"... it is still the fastest driver for GTX5xx cards under Win7."

Which is why I have a boot drive with Windows 8.1 sitting and collecting dust. Driver 296.10 will not work with Vegas using Windows 8 or 8.1. The GPU will not be seen in Vegas with driver 296.10 and Windows 8. Does anyone know of a work-around for that? It takes a later driver which cripples the GPU performance. At least it did on my system.

The problem is not SCS when it comes to the driver but Nvidia that has abandoned those who use these cards for NLE's. It is a money thing!

@ the OP,

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread but I suggest we start a little benchmark of the video cards with the Sony Vegas press project.


http://www.hyperactivemusic.com/vegaspro/vegaspro.html

3dbproductions,

The GTX 760 has about 20% more compute than the GTX 660 so you would expect to see perhaps 15% performance improvement.

Did you quantify no improvement gains by actually testing a render using both GPU's or was this just a "seat of the pants" observation?

What was the GPU and CPU loading during the render?

If the GPU was maxing out the CPU then you could be CPU constrained, although I highly doubt that.

On the other hand there might be only a certain amount of GPU power Vegas can use, which is also doubtful since we've seen some might fast render times coming from more Cuda cores.

Can you run the test I indicated below with both cards and let us know the results? It would be interesting to figure this out.

- Mark

Vidmus

Same here. I have Win 8.1 on a separate boot partition and collecting dust for the same reason; lets not talk about GUI. Aside from the performance drop with drivers that work under 8.1 it also disabled the dual GPU function I enjoy under Win7. I doubt there is a workaround.

"Also preview the project at Best/Full and report if full frame rate is maintained, and if not how bad the stutter/drops are."

------Are you asking us to preview the project PRIOR to rendering, or to preview the resultant file(s) in new projects?

I think what he means is looking at the preview window and the fps playback rate of the actual project, not the rendered file. That is an indication of preview performance which is also GPU accelerated in VP12.

That is an important thing to remember. There are two independent "renders" on Vegas. The creation/rendering of the video stream from various sources and effects, and rendering a file (render as).

The former is controlled via Video prefs and always occurs during playback and file rendering. The later only happens on file rendering and currently only Mainconcept AVC and Sony AVC actually support GPU use and they each have their own independent option to enable/disable GPU use.

I haven't tried all codecs but I do know that MC MPEG-2 does support GPU rendering too. There is no option in the template but I can see that GPU load is up 90% during MPEG-2 rendering.

I just tried XDCAM and it shows 90% load.
Quicktime too.
And so does SONY MXF

Hmmm...actually all codecs show GPU load, some more some less. That might be provided via OpenCL or OpenGL?

FYI. I closed the preview window to make sure it doesn't show GPU load caused by showing the rendered frames in the preview window and/or external monitor.

Only SCS would know what really matters but has yet failed to come forward and elaborate on that issue.

how unfortunately too true ;-(

if there's one continuing problem with vegas it is the whole gpu thing - for some it works with one card one driver, for another it wont.

i find it quite dumbfounding that scs still seems to be skirting around this area by not coming out and clearly stating what works and what doesn't.

while this state of affairs continue vegas reputation will continue to suffer no matter how many gimmicks and new features scs try to incorporate.

at base a good nle is judged on it's reliability, robustness, and not least, on its ability to do what it says on the box. in this case vegas falls flat on its face regarding gpu acceleration.

*i might add i'm very happy using 12 with gpu OFF - i really don't have the time for figuring out the quirks and idiosyncrasies that happen when it's on ;-(

mudsmith,

I should have been clearer. Preview performance from the timeline as Oldsmoke noted.

Ooops… wrong thread.

Turn GPU OFF in video prefs to test actual GPU usage in a file render as codec. Otherwise you are probably seeing the vegas video engine GPU use.

Vegas video engine uses OpenCL when it uses GPU.
NewBlue and Boris use OpenGL.

MC AVC and Sony AVC use CUDA or OpenCL depending on Nvidia or AMD.

MC only claims GPU support for their AVC encoder.

I would be willing to make a spreadsheet of results and it would look like this.

http://www.hyperactivemusic.com/vegaspro/vegaspro.html

NormanPCN

That doesn't seem to work. If I switch GPU Off under preferences then it is off, for preview and rendering too; at least on my system. This seems to a be a "master" switch and then there are additional switches, one in video preview device and one in the render template.

Yes, the Video pref GPU switch affects Vegas generating the video stream. Vegas generates/renders the video stream for preview and for encoding a file. Generating the stream is always the same thing. Preview might be a lower resolution and other options disabled (like deinterlace) based on preview setting.

By my statement, where MC AVC and Sony AVC are the only GPU accelerated encoders. I can turn GPU off in video prefs and let those encoders use their GPU option and the GPU is used.

If I take a simple video stream, put it in a timeline, no effects, no nothing, project properties same as source file and render a segment of that with anything other than MC AVC and Sony AVC I will never see GPU usage regardless the vide prefs GPU option. The Vegas video engine really only acccelerates various effects, cross fades and such.

If I take the Vegas benchmark, GPU demo project, which heavily uses effects, and effects which are GPU accelerated I might add, I see GPU on preview and render as regardless of file codec chosen.

So you can try a simple trivial video clip with no effects or fades and render to something like XDCAM and see if you get any GPU usage. I don't with a GoPro AVC source file, and rendering to anything other than MC AVC and Sony AVC.. I have an AMD GPU.

@NormanPCN

I did as you proposed. I put a simple clip from HF G30 which is AVCHD 1080 60p on the time line and rendered a loop region of 30sec out. With GPU enabled in the preferences I still get up to 35% GPU load when rendered to XDCAM EX 1080-60i. Even Quicktime will still show activity and MC AVC will still use both GPUs.

I would say that anything that isn't smart render will use the GPU acceleration; at least on my system as long as it is enabled under preferences.

When I disable it under preferences and render to XDCAM EX 1080-60i I surprisingly still see some GPU load but on the second card only.

Are you using GPU-z to measure load? Why is QT involved? Is your source a MOV file?

I can't and wont deny anything but my personal experience mirrors exactly what Sony claims is GPU accelerated. The video compositing and effects engine and MC AVC and Sony AVC. I have only ever had AMD GPUs but I have had a couple models when using Vegas 12. I am assuming that the Sony marketing group would not miss trumpeting a feature.

Rendering from 60p to 60i as you stated may cause an interpolation to happen and interpolation seems to be GPU accelerated in Vegas.

I don't entirely trust GPU load display info and on a multi-GPU setup there might be some small management overhead that can show up as load and that has nothing to do with the app in question. Best test is showing a statistically significant difference in timing with the option on and off.

When I disable it under preferences and render to XDCAM EX 1080-60i I surprisingly still see some GPU load but on the second card only.

Why surprising? A file encoder is completely independent of the Vegas video engine. I have verified that GPU off in Video prefs and AVC enabled for GPU will show GPU usage due to the AVC encoder.

I use HWiNFO64. I just did a Quicktime render to test if there would be a GPU load.

It is surprising because you mentioned I wouldn't see any GPU load

"If I take a simple video stream, put it in a timeline, no effects, no nothing, project properties same as source file and render a segment of that with anything other than MC AVC and Sony AVC I will never see GPU usage regardless the vide prefs GPU option. The Vegas video engine really only acccelerates various effects, cross fades and such."
Did I get it wrong?

Anything that isn't smart rendered will then use GPU acceleration.

I did a check on Nvidia's site and noticed that the 296.10 driver is no longer listed there.

Thought you all would like to know.

OldSmoke,

Can you try rendering to 60p so there it's a straight transcode, no change from progressive 60 to interlaced 60? The GPU might be involved in this assembly of the video stream before it hits the CPU transcode as interlacing and frame rate are GPU accelerated features.

From Sony:
"Significant portions of the application were entirely reworked, resulting in an enhanced and more creative editing experience. Over 45 effects, transitions, generators and compositors are GPU-accelerated in Vegas Pro 12, as well as a substantial amount of built-in video processing such as crossfades, fades, alpha compositing, framerate resampling, interlace processing, pan/crop, track motion, opacity, fade-to-color, and multicamera display."

When you turned off the GPU in preferences and did the render what was the actual GPU load? I assume it was less than the original 35%.

@Vidmus
You can get it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39278380/296.10-desktop-win7-winvista-64bit-english-whql.zip

@Hulk
I did as you asked and I get 25% load with GPU ON and OFF under preferences. As long as it is not a smart render, there is some load on the GPU.

If possible please render the video 60p and check GPU load. I have a feeling the GPU is doing the interlacing/frame rate work.