David
There is no way (IMHO) that this s a disc problem or a RAM problem (and given that I have a system with 200mhzCPU & 128MB that works with Premiere, and even my prime system only uses 512MB I think that David's RAM recommendations are over the top ... and CPU has nothing significant to do with project saving).
Either I don't understand what you mean by 'save a project' or something is seriously misconfigured with your set up. If the latter, do a reinstall of Premiere & make sure that your registry is pointed in the right direction.
GB
Try starting Premiere while holding sown the Control and Shift keys. It will wipe out your preferences file and start a new one.
You will have to reset file location preferences, and I think you'll lose saved workspaces.
Steven
<http://www.stevengotz.com/premiere>
Is it possible you are actually Exporting your project and calling is "save"??
How well do it do if you use Windows Explorer and just copy or move a large file from one folder to another?? If you can move one of your large video files between folders and it happens pretty fast, then I would say it's someting in Premiere. But if you try to move a file that is say 100MB and it takes more than just a few seconds then it's more likely to be something in you system.
It used to save very fast and I have made no alterations to the system. File moving annd copying is as fast as ever, other applications run fine, just Premiere has slowed down on saves by 10 fold. Our system is a Zpro Xeon 933mhz with 512Meg Ram and 250 Gig raid array.
David
GB
A cuts only render to the same codec as the source will go quickly -- an effects heavy render to a highly compressed codec will take a long time, and will be speeded up only if you upgrade to a faster CPU or dual CPU or some such.
GB