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Rendering Configuration
Firstly, i only started using After Effects yesterday and I am following the tutorials on Lynda.com to get up to speed on basics. Therefore assume I know nothing!
My problem however is that rendering seems to be much slower than it should be for a PC of my spec and I would like to know how to optimise it. I know this question has been asked lots of times however I have read through a lot of the forum posts already, and looked on Adobe websites but still get nowhere.
I have a PC running Windows 7 64-bit, Adobe After Effects CS4, Intel Quad Core Q6600, Radeon 4800 and 3GB RAM.
So far I have:
1. Turned on ‘Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously’ in the preferences with the following settings:
– Chosen to leave 0.5 GB RAM for other applications.
– Have 0.5 GB as minimum allocation per CPU
– CPUS to leave for other apps set to 02. When rendering I have resolution on ‘Auto’
3. Tried increasing Virtual Memory size but did not know what to set the ‘Initital Size’ and ‘Maximum Size’ too so left it as ‘System Managed Size’
Regardless, when I try rending (by pressing space) a 7 sec clip (1920 x 1080), with only one word of animated text, it is struggling massively. Even having left it render it once and then playing back the rendered workspace I get a maximum frame rate of 10 FPS.
This is a similar story what ever I try to render, even moving text on a empty frame.
I may have explained all this very badly so let me know if you need me to answer any more questions.
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2 Replies
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Your memory settings as described in section 1 of your post are problematic. You’re giving far too little RAM to both After Effects and other applications and the OS. Read this post for recommendations.
Actually, given that you only have 3GB of RAM (which is very little for software like After Effects), you should never turn on Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing. You have enough RAM to feed one After Effects process, not multiple.
Check out “Improve performance” for additional performance tips.
Oh, and make sure that you’ve updated to After Effects CS4 (9.0.2). That update fixed a lot of performance issues.
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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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If a page of After Effects Help answers your question, please consider rating it. If you have a tip, technique, or link to share—or if there is something that you’d like to see added or improved—please leave a comment. -
Thank you for your response, I had actually read the ‘Improve Performance’ page previously but must have somehow misinterpreted it. The Perfermonce Tip also has been useful.
I am using After effects because I have just bought a new camera, and this camera shoots 1080p footage, what would you recommend as reasonable PC specs to comfortably do post-production with this footage using the Adobe suites?
I’m in a difficult position because the only way to really upgrade my PC now (other than adding another stick of RAM) means a overhaul of everything (to get DDR3 memory and Core i7 processor). How easy is it to use older PCs to link up and use as ‘render farms’, I do have some older PCs in my office that may be a cheaper solution.
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