Is there any reason anyone can think of that a project with 5 tracks of video and 1 audio, when opened in Vegas 8/32bit on XP32, shows the vegas80.exe process taking up over 800,000K of memory, but when the same project is opened in Vegas 9/64bit in a Vista64 partition vegas90.exe shows only 71K used!

I was trying to find a reason why my renders were falling over so I loaded the project in a 64bit Vista partition with a demo of Vegas 9. It works fine.

The media is 1280 x 720 wmv, one track of which is 3d alpha, rotated on the x-axis, three are cropped and positioned using pan/crop and one is a full frame generated media gradient background. All the clips have been pre-rendered so there are no fx in use. When rendering in v8 all four processors would hit 100% and then crash (annoyingly, not always at the same point, so I have ruled out a dodgy piece of media - besides which I have replaced the media and rebuilt the project several times now, and of course, it works in v9).

Any thoughts?

Curious. Have I finally found the reason to upgrade to v9 Pro? ;-)

A different "Ram Preview" amount set in the preferences?

As per usual, Edward is starting at the logical place to find your issue...so simple I wouldn't have thought of it...I would suggest setting your ram preview to 0 (zero) just for kicks to see if that eliminates it issue.

Edward, Jeff, many thanks for the ideas.

I've taken a look and although there was a disparity between RAM preview settings in Vegas 8/32 and Vegas 9/64, changing the former to match the latter had a marginal, if any, effect. I've since looked at the project in Vegas 9/32 and the same issue occurs. I've also tried reducing RAM preview to 0, again with minimal effect.

It's only when opening the project in Vegas 9/64 with Vista 64 that I don't have the problem.

I will look at a couple of other recent (and old) projects and see if they demonstrate the same discrepancies.

On a totally unrelated note, I notice that in the text entry box in DVi (i.e. where I am typing now) I can no longer double click on words to highlight them for cutting, deleting etc. I just checked elsewhere (Facebook, LinkedIn, Sony forum) and it works fine. Did I miss something?!

My following suggestion does not directly help your currently problem by working with what you have, but I feel compelled to at least mention it.

If you were to move to Windows 7, you would have only to install Vegas 9 in 32bit and 64 bit both, and your problems would likely be solved.

Running XP and Vista on a partioned hard drive is at the least inefficient from a hardware point of view, dreadfully hard on a hard drive and slower. I used to run such configurations, and they just playback like a bad dream nowdadays. Much too complicated, and today completely unnecessary for me.

You may have a need to keep those OSs, but man, I wouldn't go back to either one if I had to pay double for the cost of Windows 7. I don't know about you, but I LOVE having thumbnails for HD clips...it seems like a small thing, but Windows 7 is just CURRENT and I love the niceties of it. It runs so well.

YES! Upgrade! The last update to Vegas 9 really got it right, it's fantastic.

I'm looking at it more favourably, Jeff!

Is a clean install vital or can I upgrade and retain installed programs? I'm going to guess you'll recommend a clean install!

So I finally decided to take the plunge and upgrade to Pro 9 - and the Sony site is down!!

It's been down for a few hours now.
I'm using Firefox and I get the message "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".
Internet Explorer - on a Firefox browser??
What the ****??
BTW, Internet Explorer can't open it either.

Clean install is not required because V9 runs fine with other versions installed.

On the other hand, if you can live without two operating systems, do it! I think you'd be better off with running Vista alone if you can, but I don't know your reasons for using two OSs.

Also, who know what the original issue your having is from? A clean install would be my personal plan of attack, just because you're starting out fresh, but that is just me.

Sorry Jeff, what I meant was a clean OS install - i.e. can I just upgrade from XP to Win7 or do I need to format and start again? I guess I could live with just the one OS. In fact, I'm certain of it. I have a few devices that don't work under Vista (in particular a Samson USB mic that I use for quick 'n dirty VO's) but there may now be Win 7 drivers. Perhaps the wrong place for these questions!

Mike - that's odd! I got the regular 'cannot establish a link' message when I just tried it with FF. Weird. But more importantly - very annoying that the site is down!

The memory usage you see in task manager can be very misleading. That can often indicate only the actual physical memory being used, but not the actual memory committed to the process. Much of the "allocated" memory can be swapped out to disk until it is needed. And it's not all up to Vegas, the different platform codecs can handle their memory differently also.

Also, for the adventurous, if you have 2GB or more RAM, you can try setting the Large Memory Address options. This is possible on 32 or 64 bit windows, although the 32bit OS version is a bit more complicated and requires modifying boot parameters. People have used it with great success though, if I ever finish what I'm working on, I'm going to try it on my version of VMS 10, I'm currently on Win7 64bit.

Upgrading to Windows 7: frequently asked questions (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/upgrading-to-windows-7-frequently-asked-questions)

When purchasing Windows 7, you can choose either an upgrade version or full version. Both upgrade and full versions include the same features.
Upgrade versions require that Windows XP or Windows Vista are installed on your computer before installing Windows 7.
Full versions don't require a previous version of Windows to be installed on your computer.

I'm still trying to find the time to install it myself (still on XP Pro).
My plan is to install another hard drive, install Windows 7 to it, and dual-boot until I get comfortable with it.

Sorry, misunderstood. I personally have never and would never install an OS over another. Bad form, IMO, and can only lead to issues, particularly for a video editor. In your situation you should do a complete reformatting of the drive as well, prior to installing.

If you can live with Windows 7 alone, which you might only truly figure out by trying it, I would go for it. In addition, you can purchase and use the upgrade version of Win 7 pro and do a clean install with it...NO need to purchase full version. You can do a clean install with the upgrade disc. If you go this route and need help contact me and I'll give you the particulars...it's very simple.

Format your drive completely prior to the install to prevent issues. Windows 7 will format for you during the install, but is is oftentimes not thorough enough...I would zero out the drive prior to an install because of the current state of your drive...I have not done this a time or two and had to reinstall my new installation...not fun.

So I finally decided to take the plunge and upgrade to Pro 9 - and the Sony site is down!!

Ian, it's back now.

And I am now the happy registered owner of v9! Now . . . to Microsoft . . . .!

Congrats...in the meantime you can install Vegas 9 on your Vista configuration...reinstall on Windows 7 later...remember it is optimized for Windows 7, I believe, so if you have an issue or two wait until you install your new OS for a final judgement!

Newegg is a good place to look for your Windows...you can also buy in person from Microcenter if you have one locally, they often run sales. Newegg is $20 less than microsoft right now.

Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116714)

ooops, I see Ian you are in UK...my tips for Windows purchases are of no use to you, I'm sure. good luck

Before you pay full retail for windows 7, check out your local Kijiji or ebay, etc. I've bought 3 copies of Home Premium 64bit now for like, $40 each. Make sure you get the authentic CoA though, so if there are any disputes (serial number in use, etc.) YOU have the certificate of authenticity to show you own that #.

I cringe at the very thought of giving Microsoft any money (and buying 'em second hand makes that issue cloudy :), but I gotta say, Win7 64bit is the first version of windows since 3.11 that I actually really like. It really is very stable and far, far (far, far, far) improved over Vista. And the UI really has some awesome little gesture additions that are very convenient. For programming, there are some oddities with both Win7 and 64bit that you need to be aware of (by that I mean, when you're still programming 32bit), but it's head and shoulders (and then some) above the Vista that came with my machine. The taskbar is probably one of the best immediate improvements. Do some real research though before you choose on a version of Win7. I've only got the Home Premium and I don't find anything that I really miss. If I have an app that absolutely cannot run in Win7, I use the free version of VMWare to run it in an XP virtual machine. But, I've yet to find anything that actually has any problems. YMMV though.

Thanks Craig and others for the advice. As I type I am installing Win7/64 as my sole OS. To be honest, a good old spring clean was way overdue so this makes me take the plunge. Let's hope it's not a nightmare installation!

Hopefully your hardware is fairly current, and you'll have no driver issues. I found the installation of Windows 7 to be the best of all OSs, as I didn't have to to manual installs of ANYthing after installation except for one of my RAID cards. Windows 7 had the drivers for my MOBO soundcard, and everything else...it is sweet.

Ian, how do you like Windows 7 so far?

So far so good, Jeff. I've been using Windows 7 on a laptop for quite a while now so I'm familiar with it already, but this is the first 64 bit version I've used. I only have 4Gb RAM so that's something I will need to address when cash allows!

At this time I'm still in 'organise' mode, i.e. I'm reloading software. I am trying my hardest to ONLY install the software I really need on this machine, in an attempt to keep it as lean as possible. I suspect I will fail . . . . ;-)

Good luck with that!

Ian I'm just about to do exactly what you are doing. I've been using V9 on a Windows 7 corei7 laptop for a few months now and I love it. Really stable. On the other hand I've never touched my edit machine with V7 on XPpro because it runs sweetly but it's high time I benefitted from the new features and render options for example in V9 so I'm going for a re-format and clean install. Hope I don't live to regret it.

I too will be aiming to install software on a 'only if I absolutely need it' basis!

Hope your install goes well!

p.s Please tell me you are not in the middle of a project?

I'm always in the middle of a project so there's never a good time! I'm currently building ten tutorials for a client in the US and those are quite involved. No problems yet, though. My other major job at the moment is a DVD documentary about a 1950's RAF aerobatic tem due for release in November - thankfully I'm only at the stage of sifting through hours and hours of footage so a 24 hour break from that was quite welcomed!

So far I'm very pleased with Vegas 9/64 under Win 7/64 and I'm glad I waited until a later point release rather than diving in on day one. I've only got 4 GB RAM, so as soon as I have some spare cash I'll be doubling that (I think that will be the max the mobo can handle). I'm fairly convinced that I won't look to install a second OS (ie a 32 bit one) but I have installed 32 bit Vegas for the occasions when I might want to use MB Looks. So far I haven't installed any other apps except for utilities like FTP, ISO burning, compression etc. My plan is to install After Effects, Photoshop, Sketchup, Cakewalk Sonar, SonicFire and, of course, DVDA.

You'll recognise these as famous last words . . . . .