (Adobe?) are you running on your Vista64 system? what hiccups have you seen with them?

[Roger Shealy]

It's so new, I haven't put much through their paces. Vegas 8 is running good. Office 2003 & 2007 seems to run good. I'm learning Photoshop Elements 6, but haven't gotten into it too deeply. Sony Cinescore runs without a hitch. Camtasia runs good. Camstudio hasn't been adapted for Vista yet, but runs o.k. with a few hang-ups.

Vegas Movie Studio 8 Plat is causing problems for me on this system with all the operating systems (I've run it on 4 different systems).

All in all, its been a fairly pleasant experience. The biggest issue was that when I loaded Vista 64 Basic with 4GB ram, I couldn't get it to work and found I had to uninstall 2 GB RAM, reinstall, then load a patch from MS, then put the 2GB RAM back in to make 4GB. Crazy, but hard to find the info that such a chore was needed. MS seems to have hidden that issue pretty deep, but they had a write-up on it.

[Jeff Harper]

Raid 0 for OS and for drive holding project video (work drive) and a 1 TB storage drive.

I use two 36Gb raptors for OS and two 150Gb raptors for work drive
and then two very fast external e-Sata drives (for one for storage and one for backup).

If you have a Quad-Core with at least 2gb ram (four is better, windows xp 32 bit only uses 3.5 but it uses it and that helps with multi-tasking).