Vista 64 or Xp64 for Vegas 8?

[Alastair Brown]

Originally Posted by Ken Steadman

Ouch, losing Magic bullet is going to hurt!

I was planing on building an i7 rig the processors are very reasonably priced

Hey Ken,

Check out the Dell stuff first. I simply couldn't get near the price/spec they are offering going down the DIY route.

[Jeff Harper]

Re: magic bullet, I have found it works wonderfully on Vista 64 bit, as long as Vegas is 32 bit.

Re: i7, go for it Ken. It is the ONLY way to go! (of course it is not the only way to go, but from where I sit I cannot imagine money better spent if you are upgrading)

[Joe Diaz]

Ken,
On my system i am running dual boot with XP pro 32 bit and Vista 64 with 8 gig of ram
but i have only used Sony vegas on Vista 64
on my sons computer i have a internal hot swap rack like this

Welcome to Kingwin.com!

when i want to use xp pro i insert the xp os hard drive partitioned with windows on "C" and the Programs installed "D" and boot. Then i create an image using Acronis when everything is working well of the hard drive in case in the future i get a virus or spyware and need to recreate my drive.

And when i want to run Linux, i install the Linux hard drive and boot

Just another option that also works well.

[Ken Steadman]

Thanks for the advice everyone!
I just ordered the parts for an i7 with 64 bit vista. Crossing my fingers for no rma's

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Regarding black frames, did a quick web search and I have finally found others with same issue, and with one user finds the issue is only with SD footage.

Black frames is issue affecting few users, but those that is does affect as of yet have no solution.

I find Vegas 32 bit works exceptionally well with Vista 64, so you can't really go wrong with it as long as your pc is up to it.

Jeff, I may be able to pick up a dual Xeon (2 cores per Xeon chip and two Xeon chips) when I bid on a Dell PowerEdge 1U rack server. My OS options are XP 64 and Server 2003 since both are supported by Dell, though only the Server variety is mentioned.... XP64 apparently shares a lot of underlying architecture with Server 2003 and both are 64bit.

My main reasons to consider this Dual Xeon system is the 4 true cores for rendering and the 20GB of 1Ghz FB-Dimm memory! What a computing monster.

I'm only shooting SD footage on MiniDV so I will not have any plugin complications. I use scripts, but just in the edit process. I would more than likely only use the Xeon system for the actual rendering, and I would instead continue to edit on my P4 system (sigh... that one is due for an upgrade).

My question is, you have used the 32bit version of Vegas on a 645bit OS, so does this allow your version of Vegas to make use of more of the system RAM? Or is the 32bit version of Vegas limited to the 2.5GB of ram that is addressable by 32bit memory architecture?

If I have a system with 20GB of RAM, on a 64bit OS, but running a 32Bit Vegas, will Vegas chew up to 2.5GB of ram and then hit a wall and not use any more?

[Ken Steadman]

Originally Posted by Jason Robinson

If I have a system with 20GB of RAM, on a 64bit OS, but running a 32Bit Vegas, will Vegas chew up to 2.5GB of ram and then hit a wall and not use any more?

yes 8.0c will NOT use the full RAM only 8.1 will.

[Jeff Harper]

Thanks for your question Jason. There are people much more qualified to answer your questions than I, but I'll tell you what little I know.

Vegas 32 bit on a 64 bit OS will run about the same or better. Vegas is limited to around 2.5GB of ram, according to my understanding because it is a limitation of it being a 32bit app.

The Xeons sound nice, but let me share with you something I experienced with a dual chip board.

Years ago, I had a Dual Pentium 3 workstation by Dell with tons of memory ago that I bought used. Vegas didn't run particularly well on it and I couldn't figure out why with a dual processor system and with 12GB memory this thing didn't scream and tear through Vegas.

I contacted a few professionals and they all told me the same thing, to my dismay: a modest Pentium 4 consumer level pc with a minimum of ram, they said, would outperform the Dell "montster" that I had. Shortly afterward I bought a $500 Pentium 4 on clearance and it was unbelievably faster than the dual processor system.

Now don't get me wrong, the system you describe sounds nice, and it will certainly do better than your current one as I said. That is obvious, of course. But remember you can buy an i7 for under $1k that will most likely run circles around your Xeons.

Remember I say "may", as I don't know for sure, because I don't know the Xeons, but I suspect they are still an outdated technology especially regarding video applications. Keep in mind these things go for relatively cheap for a reason, Jason. They are outdated technology. It's kind of like the original computer that took up an entire room and had less computing ability than today's cheapest laptop.

So while I am not meaning to put a damper on your enthusiasm, if you get this thing remember it is outdated before it has even arrived in the mail! I have also read that running a server OS for desktop purposes has a host of possible issues and might, and remember I said "might" present a whole set of issues by itself. I cannot speak authoritatively on this, but I looked into using a Vista server OS myself, and after researching it I quickly abandoned the idea...very complicated stuff and problematic.

If you do get your Dell we would sure like to know how it works out!

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Thanks for your question Jason. There are people much more qualified to answer your questions than I, but I'll tell you what little I know.

Vegas 32 bit on a 64 bit OS will run about the same or better. Vegas is limited to around 2.5GB of ram, according to my understanding because it is a limitation of it being a 32bit app.

The Xeons sound nice, but let me share with you something I experienced with a dual chip board.

Years ago, I had a Dual Pentium 3 workstation by Dell with tons of memory ago that I bought used. Vegas didn't run particularly well on it and I couldn't figure out why with a dual processor system and with 12GB memory this thing didn't scream and tear through Vegas.

I contacted a few professionals and they all told me the same thing, to my dismay: a modest Pentium 4 consumer level pc with a minimum of ram, they said, would outperform the Dell "montster" that I had. Shortly afterward I bought a $500 Pentium 4 on clearance and it was unbelievably faster than the dual processor system.

Now don't get me wrong, the system you describe sounds nice, and it will certainly do better than your current one as I said. That is obvious, of course. But remember you can buy an i7 for under $1k that will most likely run circles around your Xeons.

Remember I say "may", as I don't know for sure, because I don't know the Xeons, but I suspect they are still an outdated technology especially regarding video applications. Keep in mind these things go for relatively cheap for a reason, Jason. They are outdated technology. It's kind of like the original computer that took up an entire room and had less computing ability than today's cheapest laptop.

So while I am not meaning to put a damper on your enthusiasm, if you get this thing remember it is outdated before it has even arrived in the mail! I have also read that running a server OS for desktop purposes has a host of possible issues and might, and remember I said "might" present a whole set of issues by itself. I cannot speak authoritatively on this, but I looked into using a Vista server OS myself, and after researching it I quickly abandoned the idea...very complicated stuff and problematic.

If you do get your Dell we would sure like to know how it works out!

Thanks for making some good points Jeff. I will be spending some time today speccing and pricing i7 to make sure that if I were to buy the dual xeon or the ADM64X2 system that I get them for sufficiently cheap prices to make it worth while!

To add a little bit of extra background, I have some experience with server level computers as well. I've written about it before, but it won't hurt to add to this thread since it is very much related to the subject.

I built two nearly identical Dual Athlon MP chip system nearly 6 or 7 years ago specifically for 3ds Max rendering (one fr me and one for my roommate at the time who was the actual 3ds max user... I just wanted to play around using my system as a network render slave). Each chip was an Athlon MP 1800+ clocked around 1500MHz. I had 512MB of ECC DDR1 ram. THe Hard drives were two little 40GB EIDE drives running through RAID0 on a hardware FastTrack RAID 0/1 card.

That system rendered the exact same project to within 3% the same time as my current edit machine, an Alienware laptop with a P4 3GHz with Hyperthreading and 2.5GB of DDR2 RAM with two 80GB EIDE HDs on a RAID0. The alienware is about 4yr old tech now, purchased 3.5yrs ago.

The only issue between the two systems was the lack of RAM on the Dual AMD system meant editing was very very difficult. But the rendering speeds were virtually the same.

Both AMD chips added to an approximate "pentium" grade of 3000, which is equal to the Pr3GHz chip with out making use of the hyperthreading. As we know now, hyperthreading is a short cut to make a chip seem to have two CPUs, but for bandwidth hungry tasks like media encoding, it is useless due to constant L1 & L2 cache misses & the instruction cache being shared between the processing units.

This is the reason I'm even considering the Xeon system. I think this is the Xeon chip used. And this very handy chart from TomsHardware.com lists the generations of Xeons and confirms your suspicions that the Xeon is a bit older generation of CPU than I was initially thinking.

Yes the Xeon chips are not tuned to multimedia encoding like an i7, so they may may have a disadvantage there. But I have been very impressed with how well server level components hold up over time from the example of my dual AMD system.

The example you site comparing a dual P3 workstation to a single P4 is a very valid example, since Intel made some massive changes in architecture between the two generations of chip that basically nullified the power advantage of a two CPU system. that may be the case with dual Xeon vs i7, I still need to look into that. Unfortunately, no hardware review web site has any dual Xeon stats to compare against virtually anything else besides Opterons (not even TomsHardware) so reference material is thin.

So it all comes down to how cheap can I get the Xeon system. :-) If for $200 or less than it will be a significant improvement over my Core 2 Duo secondary system and a massive improvement over my third render system the Dual Athlon MP.

And to throw another wrench in my thinking, there also is an AM2 system at the auction that supports the Phenom II CPUs, which are quad core and very cheap compared to i7.

This page provides a very handy comparison between the Core Quad Q6600, the i7, and the AMD Phenom II. Obviously the i7 wins on performance, but by how much, and at what price is it worth it. That is where I'll be debating.

[Jeff Harper]

Personally, I think you might be better off with a $500 Q6600 budget system then the Dual Xeon workstation.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Personally, I think you might be better off with a $500 Q6600 budget system then the Dual Xeon workstation.

You are probably correct, especially because I would not be able to use the dual Xeon for editing (since it sounds like a jet engine with 8 1" screw-fans) but I WOULD be able to use a Q6600 or i7 for rendering AND editing.

[Jeff Harper]

One thing about the Dell you are looking at, Jason. If it is like the ones I have seen, the cases are amazing...very nice.

[Rick Diaz]

Originally Posted by James Harring

In both cases, be sure whatever plug-ins or ancillary software/hardware you expect to use are 64bit compliant too. I have a scanner and printer that won't "do" 64-bit anything. Manufacturer does not support it.

You must have some ancient stuff, James. When I went from Xp to Vista 64 this summer I first checked to see if Canon and Epson had 64-bit drivers for my scanner and printer, respectively. Both were purchased in 2006, but to my delight, both had 64-bit driver available. The only thing I couldn't salvage in the switch was my print server, but Vista supports printer sharing over the network so I no longer needed it.

[Jeff Harper]

I have two older, excellent scanners, one a Epson 3200 that is phenomenal. There are 64 bit drivers for both, but the software that is necessary to get full functionality with them doesn't operate. For example, the scanners now will not find the image to scan, but scans the entire scanning area. I can no longer use the scanners for scanning photos, basically. Really stinks.

[Jeff Harper]

Jason, if you're interested, just finished testing new i7: A 30 minute HD project being rendered to SD widescreen that took 1 hour with the Q6600 now takes 12.5 minutes, so the difference for HD is significant. Rendering HD appears to be over 4X faster, takes less than 25% time than with the Q6600.

Rendering a 1 hour SD project without CC or effects is on track right now to render in 11 minutes. SD renders appear to be over 2X as fast.

Admittedly these speeds are all done OC'd. I'm not sure but at stock speeds I think its 10% slower, maybe more, but still quite good.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Jason, if you're interested, just finished testing new i7: A 30 minute HD project being rendered to SD widescreen that took 1 hour with the Q6600 now takes 12.5 minutes, so the difference for HD is significant. Rendering HD appears to be over 4X faster, takes less than 25% time than with the Q6600.

Rendering a 1 hour SD project without CC or effects is on track right now to render in 11 minutes. SD renders appear to be over 2X as fast.

Admittedly these speeds are all done OC'd. I'm not sure but at stock speeds I think its 10% slower, maybe more, but still quite good.

wow. those are amazing render times. So my P4HT @ 3GHz would be considered a bit slow then? :-)