How much RAM do I actually need for video editing? ( Sony Vegas Pro 13 )

[Vladimir1]

Hi,

First of all let me start by saying that I am a new member to this forum and I am not really familiar with it, so if I've made a mistake with the section of my thread please feel free to move it.

Alright so, I recently upgraded a few parts of my PC ( CPU & cooler, motherboard, memory ), mainly for video editing.

Im using Sony Vegas Pro 13 for video editing. I edit in full HD 1920x1080p resolution and 30 FPS which is not some heavy editing I guess.
So, the last upgrade I've done is the memory, I am now using 3x4GB Kingston DDR3 1333 MHz RAM which is running on 1066 MHz because that is the default RAM speed for my motherboard's socket - LGA 1366.

Before I upgrade my RAM I had 1x4GB DDR3 1600 MHz Silicone Power RAM and now since I upgraded and have 8GB more than I had before, I dont notice any change regarding the rendering time, I think it's more or less the same time as before when I only had 4GB.

These are my PC specs

CPU: Intel Xeon E5620 2,4 GHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GT 630 4GB DDR3
RAM: Kingston 12GB DDR3 1333 MHz ( running on 1066 MHz )
Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro-E
HDD: 500GB
OS: Windows 7 -64 bit Professional

Thing is, when I render the CPU doesnt work on 100% load, it's mostly between 40-55%, checked with windows' task manager and the RAM is always like 10,8/12GB used.
Please do note that when I render I dont have any other programs running except my antivirus Avast and Realtek HD Audio Manager.
With my old RAM I overclocked my CPU for 50% ( from 2,4 GHz to 3,6 GHz ) but I reset it back to default because back then overclocking the CPU was kinda useless because I had 4GB of RAM only. Now I wonder if overclocking my CPU back to 3,6 GHz will help me in the rendering times with my current 12GB RAM.

Other than that I've tried disabling the virtual memory just to see if I'll be able to render that way and with that test I confirmed I need more RAM because my software crashes after about 8% of rendering because of " System Low on Memory ".

So I was really wondering how much RAM do I actually need ? Before upgrading I thought I will definitely not need anything more than 12GB as I read on the internet, but turns out Im wrong.
I also keep my old Silicone Power 4GB RAM so maybe I can put it in and see if that helps ? Though my old RAM is by a different manufacturer and running on different frequency than my current Kingston RAM, not sure how safe it is to try that.

Thank you

 

[caddi daddi]

make and model of the motherboard please.

 

[Vladimir1]

My motherboard is MSI X58 Pro-E as I already mentioned in my first post.

Link of the motherboard down bellow

http://www.msi.com/product/motherboard/X58_ProE.html#hero-overview

 

[caddi daddi]

you'll need to go into bios and set the 1333 settings manually.
check cpu-z for seetings and confirm settings and it's running triple channel.
re clock the cpu and see what it does.

 

[Vladimir1]

Alright, I'll definitely do that in the next few days and see how it goes.
Thanks

 

[Vladimir1]

Hi there,

I have another question and instead of creating a new thread I prefer asking it here.

Alright so, I'd like to know if it's safe to use RAM that is made by different companies.

In my case, I have 3X4GB Kingston DDR3 1333 MHz ( running on 1066 MHz ) at the moment. My old RAM is 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz Silicone Power and I would really like to know if it's safe to add the Silicone Power RAM and get it work together with the Kingston RAM ?
I heard that it's possible to do this, it's just that the RAMs will work on the lowest frequency ( for example 1 stick of 4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz and another one which is running on 1333 MHz, both of the RAM will be running on 1333 ).
If that's correct, I dont see any problem here because my Kingston RAM is 1333 MHz but running on 1066 MHz because that's the default of my LGA 1366 motherboard and the Silicone Power RAM I wanna add in my system is 1600 MHz

Please let me know your opinion for this.

 

[JLK03F150]

You should be running triple channel right now with the 3x4GB RAM in your system. If you add a 4th you will disable the triple channel. Pretty sure if you add the 4x4GB pieces in the proper slots you can run dual channel though. Dropping to single channel will not be worth the extra 4GB IMO.

Just make sure the timings (i.e. 8-8-8-24) and voltage (i.e. 1.5v) of both brands are the same at DDR3-1333, then it will most likely work fine.

 

[Vladimir1]

Alright, I added the silicone power RAM and it works just fine, no problems so far.

What I'd like to know is, how can I know what RAM channel am I using ? When I start up my PC it says tripple channel btw.

 

[JLK03F150]

CPUz will give you that information. The Memory tab tells you what your RAM is doing. Mine is Dual Channel, DDR3-1600 (798MHz x 2), 11-11-11-28 - for example. The SPD tab tell you specific information about each stick of RAM.

 

[Vladimir1]

I've just checked it with CPU-Z and turns out I am using tripple channel

Btw, the kingston memories have 667 MHz bandwidth ( max ) and the silicone power has 800 MHz max

They have different specs which can be seen in the 2 screenshots down bellow ( the first one with 667 MHz max bandwidth is Kingston RAM and the other one is Silicone Power )

 

[JLK03F150]

They should both be able to run together at DDR1333 (667MHz) at 9-9-9-24, 1.5v. Can you post a screenshot of the Memory tab?

You are running triple channel with 4x4GB pieces of memory?

 

[Eddie Current]

I have been running Adobe products as of late, but I have used Sony Vegas years ago.

As for your first question, I have found that having the best SSD drives you can afford to make the most difference. Have one drive for the program (SVP13), one for temp files and another for rendering.

Sony Vegas Pro 13 System Requirements

Microsoft® Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 (64-bit)
2 GHz processor (multicore or multiprocessor CPU recommended for HD or stereoscopic 3D; 8 cores recommended for 4K)
1 GB drive space for program installation
SSD or high-speed multi-disk RAID for 4K media
4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended; 16 GB recommended for 4K)
OHCI-compatible IEEE-1394DV card (for DV and HDV capture and print-to-tape)
USB 2.0 connection (for importing from AVCHD, XDCAM EX, NXCAM, or DVD camcorders)
Windows-compatible sound card
DVD-ROM drive (for installation from a DVD only)
Supported CD-recordable drive (for CD burning only)
Supported DVD-recordable drive (for DVD burning only)
Supported BD-R/-RE drive (for Blu-ray Disc™ burning only)
GPU-accelerated video processing and rendering requires an OpenCL™-supported NVIDIA®, AMD/ATI™, or Intel® GPU with 512MB memory; 1GB for 4K.
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0
Apple® QuickTime® 7.1.6 or later for reading and writing QuickTime files
Internet Connection (for Gracenote MusicID Service)

Second Question, I like using of the same type/specs, sometimes you get lucky and sometimes it's not till you really start to push it till you start to see problems.

Your Milelage May Very!

 

[Vladimir1]

@JLK03F150

Here's screenshot of the memory tab

@Eddie Current
Hey, thanks for your reply.

Thing is, now that I use 16GB of RAM, I notice that more than 12GB are being used when rendering, I feel like the bottleneck during rendering is RAM because it's pretty much on a high level used whilst the CPU never reaches +85% load during rendering with Sony Vegas Pro

 

[wingman99]

I would use 32 GBs

 

[Eddie Current]

Look in your preference tab and see if you can select another drive for rendering. If you have another drive you can off-load your rendering to it and your memory load will decrease (if memory serves).

 

[Vladimir1]

I only have 1 HDD and I cant afford buying new SSD / HDD / RAM, I've spent enough lately so Im just gonna stick to what I have.

Though I'll probably end up switching to Adobe Premiere Pro.
The reason is that when I render with Sony Vegas, the CPU load is never high, it's usually 50-70% whilst when rendering with Adobe Premiere Pro it's always like 80-95% which is what it should be, this is important to me because when I overclock the CPU rendering times will be smaller.

Other than that the reason why Sony Vegas Pro was using too much RAM when rendering is because I've set it to a high amount of dynamic RAM preview, I've lowered the amount and now it doesnt use much RAM when rendering but the CPU load remains not so great and as I mentioned most probably I'll just switch to Adobe Premiere Pro.

 

[Eddie Current]

Just my .02 cents, but you will be better off staying with Sony and using the money to upgrade your system. I'm using APP and its just as hard on your system when rendering as Sony. That's what got me into water cooling to start with, not so much overclocking but to keep my system running more efficiently under high loads ( Audio/Video rendering).

You have a nice system, but you could do with at least one more hard drive and definitely a better video card. The card you have is a good gaming card but is not helping you much for your video editing. The newer video cards (The GEFORCE® GTX 950 and TITAN) now incorporate some of the technology you could only get from cards like the Nvidia Quatro which are great for video editing but suck for gaming (+$$$).

Until than you will just need to tweak the system the best you can and live with rendering in smaller batches or waiting a few hours for renders to complete.

 

[Vladimir1]

But the thing is, Adobe Premiere Pro has the same features that Sony Vegas Pro does plus it has many others that I wont see in Sony Vegas.
Another good point is the CPU load difference when rendering with premiere and vegas pro, I just think that Sony Vegas is not really well optimized, I tried other rendering methods but nothing made the CPU at as high load as premiere does. Since there's high CPU load when rendering with Premiere, that means when I overclock I'll benefit in the rendering times which is a good thing.

By the way, I dont need to wait hours for my renders, it's still minutes in question, but I guess sooner or later it will take longer time to render videos since it really depends on the project. I work as an online video editor freelancer, so I am never 100% sure of what my next job will be.

 

[Eddie Current]

How long are your rendered videos, what are your average amounts of transitions and how many audio tracks per video are you working with?

 

[Vladimir1]

I use 5-6 video / audio tracks in total ( 1 for videos, 1 or 2 for audio, 1 for subtitles-generated media, 1 for logo and another 1 for cinematic black bars-solid color )

The amount of transitions depends on the project itself, but I usually use about 8-15 transitions and most of them are simple fade in / out or quick flash.

I render in MainConcept AVC/ AAC, screenshots of the settings down bellow

The final videos are about 2-5 minutes after editing and rendering and it usually takes 12-20 minutes.

Other than that to give you more details of what I do, well I download many copyrights free videos, insert them in the project I work on and then cut the parts I dont need, speed up or slow down some clips, use some transitions if needed, do some basic color correction, animate 2D still images in zooming in/ out motion.
Do you think that the not so fast renders could be caused by the video clips I download and use in my projects ? They're from different sites, all of them are full HD resolution but not all of them have the same FPS, video and audio bitrate, as well as format.
Not sure if animating the 2D still images might play a role here but I doubt it.

20 minutes rendering surely doesnt sound " a lot ", but the thing is during rendering the CPU is not at high load as it should be, if the CPU was constantly above 80% I guess the renders would take much less time, it just feels like sony vegas is not very well optimized for rendering.
On the other hand Adobe Premiere makes the CPU at high load, always above 80 or 85%, so when I overclock the CPU that's where I'll benefit.