Why I shall upgrade to VS10+

[willydeluxe]

I downloaded the VS10+ trial out of curiosity. VS9 does what I want, I don't need the new VS10 'tricks', and I can do without spending any more money. So why upgrade from 9 to 10?
'Cos it doesn't crash every two or three minutes!

I used VS9 trouble-free for more than a year with my Pentium 4-based setup, but when I went to a (higher powered) AMD-based rig I encountered nothing but problems. Crash-o Rama! I would have to save my project after every edit, transition or whatever, and spend more time waiting for my pc to reboot than actually editing video.
Since installing the VS10+ trial it hasn't crashed once and I got a full days "work" done. (Oh, and the superfast loading time is a bonus.)

I don't know what Ulead did to the program, but they can have my ¢G35 for the upgrade today.

(For some reason the English pound sign is showing as a '?'. Is that my non-English keyboard being silly or a quirk in the forum?)

[BrianCee]

(For some reason the English pound sign is showing as a '?'. Is that my non-English keyboard being silly or a quirk in the forum?)

looks like a temporary quirk of the Forum - mine does the same now - although it never used to

..

[alan.glaister]

AFAIK it could be the processor thats the cause of your crashes.

I remember reading somewhere that AMD processors handle exceptions (both recoverable and terminal ones) differently to intel processors and this can cause instability in some programs.

From memory its a quirk of how the AMD's interact with the windows exception handling and instead of allowing the program to recover itself by its own exception handling it forces it to be an end of the world MS "your program has encountered a problem and needs to close" Send/Don't Send.

As for the reasons to upgrade, there is one reason I upgraded and its the only reaason I went for VS10+ the 7 video overlay tracks. The power that gives to your productions is worth the money on its own.

Sure I will admit VS10+ for me isn't as stable as VS9 was but do also recognise that any change in your PC hardware can cause different programs to react differently.

After all while there are standard for the PC component that only applies to the interfaces - not to the internals of the components, and its impossible for companies like Ulead to test all possible combinations of PC hardware for their software.

But usually the reason you'll experience crashes is due to virus scanner, spyware scanners, firewalls, drivers and other constantly active intrusive software on your PC

[CycleWriter]

AFAIK it could be the processor thats the cause of your crashes.

I remember reading somewhere that AMD processors handle exceptions (both recoverable and terminal ones) differently to intel processors and this can cause instability in some programs.

If you have some link to such info, I'd sure like to have it. AFAIK, AMD goes to great lengths to make sure their processors are as compatible with Windows and other software as anything Intel offers. If what you say above is true and there's some evidence of it, no one would ever buy another AMD machine until this was fixed.

After all while there are standard for the PC component that only applies to the interfaces - not to the internals of the components, and its impossible for companies like Ulead to test all possible combinations of PC hardware for their software.

True, to a point. They might not be able to test with every motherboard, video card, sound card, etc. combo, but I'm sure that at least some testing is done with variations of the major processing chips available. If not by Ulead, then by AMD to some extent. AMD depends on making the claim of 100% compatibility with Windows software and anything that runs on it, as well as being a 100% equivalent to an Intel processor. Without that, why would anyone buy a machine with an AMD processor? I know AMD uses a different memory access scheme than Intel (one reason why they can get better performance at lower clock speeds), but if there was something inherent in their design that caused them to crash more or choke on certain software, test labs and/or the internet community would have found this flaw and AMD would be out of business in short order.

But usually the reason you'll experience crashes is due to virus scanner, spyware scanners, firewalls, drivers and other constantly active intrusive software on your PC

Very true. On a video editing station, the more junk that loads at startup and/or runs in the background, the more likely VS will crash. This is often a real problem with computers that come with tons of pre-installed software that has all kinds of applets that load automatically. Even programs like QuickTime or RealPlayer load applets that continually check for program updates in the background. Many of these applets run transparently and can impact other processes. Anyone doing video editing on a PC needs to educate themselves on how to configure their machine to either stop these applets from loading or know how to turn them off before they sit down to edit. At a minimum, an understanding of how to use msconfig.exe is in order.

[Black Lab]

Anyone doing video editing on a PC needs to educate themselves on how to configure their machine to either stop these applets from loading or know how to turn them off before they sit down to edit.

FYI - Create A Video Editing Profile

[CycleWriter]

Anyone doing video editing on a PC needs to educate themselves on how to configure their machine to either stop these applets from loading or know how to turn them off before they sit down to edit.

FYI - Create A Video Editing Profile

That's a good tutorial, but I would add the steps needed to shut down the built-in Windows memory/clock cycle hogs like the GUI enhancements that are all turned on by default. Things like cursor shadows, window effects, desktop enhancements and such all contribute to slowing down the editing environment, and Windows in general. If you have a really fast processor then their effect is minimal, but for those still working on older platforms, every little bit helps, especially when rendering.

[Black Lab]

CycleWriter,

You should send you suggestions to Steve, maybe he would add it.

[CycleWriter]

CycleWriter,

You should send you suggestions to Steve, maybe he would add it.

Oh man, that would make me look helpful or something. Perish the thought!

[Black Lab]