What specs are you running for After Effects?

[BrandoFiasco]

I'm just curious what computer specs everyone is running when using After Effects? I use my MBP 2.8Ghz C2D (in sig) and it kills me...

Is anyone using one of the new MBPs for AE, hows it working out? I can only afford one workstation right now, wondering if one of the new MBPs would work or if I should go for a desktop. Thanks!

 

[ppc_michael]

Core i7 870 overclocked to 3.2GHz, two Nvidia GTX 580, 16GB RAM, and a RAID 10. DeckLink for monitoring.

I've been working a lot with 2K film scans for the past few weeks and there's barely a hiccup in performance. I don't think I could ever go back to doing it on a laptop.

 

[Policar]

For whatever reason (it doesn't seem to be that multi-threaded and I usually turn GPU acceleration off) After Effects does run significantly faster, more so than I'd expected, on higher end machines. Depending on how you use it different factors affect its speed, but it seems significantly faster on 8 core Mac Pros even relative to 17'' MPBs (and certainly relative to cheaper ones and iMacs). Not sure why.

 

[WRP]

I'm using a 6-core 3.33Ghz with 32 GB of RAM.

Problems many people who are new to After Effects is they don't have the proper amount of RAM allocated to tasks. My 4-core at home with more RAM will smoke my buddies 8-core because he doesn't have close to enough ram allocated PER CORE and was essentially choking his system.

Read through this stuff when deciding what to buy and how much ram you will need to run AE smoothly. PS, I also have the same MBP as you and have no problems with AE, although very slow to render.

http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2009/12/performance-tip-dont-starve-yo.html

http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/memory-storage.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2010/10/please-try-recommended-memory-settings-for-after-effects-cs5-and-give-feedback.html

 

[wonderspark]

Like WRP, I have a 6-core 3.33GHz with 32GB RAM for CS5 and CS5.5.

I allocate "8 CPUs" (8 of 12 processes) and 26GB of RAM to After Effects, with "2GB RAM per CPU" selected. I've tested every combination I could with the RAM and CPU allocations, and this setup gave the quickest renders by a couple seconds. There was at least one other configuration that was within a couple seconds, with the rest being significantly slower on my system when rendering the exact same project. I was surprised that selecting 3GB per CPU didn't work better than 2GB, given the availability of 26 GB total (3.25GB each), but that's what my tests showed, so I stuck with 2GB.

Anyway, I'm very pleased with the speed and stability of this setup.

Other specs include use of an 8-disk RAID6 for media, renders and previews, and a 2-disk RAID0 for media cache scratch files.

 

[frozi]

I will be purchasing the new macbook pro retina with 16 gb of ram.

I have some tutorials on after effects and am hoping this laptop wont be lagging when trying to learn.

Thoughts?

 

[BrandoFiasco]

PS, I also have the same MBP as you and have no problems with AE, although very slow to render.

http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2009/12/performance-tip-dont-starve-yo.html

http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/memory-storage.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2010/10/please-try-recommended-memory-settings-for-after-effects-cs5-and-give-feedback.html

Really?? Are you talking final render or preview render? I'd like to know how you make your MBP work for you (drop res to a quarter, fast draft, etc). For me, after a few comps, and layers, and 3D space, things start to slow down, on top of tweaking keyframes and then re-rendering, it can be agonizing.

Thanks for the links BTW

 

[WRP]

Really?? Are you talking final render or preview render? I'd like to know how you make your MBP work for you (drop res to a quarter, fast draft, etc). For me, after a few comps, and layers, and 3D space, things start to slow down, on top of tweaking keyframes and then re-rendering, it can be agonizing.

Thanks for the links BTW

Yup. Drop rez to quarter or lower and turn motion blur off. But in all honesty, when I am working on my lappy I am usually not doing complex projects like I am on my desktop. Maybe 30 or so layers with 10 or so precomps on the average? Biggest hit I have found is motion blur. And, if you are adding filters to things, depending on if they are using Open GL can take a crap load to render for preview.

 

[mBox]

I will be purchasing the new macbook pro retina with 16 gb of ram.

I have some tutorials on after effects and am hoping this laptop wont be lagging when trying to learn.

Thoughts?

Hearing lag stories with basic GUI. Hoping Adobe updates for Retina.
However I cant work on any laptop with AE.
Im spoiled with both home and work systems.
27" Duals at home and 30" Duals at work.
Ive been doing this for too long to have all my windows on one screen
I can deal with Maya, FCPX, Resolve and Avid on a single screen but AE, no freakin way

Forgot to add that someone on the Resolve beta team is claiming Resolve 9 on rMBP is like "sex on a stick".
Not sure what he means by that

 

[BrandoFiasco]

Awesome. Thanks for the replies. I think I'll build myself a custom PC and forego the new mac for now...ugh