Why Vegas will not use all cores of i7 CPU?
 

I am rendering projects to Sony mp4 template and the CPU uses only 2 cores of i7 CPU up to 20-40% (if I am lucky) - mostly even lower. I have pretty fast HD (SATA - 6GB/s) and even tried to render to USB 3.0 drive not to mention my other 5 HD's in the system. I thought it might be HD bandwidth or RAM problem (12GB) so I made some test and to my surprise when I render to XDCAM EX mp4 template it utilizes all CPU in 99%! and HD bandwidth is 4 times more then when rendering to mp4 so it looks like there is no problem with HD. What is the problem then? How to "force" the CPU to utilize all cores and work at full power?

If you don't get an answer here you might contact Sony directly on this question.

It's probably how the codec is written. You're probably seeing one core for video and one for audio in this case.

In Asus Ai Suite I see something like: 2%, 3%, 28%, 22% for respective CPU cores; it really doesn't make sense if rendering code is designed so it is not utilizing full power of CPU (even in 30%); there must be some catch somewhere....

Marius, some formats use all the cores during a render whole others use only one.
There is no way that I know of to force Vegas to do something that it's not designed to do.

hm....is there any logic behind it???

Hi Marius,
I would not go so far as to say logic... but there is an explanation. As mentioned above, it is the codecs. Some, in fact many, are not written by Sony. Regardless of who they are written by, the codec itself has to be written to take advantage of multiple CPU's, add on this, some tasks simply are not easy to perform across multiple CPUs

I understand, but in my case the codec is SONY AVC template [Main Concept mp4 is just disaster in terms of rendering - it takes forever] so I was expecting if they put SO PROUDLY their name on it it would be great to have it performing better with their [Vegas] software. That's why I am disappointed. Hey, any Sony people reading [spying] on this forum...would be glad hearing from you.

Now, this is strange....
I've done some additional tests and when I rendered simple "cuts" files in timeline CPU was working on 30-40%
when I added color correction and blur it was on 99% - all cores...
so it is possible to render in particular codec and utilizing the full power [btw. disk usage in both renders was similar]

Are you using multi thread plugins? i.e those which appear as Green in Sony vegas.

If your plugins are yellow, which is how Magic Bullet appears then they cannot work with more than one core. They are single threaded plugins.

Also check your vegas settings and check its set to have more than 2 threads. 8 should be what your after, or 16.

Danny, of course green ones and Vegas set to 16 threads :-)
(btw. magic bullets will not work with 64-bit vegas and 32-bit 9.0e preview deteriorated in my case from real time to 5/6 fps) - THANK YOU SONY! more "improvements" like this one.

core i7 sonyvegas
 

I'm using core i7 980x with HT on and 6 gigs of ram. for me this CPU chews threw Vegas.

When i render Sony MP4 at 5mb's 1920x1080 with added video effects and transitions my cpu sits around 90-100percent. Thats 12threads going.

When i do the same thing with no video effects it sits around 60-70percent.

I just rendered a 30minute mpg at 640x480 (converted from Canon HG21 AVCHD 1920x1080.)
and CPU sat at 90-100percent.

When i render youtube MP4 and lets say it's a fast moving object it shoots up to 80- 100percent but then a still moving object jumps down to 50 to 60percent.

my experience anyway.........12threads at 3.7ghz is amazing compared to my QX9650 at 3.6ghz.

rendering blueray with 32bit video levels i have 12threads at 100percent all the time. it's night and day faster than my previous cpu. (sonyvegas 9pro)

Using more than 4 cores
 

Hi,
Funny, I was just watching the Feb 2010 Webinar and they mentioned in the q&a
that you need a 64bit O/S to access more than 4 cores.

Sony Creative Software - Vegas Pro 9 Webinar

thanks
jim cowan