Heres a nifty little tutorial for all you computards who use Vegas.


First off Sony Vegas 8.0 only uses 1 core to render media, what this tutorial will do is show you how to give Vegas permission to utilize multiple CPU cores.

Here is what a 256kbps 48000k hz 16-bit audio file looks like when it renders using only 1 core and a Normal priority.




Now heres what that same file looks but this time Vegas is rendering with 2 cores and a High priority.





Not a very big difference but still its something. Keep in mind the more cores Vegas uses while rendering the more the render time will decrease.


So now here is how you improve the render time of any media file.


1. Open Task Manager then select the "Processes" tab.

2. find vegas80.exe (versions vary) in the processes list and right click it.

Now you should see a list with several things on it. The two things we want to work with are the Priority and the Affinity.

So click on the Priority option and you should see something like this.



Make sure the Priority is set to High. ( I highly suggest you do not use Realtime as it may cause problems with your PC)


Now click the Affinity option and you should get something like this.



This is where you can select the processor cores Sony Vegas will use. As you can see Vegas is only uses Core number 2 (CPU 1).
You may have more boxes available depending on how many cores your processor has.

Now simply check the remaining boxes so all cores will be utilized by Vegas.




Easy isn't it?


Well now that Vegas is using multiple cores and a High priority lets try rendering a 1 minute 640x480 MP4 video with Vegas default settings.



As you can see both CPU cores are being utilized and are both maxing out.



Now lets try that same video but using only 1 core and Normal priority.



Now only the second cores is maxing out while the first core is doing absolutely nothing.



The render time using only 1 core and a normal priority was nearly a minute longer than with 2 cores and High priority.


I was even able to watch a DVD quality movie while I rendered the original audio file and only added a very short time to the render but it still rendered faster than 1 core and Normal priority did.




REMEMBER you MUST repeat this process EVERY time you open Sony Vegas otherwise it will revert to using 1 core!!

I thought this was common sense, just to start Sony Vegas in affinity with all of your available cores.

Good tutorial for people who don't know this though...which I'm surprised at if so.

Im amazed at some of the questions people ask me about PC's.