Why is plain text slowing my system to a crawl?

[Jeff Harper]

Why does plain text slow my system to a crawl? The text in V11 seems extremely cpu intensive, and I can't preview it in real time at any quality. Something is amiss, what setting am I missing?

I'll also throw in here that I find V11 is buggy as heck. It crashes, not often, but randomly in the middle of editing, and when I render for internet there is no audio even though I check "include audio". I have to shutdown, restart, and then I can get audio.

Since V7, I have never had this kind of weirdness. Mind you I render to many different formats, and start with different resolutions, so I'm probably more likely to run into these issues, but my workflow and source footage is pretty much the same now as it's been since before V11.

[Gints Klimanis]

Dunno as I only have V10. Be sure to send descriptions of your problems to Sony, though I haven't done that myself.

[Jeff Harper]

I cannot be the only one with this issue. Or am I?

[Gints Klimanis]

I asked my friend with Vegas 11 to measure a text overlay (Insert Text Media). The load on the GPU and CPU increased by 40% from about 10% usage for GPU with a 720p60 decode (Sony XDCAM 35 MBits/second MPEG-2 with View Preview window open, and the system did not slow to a crawl.

[Jeff Harper]

Gints, thanks a lot for your research. 40% is a huge increase for text. I tried something, I deleted all of the text from my project, replaced it with new, and it's fine now. Strange, but I'm glad it's at least acting normally now.

[Gints Klimanis]

Jeff, please note 40% increase. So, when the GPU ran at 10% without the text overlay, it ran at 14% with the text overlay.

[Jeff Harper]

Right you are. Numbers are not my strong suit, and throw me every time. thanks for the clarification, Gints!

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

40% is a huge increase for text.

Is it?

Text processing is one of the dark arts of computing that even many experienced programmers won’t touch. Luckily, most of us do not have to because all modern operating systems handle it for us.

But if a plug-in has to do the processing on its own, it has a lot more work to do than an OS. Text is shown by using a font, one of the many fonts installed on your system. The fonts consist of mathematical equations (or actually data to plug into those equations). Each of these equations describes either a straight line, or a quadratic curve, or a cubic curve (depending on the font type). All these lines and curves connected to each other describe the outline (or outlines if there are holes or diacritics in a character) of the character.

The software has to resize these outlines for the correct point size. It then calculates the outline. Then for every single pixel it has to determine whether it is inside such an outline (so it needs to be set to some color) or outside (so it has to be left transparent).

The operating system has the advantage that we tend to use the same font and the same point size in many programs. So, generally, it only needs to calculate the character the first time it is used. Then it can store the pixel information in a cache, so the next time you use the character it can just load the data from the cache without having to do all that math.

But a video plug-in does not have that advantage. We tend to use different fonts and different point sizes in different frames. Additionally, plug-ins generally work on one frame at a time. They do not know what the next frame is going to look like. So, they do not know what to cache. Nor can they use persistent caching (i.e., on a disk) because they do not know when they are working on the last frame, so they do not know when to delete the file (and they do not want to clutter your disk with files they may never need to use).

[Gints Klimanis]

While you are correct that we are underestimated the computing required to present text, the case presented was a static text overlay while viewing the video preview window. While we are not sure how Vegas is distributing the task to the GPU and CPU, a 40% increase of a ~1 GHZ , massively parallel GPU does seem excessive for a bitmap overlay on only a portion of a 1280x720 area only 60 times / second.

[David Jimerson]

Does the Legacy Text slow things down as much?

[Jeff Harper]

David, no it doesn't, or it shouldn't. But it did for me, in one project, and it was so weird. Everything previewed fine, but when it hit the text in this project, it was like super slow, jerky motion, like MB Looks or something. I checked properties, there were no effects added, only drop shadow. It rendered perfectly fine, and I got the project out just fine, so no worries there.

But I kept going back to it, and I finally got the idea to delete it and replace it, and then it was fine, previewed OK. I really felt like it was something I did wrong, but how can you mess up text?

Other than that, I've had issues with no audio when I rendered 720p for internet using a template I've used dozens of time before, another weird thing I still cannot figure out. 720p has been intermittently buggy from day one for me, but I always get the project out. Inititiall, with the first V11 release I couldn't render 720p for bluray at all, but after a clean install it worked fine. Other people had similar issues.

I should clarify things. I do overclock, and I've been talking about that a lot lately, just cause I've been in the middle of working to stabilize my settings, which is over thank God. But the 720p issues from the beginning happened on this pc before it was overclocked, so I'm confident it's not related to that.

Anyway, as of now, except for the audio thing, everything seems pretty darned stable.

[Roy Alexander]

Hi all. I've been hearing a lot lately about overclocking. Would someone please explain to me ( a technical ignoramous) what exactly is overclocking and what is its benefits if any.

[Jeff Harper]

Overclocking can be a complex and dangerous process, or it can be ridiculously simple, safe and quick thing to do (less than 5 minutes). It depends on how far you want to push, and your needs.

The people (around here) that do overclocking fall into two general categories: those that find Vegas doesn't preview or render fast enough for their needs or tastes, OR those that just like to tinker with stuff. I personally fall into both categories. I edit full HD 4 camera weddings day in and day out, and slow preview is a major issue for me. I'm trying to knock stuff out, and if have to replay a section of the video over and over to see what it actually looks like it is a huge deal, if I have to do this repeatedly with over six hours of footage, it can add days to my editing. So I really depend on overclocking. It's very important to me as a tool to squeeze out the most speed from my PC. But I do like to tinker, so PCs and I get along well that way.

Anyway, here's what it is: A processor is named, for example, the i7 2600 3.4ghz. 3.4 ghz refers to the clock speed of the processor. Clock speed is how fast it runs, and therefore how fast your computer runs. In Vegas, processor speed is pretty much "everything" in terms of performance. High clock speed means better performance, lower speed is slower. Higher speed means better playback/preview, faster rendering.

If your system if fast enough for what you do, you do not need to overclock unless you want just learn how to do it for fun.

This 2600 3.4ghz processor we're using as an example (or chip, as some call it) is pretty fast already, 3.4 is pretty good speed.

But say we want or need to go faster....then we reboot the PC, watch the screen and go into the BIOS of the motherboard. Armed with a few settings that we have been given, that we know are safe, we change these settings to increase the speed of the chip to say, 3.8ghz. We could call a .4 overclock a modest, and very safe overclock. The settings are likely to be all over the web, it's going to be tried and true, and there are NO safety issues for your equipment.

We reboot, and then we see your $300 3.4gHz processor is running at, say 3.8ghz, which is significantly faster, and there you are. An equivalent processor at that speed might normally cost, say $1000, so in a very short time you have done something pretty cool.

On the other hand, if you want to go fast as possible, you have to tinker more, and it can take weeks to achieve certain speeds, as it is trial and error. That's what I've done with my current chip. My current chip has very good overclocking potential, and it's always been my "dream" to hit a speed of over 4ghz, and I've been able to achieve that.

Most overclockers are modest in their settings, and are simply trying to get more bang for the buck.

[Gints Klimanis]

Good explanation, Jeff. But I wouldn't say that there are no safety issues for your equipment. You've increased the energy consumption of the processor and thus increased the heat it generates. The cooling fan will be on more often or spin faster. At higher ambient temperatures (hot summer days), the fan will not be able to do an adequate job of cooling. All of the companies selling over-clocked systems e.g. Alienware include a corresponding upgrade in the cooling system.

[Jeff Harper]

Hi Gints. Actually with mild overclocking there is absolutely no danger to the system, none, zero IF, and this is the BIG if, you follow directions and do it properly. If you get in and start changing things at random, you "might" cause harm but the chances are remote. Even with higher speeds, the chances of "burning up" something is pretty remote.

How do I know this? Because I did it with my first overclock, and there are tens of thousands of PC users throughout the civilized world that do it every day. I'm no advocating or pushing overclocking, it's not the point. But "fear factor" is way overplayed. People say "Oh my, overclocking? Isn't that dangerous? " but it is does not have to be seen that way. Yes you CAN damage your CPU, but you can also get into a wreck everytime you drive a car, and yet we still drive every day.

A few years ago, I got in and changed settings for my first overcock, dabbling with things I knew nothing about, and abused the crap out of the system. i pushed the chip way beyond it's specs, and it ran hot from time to time, I pushed the heck out of it.

But eventually I settled on some proper settings I picked up from the ASUS board, and ran for ages with that chip afterwards. The chip is perfectly fine and sitting on the desk next to me.

Can you damage your system? If you are completely stupid, yes you can. If you run an ASUS board like mine, the colors change if you go out of spec. If you are dumb enough to go into the red, you can burn something up or damage your CPU, but anyone that stupid should be in a nursing home to begin with.

Virtually all chips are easily able to run at higher speeds and will do so just fine without additional cooling BUT this depends exactly on the chip, the fan that comes with it, and how high you go. The Intel i7 980 will overclock to from 3.3 to 3.9 with almost no significant increase in temperature. No issues with cooling, and I ran for months at that speed perfectly fine. But the fan that comes with that chip is huge too.

Some other chips do need a better fan, but even they will get by without one if you do not go too high. What is "too high" varies with the chip, it is not all black and white.

I ran the Q6600 2.4 (or whatever it was) at around 3.2 or so (I forget now) for several years with only a $50 aftermarket fan.

If you do exactly as you should do, and you clock too high, the worst case is you will want to reset your board and start over.

If you do what you are supposed to do, and that means you monitor your temps using CoreTemp, or whatever, and if you adjust the correct settings, you will not damage anything.

Now someone may have a story of someone that did something stupid, and ruined their RAM or CPU, and I'm sure they are out there. But I am a frequent visitor to the overclocking forums, and I've have NEVER seen a single individual crying because they broke their computer because they changed their settings.

If you monitor your temps, and you run too hot, you simply back off from the speed you set, or buy a better heatsink. It's really nothing more than common sense.

The settings in the BIOS are there to be used, if desired. If they were dangerous, they would not be made available.

If you have a cheap case, cheap components, bad cooling to begin with, then you might want to take a step back before overclocking, but if your case is properly cooled to begin with, etc, you'll be fine.

In the end you can always reset your setting by clicking "Change to Default" settings and forget it.