Very Slow Rendering - is this normal?

I'm trying out Reaper to see if it'll work well enough to replace Vegas 6 as my main audio program. So far the biggest issue I have is the long time it takes for me to render mixes and burn CD's. I put the same set of (9) 24 bit 48kHz mono files (about 45 minutes each) into Reaper and it took 17 minutes to render using the "fast" render option. Then when I wanted to burn a second CD it wanted to render AGAIN before burning another copy of the CD. The same process in Vegas took just under 9 minutes, AND I could keep burning more CD's without re-rendering. Neither program was running any effects except for a couple of channels of eq - using the stock eq that comes with each respective software. I searched this topic a bit and it looks like this is normal, but I have a hard time believing that. Please tell me there is a faster way to burn CD's of your sessions. I regularly multi-track record my band practices. While we're listening back to a couple of tunes, I'll quickly do a rough mix and then I'll burn a couple of copies of the rehearsal for the guys as we pack up. Using Vegas the timing worked out very well. Using Reaper kept everyone waiting around for another half hour. I'm otherwise liking the program, but I think this could be a make-or-break issue for me.... Can someone please help? Is this an issue that I should suggest as an improvement in the thread dedicated to bugs and stuff?

I don't know anything about the render times, but when burning to CD, I'd make reaper produce an ISO and then burn that separately myself. burning multiple cds from the render window would be a sensible feature request though.

I don't know if it's normal, but it's something I noticed also using prior Reaper version; also made a thread about that(which I can't find at this minutes). On my system, Reaper doesn't seem to take full advantage of my hardware when rendering, meaning my CPU's barely run at 20-30% and my HD activity is nowhere near maximum. I also noticed Vegas(version 8 in my case) rendering much, much faster. Wish I could find my old thread, can't remember if it was explained by the dev or not.

all my renders i've every done use approx 100% cpu, so yeah, probably a system/project specific thing.

Ah, here's my thread: No dev chimed in unfortunately...

By Jove I think I've got it! 

Hi.. I believe this under utilization of cpu on rendering is due to the fact that u have your "use anticipated FX on render UNCHECKED" in reaper preferences... my dear Watson now where is that opium..... Guido

I did see that previous thread (thanks - that was the start of my investigation) and I did try that golden "use anticipated FX on render" box - that option didn't change anything for me (I wasn't really using any effects anyway save a bit of light eq-ing). Maybe it was the opium I smoked, but the rendering was still ultra slow. If the problem is in my computer, I don't know why Vegas would be so fast and Reaper so slow. I'll look into the suggestion to have Reaper make an ISO and see if I can get a faster system worked out that way. The main use for audio software in my world is recording practices and making good sounding reference CD's (with the option to do a good mix of any particularly good performances). I like that I can have a template of ins and outs up and running in Reaper right away (instead of routing all of my ins and outs each time in Vegas), but the time saved with that is more than wasted in the slow render and burn times. Maybe this is not destined to be my audio software.

I just searched the user guide for the term "ISO" and it's nowhere. What it an ISO?

"The main use for audio software in my world is recording practices and making good sounding reference CD's (with the option to do a good mix of any particularly good performances). I like that I can have a template of ins and outs up and running in Reaper right away (instead of routing all of my ins and outs each time in Vegas), but the time saved with that is more than wasted in the slow render and burn times." Maybe you should try recording at 44.100 instead of 48. This way your software will be able to burn a CD without having to do resampling. The quality of resampling is the issue here probably.