Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity › Forums › Adobe After Effects › After Effects Memory and Multi-Processing Advice

  • Adobe After Effects

    After Effects Memory and Multi-Processing Advice

    Posted by Bob Crampton on February 22, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    Hello I’m new to this forum and I like to ask a question, I’m sure, however, its been asked before. Here it goes:

    I’m relatively new to After Effects CS4, I’d would like to know if I’m making the best of my computers ability. Don’t get me wrong I’ve read numerous instructions on the subject and it can get a bit confusing.

    I run a Q9500 overclocked to 3.40ghz with 8gb ram -Windows 7 [64bit]

    Memory and Multi-Processing settings:

    Total AF usage: 7.5GB
    Ram to leave other applications 0.5GB

    Render multiple frames simultaneously [Ticked]

    Minimum allocation per cpu [0.5] should this be higher?

    Foreground memory: 1.4GB
    Background memory: 6.1GB

    1.52GB per cpu

    I’ve also enabled disk cached at 8GB

    and turned off enable open GL

    I’d be graftful for any tips or advice since I’ve had the dreaded 7:66 error code once or twice.

    Thanks Bob.

    Adam Taylor replied 16 years, 6 months ago 4 Members · 13 Replies
  • 13 Replies

  • Michael Szalapski

    February 22, 2010 at 5:05 pm

    At least 2 GB of RAM per core. AE can use up to 4, but 2 is the absolute minimum you want.
    Read this.

    – The Great Szalam
    (The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

    No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

  • Bob Crampton

    February 22, 2010 at 5:26 pm

    Thanks Michael, just to make it clear to my own reasoning did you mean increase it from 1.52GB to 2GB? or did you mean increase the minimum allocation per cpu [0.5]setting to 2GB?

    Regards Bob

  • Michael Szalapski

    February 22, 2010 at 6:32 pm

    I would increase the minimum allocation to 2 and tell it to use one less core or whatever you have to do to make it use more than 2 GB per core.

    – The Great Szalam
    (The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

    No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

  • Bob Crampton

    February 22, 2010 at 6:47 pm

    Cheers Michael I’ll give it ago. Any other suggestions are welcome.

    Thanks Bob

  • Michael Szalapski

    February 22, 2010 at 9:18 pm

    [Bob Crampton] “Any other suggestions are welcome.”

    Buy more RAM. The current version of AE can (with a 64 bit OS) use up to 4 gigs per process. The new version coming out (CS5/After Effects 10.0) will be a fully 64 bit program. It will probably be able to use tons more than that.

    – The Great Szalam
    (The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

    No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

  • Bob Crampton

    February 22, 2010 at 9:23 pm

    Buy more ram LOL my motherboards limit is 8GB! and I have a 64bit OS already (thats something!). I wish money grew on trees.

    Thanks Bob

  • Bob Crampton

    February 22, 2010 at 11:28 pm

    Hello Dave its a CPU Intel 12MB Cache, 45nm and yes it runs After Effects CS4 95% no problem. I’ll try that 1GB minimum you recommend.

    Dave does it matter what graphics card you have in After Effects? or does it rely mainly on ram and CPU power.

    Thanks Bob

  • Bob Crampton

    February 22, 2010 at 11:54 pm

    Yes the 8GB limitation is not so bad; but as you mentioned After Effects loves ram and therefore the limitation is then magnified somewhat. Then again I didn’t have After Effects back then when I built my computer.

    Out of interest Dave, what spec do you run After Effects with?

  • Michael Szalapski

    February 23, 2010 at 4:09 am

    I can’t speak for Dave, but at the office my computer has dual quad-core Intel Xeon processors with 16 Gigs of RAM (I WANT MORE!!!) on Windows Vista 64 bit (to be upgraded at some point) and some sort of decent graphics card but since I’m just doing AE the card doesn’t really matter a lot. I’ve got a zippy RAID setup too, btw.
    (I also capture using AJA, but I don’t think you were asking about that.)

    At home I’m running a Pentium 4 processor (before they had hyperthreading) at 2.4 ghz, 1 GB of RAM on Windows XP service pack 2.
    Yeah…
    I need a new machine, but I plan to pay this off first.

    Although, I do rag on my old machine occasionally, it still works. I did the intro for my friend’s video with it and it didn’t suck too badly. I mean, I expected it to die; the original is 1920×1080 HD
    I mean, if the machine hadn’t been so sluggish, I would have done more with the graphic, but whaddya want? It was free work!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcqPW9K5Tvk

    – The Great Szalam
    (The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

    No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

  • Walter Soyka

    February 23, 2010 at 5:38 pm

    I’ve got an eight-core Mac with 32 GB of RAM.

    I’d estimate that for most of my HD renders, I usually have between 8 and 16 GB free, so that means I can leave other apps open and running. My large-raster widescreen renders nearly max out the RAM.

    Walter Soyka
    Principal & Designer at Keen Live
    Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
    RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
    Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

Page 1 of 2
1 2

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy