after effects supports multi core processors, wow

[kwfl]

i was working on my imac with after effects CS3 and was really thrilled when i saw my cpu usage went to 180% for after effects only during rendering.

it is really awesome and am seriously starting to think about a mac pro.

to what extent after effects is better in a mac pro,
for example, do u get 600%+ cpu usage on an 8-core mac pro, or less/more?
what other great mac application does that in the mac pro
avid, FCS, adobe?

thanks

 

[sdhollman]

i was working on my imac with after effects CS3 and was really thrilled when i saw my cpu usage went to 180% for after effects only during rendering.

it is really awesome and am seriously starting to think about a mac pro.

to what extent after effects is better in a mac pro,
for example, do u get 600%+ cpu usage on an 8-core mac pro, or less/more?
what other great mac application does that in the mac pro
avid, FCS, adobe?

thanks

With AE CS3 you can use all processors with the "Multi-Processing" feature switched on. AE treats your computer like a mini rendering farm rendering multiple frames at once across different cores. So the new Mac Pro can render 8 frames at once.

The only catch is that AE CS3 is not Leopard compatible yet.

 

[kwfl]

i guess that feature is turned on by default because i didnt mess up with it

 

[echoout]

The Leopard update is due out in days.

The rule of thumb for multiprocessing in AE CS3 is that you ideally want at least 1.5GB of RAM per core to really take advantage of it.

 

[kwfl]

assume that i have 12GB RAM, will the 8-core Mac Pro render at its maximum at this point?

the thing about AE with memory that it only uses 3GB of ram in my imac where 4GB is installed.

under xp it only uses 2GB.

 

[echoout]

Here you go:

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc39457/13

assume that i have 12GB RAM, will the 8-core Mac Pro render at its maximum at this point?

the thing about AE with memory that it only uses 3GB of ram in my imac where 4GB is installed.

under xp it only uses 2GB.

 

[kwfl]

thanks

actually from your link, i went up to this link here and it talks all about AE and mac pro

http://www.barefeats.com/octopro4.html

thank all

 

[Pressure]

That's the old Mac Pro. I wonder if the intel i5400 chipset does a difference at this point.

 

[JesterJJZ]

With AE CS3 you can use all processors with the "Multi-Processing" feature switched on. AE treats your computer like a mini rendering farm rendering multiple frames at once across different cores. So the new Mac Pro can render 8 frames at once.

It also "renders" your machine useless. My 2.66 quad slows to a crawl when rendering stuff in AE. Surfing and even mail can become unbearably slow.

 

[Pressure]

It also "renders" your machine useless. My 2.66 quad slows to a crawl when rendering stuff in AE. Surfing and even mail can become unbearably slow.

Well, it's either business or pleasure

If it can cut my rendering time in half I will take it. Then I can surf on my MacBook Pro in the meantime if need be.

 

[kwfl]

Well, it's either business or pleasure

If it can cut my rendering time in half I will take it. Then I can surf on my MacBook Pro in the meantime if need be.

exactly, i was really angry by aperture not using more than 120% of imacs cpu during indexing.

as a mac pro is for a real business or a real pro addict, they definitely will have something to browse on.

 

[TheFuzz]

ae cs3 runs pretty well in leopard. my quad g5 here at work died last week in the middle of a project. the 2.66 mac pro that replaced it came with leopard pre-installed so i didn't have any choice but to test it (unfortunately for me they had ordered a couple new mac pros before the new year to use up their budget so it's not one of the new 8-cores.) aside from some serious problems with photoshop cs2 and illy cs2, everything's been ok.

at home i've got the production bundle running in leopard and it's all super smooth.

 

[echoout]

The long-awaited update came out today to make AE CS3 "Leopard-compatible". Here is a note in its README about Multiprocessing:

Multiprocessing performance issues with multi-core machines, especially high-end 8-core hardware. When all 8 cores try to render a complex or memory intensive composition with Render Mutliple Frames Simultaneously, the application can become memory starved if each process has insufficient memory. To remedy this, there is a text preference to control the maximum number of cores that Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously will use. Open the text preference file and look in the ["MP"] section for: "MaxNumberOfProcesses" = "0". "0" is the default setting, which disables this preference setting. For better performance on an 8-core machine with 8GB RAM, for example, change the "0" setting to "4" and save the preference file and restart After Effects. This restricts multiprocessing with RenderMultiple Frames Simultaneously to 4 cores, each getting approximately 2GB of RAM.

 

[echoout]

How much RAM do you have?

It also "renders" your machine useless. My 2.66 quad slows to a crawl when rendering stuff in AE. Surfing and even mail can become unbearably slow.

 

[Reach]

The long-awaited update came out today to make AE CS3 "Leopard-compatible". Here is a note in its README about Multiprocessing:

Multiprocessing performance issues with multi-core machines, especially high-end 8-core hardware. When all 8 cores try to render a complex or memory intensive composition with Render Mutliple Frames Simultaneously, the application can become memory starved if each process has insufficient memory. To remedy this, there is a text preference to control the maximum number of cores that Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously will use. Open the text preference file and look in the ["MP"] section for: "MaxNumberOfProcesses" = "0". "0" is the default setting, which disables this preference setting. For better performance on an 8-core machine with 8GB RAM, for example, change the "0" setting to "4" and save the preference file and restart After Effects. This restricts multiprocessing with RenderMultiple Frames Simultaneously to 4 cores, each getting approximately 2GB of RAM.

lol "For better performance, use only HALF your cores!"

I get it though, you need a lot of RAM to use all. People ahve usually been saying 1gb pr core, here it's 2 I guess.

 

[echoout]

It's certainly a processor/RAM balancing act. But I use Nucleo Pro 2 to render anyway.

lol "For better performance, use only HALF your cores!"

I get it though, you need a lot of RAM to use all. People ahve usually been saying 1gb pr core, here it's 2 I guess.

 

[esbowman]

But I use Nucleo Pro 2 to render anyway.

i thought that the multi process rendering was virtually the same thing as what nucleo pro is doing.

To remedy this, there is a text preference to control the maximum number of cores that Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously will use. Open the text preference file and look in the ["MP"] section for: "MaxNumberOfProcesses" = "0". "0" is the default setting, which disables this preference setting. For better performance on an 8-core machine with 8GB RAM, for example, change the "0" setting to "4" and save the preference file and restart After Effects. This restricts multiprocessing with RenderMultiple Frames Simultaneously to 4 cores, each getting approximately 2GB of RAM.

So where exactly is this preference file. I think it's ridiculous that Adobe puts out this readme file, claim that this is still an issue, tell you what to do to fix it, yet fail to TELL YOU WHERE THE HECK IT IS. haha. Come on Adobe. I think I finally found it, but could someone here tell me for sure. I have a brand new Mac pro at work with 9gb. of ram, and 8 cores, and the thing crashes about every 2 - 5 minutes into a render. It's f'in ridiculous. I'm of course rendering TGA sequences but gone are the days of getting to go home at a normal time because I have to baby sit my damn MPro. ARGH!

I'm experiencing the EXACT same problem with Maya...well as far as the instability. It will start a batch render and then just randomly fail at some point. That's with MAYA 2008.

I'm starting to think that no software is able to reliably use all 8 cores.

 

[MrPDaddyHimself]

All of this is very disturbing. Atleast I have 16GB of RAM waiting for my new 3.2 Mac Pro. Does anyone know if the Quicktime issue with AE has been resolved yet?

 

[kwfl]

all i need then is a MP with 16GB of memory installed, an it should be faster than my imac

 

[echoout]

Not resolved yet. Always hold out on QT updates as they seem to break other programs regularly. Hopefully Apple will correct this sooner than later. My Macs REALLY seem to want to install that update!

All of this is very disturbing. Atleast I have 16GB of RAM waiting for my new 3.2 Mac Pro. Does anyone know if the Quicktime issue with AE has been resolved yet?

 

[echoout]

It's similar but Nucleo Pro 2 has way more features than just the rendering that your Mac Pro can take advantage of. And not to mention you can continue working while rendering, that's been a life saver for me over the last year or two.

i thought that the multi process rendering was virtually the same thing as what nucleo pro is doing.



So where exactly is this preference file. I think it's ridiculous that Adobe puts out this readme file, claim that this is still an issue, tell you what to do to fix it, yet fail to TELL YOU WHERE THE HECK IT IS. haha. Come on Adobe. I think I finally found it, but could someone here tell me for sure. I have a brand new Mac pro at work with 9gb. of ram, and 8 cores, and the thing crashes about every 2 - 5 minutes into a render. It's f'in ridiculous. I'm of course rendering TGA sequences but gone are the days of getting to go home at a normal time because I have to baby sit my damn MPro. ARGH!

I'm experiencing the EXACT same problem with Maya...well as far as the instability. It will start a batch render and then just randomly fail at some point. That's with MAYA 2008.

I'm starting to think that no software is able to reliably use all 8 cores.

 

[Cromulent]

exactly, i was really angry by aperture not using more than 120% of imacs cpu during indexing.

as a mac pro is for a real business or a real pro addict, they definitely will have something to browse on.

The bottleneck was probably your hard drive. Just because something does not max out all your CPUs it does not mean that the program is not using all the available resources it can.

 

[ComeOnDieYoung]

Multi-Machine Render?

Can I do a multi-machine render with a Macbook Pro and a Mac Pro (the Mac Pro being the lead of course)

If so, how does that work? Like how do you connect them?

 

[motulist]

It also "renders" your machine useless. My 2.66 quad slows to a crawl when rendering stuff in AE. Surfing and even mail can become unbearably slow.

I bet you could renice the AE process to consume less of your processor so that you could run other applications well while you're rendering. Renicing is a unix command which lets you set how "nice" each process running on your computer is. If you set the nice value high then it will allow other programs to use more processor cycles when they request it. If you set the nice value low then the process will very mean about sharing the processor and will horde it all for itself.