Solved Hardware for Magix Movie Studio Pro 16

Hi there,

Firstly, I'll give you the hardware details;

Asus M5A78L-MUSB-3 motherboard
AMD FX-6300 Six Core Processor CPU
AMD Radeon R7 240 GPU
16GB Corsair RAM
600w PSU
C: Maxtor 5400rpm 380GB (partitioned) Primary HDD
Maxtor 5400rpm 215GB (partitioned) Secondary HDD
F: WD 7200rpm 300GB HDD (used for rendering to)
H: WD 7200rpm 2TB HDD (used to store source files)
Running Windows 7 x64 Home Premium, Movie Studio Platinium 14 and Movie Studio Pro 16.
Standard HD ready DVI to HDMI monitor for workspace and VGA monitor for preview, both plugged into the same GPU (not the motherboard)

Action cams include Sony HDR AS15, 20, 30, Sena Prism and 2 Gopro Hero 4's. So all HD; Sena Prism around 11000 kbps, Sonys 15000 kbps, GoPro 22000 kbps.

Okay, with that out of the way, I'll move onto the problem. So, I upgraded to Movie Studio Pro 16 (MSP) so that I could use unlimited multicam tracks. However this has proved impossible due to the ridiculous lag (the images barely move). GPU is enabled etc in the program, No manufacturer's program/hardware tweaks help either. I am trying to run a six track timeline (i.e. six cameras simultaneously).

What did surprise me though, was out of frustration one day I tried loading up the same six track timeline in Movie Studio Platinium 14 and it all ran, if not perfectly, then at least acceptably, only having to stop the cursor head every minute or so to let the video catch up with the audio. MSP14 isn't even supposed to run more than four multicam tracks, yet it does it better than the new program, which cost me quite some money! I have since tried borrowing an Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX950 and that is rubbish in both programs, so am back to using what really is a quite old GPU.
I would like to get MSP16 working, as it has features I would like to use. Proxy files aren't a realistic option. This one hour test .veg file contains 60 source files of motorcycle action, and took an hour to plug away at eight files before I gave up. If it didn't work in either, I could understand, but it works on the old version, so why not the new?

I am prepared to upgrade the GPU, (but what one do I go for which will guarantee a result), and it has been in my mind to get a SSD for a new O/S, probably Winows 10, which may, or may not help. Could you point me in the direction, if possible, of which GPU etc, to make the newer Vegas program work like to old one!!

Many thanks,

Leigh

Hi Leigh

Sorry for the delay in replying to your message :blush:
I have been very ill for more than a week and was not capable of answering anyone's questions until I got better.

The problems you are experiencing are being caused by a combination of different hardware/software combinations.

1. The number one problem is your AMD FX-6300 Six Core Processor CPU.
This is not a very powerful CPU compared to what you can buy now. This is what is causing most of your lag problems!
To get the best performance out of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 14 or 16, you really need to invest in a new CPU and GPU combination.
Any one of the newer AMD 8x Core Ryzen CPUs would be perfect for editing with Vegas.
The difference between an AMD FX-6300 Six Core Processor CPU and something like an AMD 2nd or 3rd generation Ryzen CPU is very dramatic.
You can buy 2nd generation AMD Ryzen CPUs at very good discounts now or get the latest 3rd generation which are smoking fast!

2. Your 2nd problem is being caused by the GPUs you are using.
AMD Radeon R7 240 GPU is only a very low powered GPU.
A much better budget AMD Radeon graphics card is the RX 590 - this is dramatically more powerful than the R7 240 !

In Nvidia GPUs, the minimum I would recommend is a GeForce GTX 1650 or GeForce GTX 1660.

Recently my old GPU died and I bought a GeForce RTX 2060 - this works extremely well with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 16.

3. Another problem you have is your hardware/software combinations.
Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 14 only uses the older Mainconcept AVC encoder/decoder and only supports much older Graphics Card architecture.
What this means is that your low powered AMD Radeon R7 240 GPU actually works better with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 14, but will work worse with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 16.

Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 16 uses the newer Magix AVC encoder/decoder. This new encoder/decoder works very well with the latest AMD Radeon and Nvidia graphics cards.

AMD Radeon RX580, RX590, RX5500XT, RX5700 and RX5700XT all work extremely well with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 16 (but don't work well with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 14).

Nvidia GTX1650, GTX1660, GTX1060, GTX1070, GTX 1080, RTX2060, RTX2070, RTX 2080 all work extremely well with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 16 (but don't work well with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 14).

4. You should only use 7200 RPM Hard Drives for video editing - 5400 RPM is too slow for multi video timelines in Vegas.

Regards
Derek

Hi Derek,
Thanks for your very comprehesive reply. I now understand why the old worked MSP14 better than the new MSP16!

I now have a clear way forward with the hardware. I was always aware the primary HDD was slow for video editing. I'll be buying a WD 7200rpm Black edition, something designed for gamers/video editor, I think. I am fairly sure my current motherboad supports up to a 8 core, so will look into that.

Update: Just bought my Christmas present, a new pc which hopefully will do the trick to run Movie Studio Pro Edit 16:

AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 2700 4.10GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail
ASUS TUF B450-PLUS GAMING (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
Microsoft Windows 10 Home Advanced - Systems
Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G24
Seagate 500GB 2.5" BarraCuda Solid State Drive - *System Stock*
Seagate BarraCuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - *System Stock*
WD 2TB 7200RPM SATA
Gigabyte Radeon RX 590 Gaming 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Thanks and best wishes for Christmas,

Leigh

You should be laughing now when your new PC is up and running !
Perfect build !!!

I also use Western Digital Black Drives on my own computer, for video storage.
Very reliable and fast.

Hi Derek,

Just thought I'd conclude this thread with the good news of my pc. Although I had to return the pc no less than three times to Overclockers because the cpu fell out in transit damaging the cpu itself, I finally have a good pc.

First proper test was installing Vegas Pro Edit 16 and see how it performed; well, okay it has crashed a couple of times, but so did Platinium 14.

Overall though, it can happily handle up to 7 cameras in multicam mode (an eighth seems to cause problems), which should be okay for me. Previously it barely worked on the old pc! I've just done a test with a 6 multivideo track timeline lasting an 70 minutes and it rendered in 66 minutes. Platinium took around three hours to do the same job.

So well pleased for the moment. Thanka again for your advice,

Leigh

Thanks for reporting back