11.5 Plus running very slowly on new computer - help?

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Sat May 17, 2008 3:29 am

Hii there,

I became fed up y/day trying to make v.11 run on my rather elderly desktop, and so I finally bought a new computer. I've installed the boxed version of 11.5 Plus (and the contents of the bonus CD) and I started it up all excited about how much more quickly it should run, but if anything it seems to be going even more slowly than it was before

I've attempted to implement each of the 3 tips given by Ulead (enabling DMA, disabling write-behind caching and setting paging file size), so I don't think that can be the reason (unless I've somehow cocked up).

It also came with Power Pack 1.

Version number is 11.5.0157.1 Plus

Can anyone please take a look at the spec in my profile and tell me whether the programme should be running slowly? The new PC is a Dell Inspiron 530S.

I'm really quite fed up about this

Many thanks for any guidance, help and/or tips.

p.s. I've reviewed some postings I made here last year when I first had a problem with v.11, and I'm reminded that at least some of the problem probably arises out of the fact that I'm working with .avii files. It was explained to me that although VS *can* edit them it struggles a bit because they're very highly compressed.

Given that those are the only files available to me for what I'm doing (making fanvids from episodes), is there anything I can do to reduce the problem to some sort of manageable level? Any tweaks I could make? (I followed a v. helpful tutorial last time for optimising the PC to run VS, but I've looked again at it and I don't think it applies to Vista PCs.)

Thanks again x HP

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Wed May 21, 2008 12:45 pm

I've found a very effective workaround for this, and so I'm posting some info here in case anyone else is looking for a solution in the future.

As has been pointed out to me, using compressed AVI files is very difficult for VS. On my computer it almost grinds to a halt, trying to deal with them. It's not really made to work with this sort of file. If you are using downloaded television episodes to make fanvids, as I am, then you're likely to encounter this problem. Although the extension is AVI, they're actually a type of compressed MPEG--MPEG-4.

You can convert them to a different format in order to make them easier for VS to use. I eventually found some v. good help on a forum dedicated to making these fannish videos. The users there are concerned with quality of output rather than specific problems with VS, but the knock-on effect of following some of their advice is that my VS is now running much more quickly--running as it's supposed to run, I think--and the picture quality of the files I've produced has improved.

So... there are various things you can download to do the job for you, but I'm using MPEG Streamclip and Avidemux. The former deals with most of my files, and the latter helps out with the odd one that won't load properly in Streamclip. Basically, you load your MPEG-4 (i.e. downloaded AVI) in Streamclip, tell the programme the format of the file you've loaded (MPEG-4) and then tell it to export to a different format. I export to AVI and the saved file runs almost like a dream in VS.

It's very technical, and I'm not a techy. I used a tutorial that I found on the fannish forum, and people there gave me help on bits and pieces. After that I spent some time experimenting. It was worth it, though, so if you've been having this problem then fear not: you can get round it and get the benefit of the great things that VS does when it's working with the right materials.

Good luck!

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed May 21, 2008 1:21 pm

Unrelated to your problem (I hope) is that fact that your version of VS11.5+ should end in 2. So go to the Ulead.com website, cick the Download button along the top, and follow the promots to download the 6 November 2007 update patch for VS11 which will ensure you get the extra functionality and insert a 2 at the end of the version number.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Wed May 21, 2008 1:26 pm

Glad you got it working.

Another file converter that many on this forum use is the free Super.

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Wed May 21, 2008 4:28 pm

Thanks, Ken and Black Lab.

Ken - I've installed that now. Many thanks for the tip

Black Lab - I'll take a look at that converter too. Thanks!