VideoStudio :: Rendering And Timeline Playback

I am currently using VideoStudio X6 Ultimate (although the application seems to say Pro). Hopefully I have posted this in the correct part of the forum.

I am running into some seriously debilitating issues with Corel VideoStudio X6. First off, I have just spent the past 12 hours rendering a 27 minute video. This is insane! There's something really off (unless this is the norm with VS x6?)

Settings:
Under performance I have everything ticked. Except Enable Hardware Encoder Acceleration (it's greyed out!). I have made sure to install an older Nvidia driver ( 320.18), tried W8's driver (320.56), and the latest Beta right now which is 326.80. I have installed CUDA 5.5, didn't work. Installed CUDA 5.0 (current) still greyed out. Will try version 4 now.

Smart Proxy is enabled (my videos are all 1080p), yet VideoStudio is unable to make a single proxy of any video even if I right click and choose Create Smart Proxy File. The folder is empty. Nothing ever appears in the Queue. I have tried restarting, moving the video sources, still nothing.

I have a screenshot of one of the video sources as an attachment. The videos originated from my screen recording in Ubuntu 13.04. They were originally .MKV files, but VideoStudio X6 is unable to handle MKV.

I am trying to render this project out as a MPEG-4 file, at 1920x1080 using H.264-MAIN. I had unticked Perform non-square pixel rendering, but that was a wrong move to make. However, even with it ticked, my second current render right now is taking just as long.

My target is to make a video for youtube, previously I used Kdenlive. However, I wished to add the cool effects that VideoStudio X6 boasted. It seems to be unable to handle an overdose of it's own effects.

I have added a screenshot, so you can see what I am working with. Maybe even spot where my beginner mistakes are.

In summary, my problems are:
1. EXTREMELY long rendering time (in contrast, a 20 minute video in Kdenlive only takes 1 hour to render H264 at 1920x1080).
2. Unable to make CUDA work with VS X6. Tried many driver versions. GTX680 is a CUDA card.
3. Timeline playback is really a NIGHTMARE. Constant hanging trying to move through it. Unable to get even a single video source through the Smart Proxy process.

I have only been using X6 for the past 5 days, yet I am slowly regretting this purchase.

My system specs:
OS- Windows 8 Professional 64Bit
CPU - AMD Phenom II 965 3.4GHz
GPU - Asus Nvidia GTX 680 2GB
RAM - 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz
Sound - Asus Xonar 7.1

I also tried rendering to a separate hard drive to see if that would improve render times. Still the same long render experience.

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