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Graphics card limiting AE project?
I’m attempting to troubleshoot an issue on a dual CPU Apple G5 2.5Ghz, 4Gb RAM, with AE7, hanging off an Xsan 4Gb Fibre Channel network. Leaving the project to render overnight, it will tend to crap out with an error about cache size not being able to be created. The machine has an old ATI 128Mb of some sort powering two 23 inch cinema displays.
Newer Quad core machines with NVIDIA 6600GT cards have no such issues with the same project on the same network.
I *think* this is a graphics card thing. First, is it? And second, if it is, is it possible to go and buy an NVIDIA graphics card from a PC vendor and just replace the old ATI, Tiger recognising it because of the unified driver set-up with NVIDIA cards?
And must that card be one of the cards that Apple DID bundle with its G5 machines because those are the only drivers present in the operating system?
And pointers gratefully received!
Thanks.
Ben
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3 Replies
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Hi,
The only time I have run into problems with AE dumping out of a render (usually minutes after I left work for the day) has been due to having many large layers in the project.
A couple of people here suggested I go to the secret AE preference menu and set set “Purge every xxx frames during Make Movie” to 30. Anyway, this did the trick for me.
You get into the secret preference menu by holding down the right shift key as you select one of the preference menu items. Then go to the preference page select pull down menu and the last one should be labled secret.
But if you’ve done this already and you are still having a problem, I suppose it could be a hardware issue. I wouldn’t think AE would care what sort of graphics card you had or even if you didn’t have one at all while it is rendering.
I have only replaced graphics cards with ones supplied by Apple, so hopefully others here can advise you on replacements, should you need to go in that direction.
Anyway, my system is a Dual 2 gig G5 with 3 Gigs ram so it’s a little closer to the one that is causing you problems. Hopefully it is just a matter of not using the available ram as efficiently in the older systems and that the secret menu issue does the trick.
Hope this helps,
Lars
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Hi Lars
Thanks so much for the reply.
I’ve certainly heard of the AE7 preference menu, thought it might be an option, but hadn’t had a chance to test settings. So I’ll give that a go.
I still wonder about the graphics card tho as it wasn’t crapping out on the other systems…
When you got those replacement graphics card from Apple did they supply driver disks with them? Were they different cards or just the same models?
Does anyone else know about the related question: i.e purchasing an NVIDIA card NOT from Apple to replace the ATI one and whether it HAS to be one of the same models originally bundled with the G5s or could it be one of those bundled with the new Intel-based Mac Pros or in fact any NVIDIA card?
Thanks again.
Ben
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Hi,
The replacement cards from Apple were upgrades to higher performance cards.
If I remember correctly, the first did not come with extra drivers and I know I did not install any new drivers when I moved it to another computer.
When I upgraded to a 30 inch monitor with the Nvidia GeForece 6800 GT video card that was needed to run it, it did come with a driver and I probably installed it, although I don’t remember doing so.
Apart from what appeared to be a driver conflict with a Wacom tablet, I have never had anything that appeared to be a hardware or driver issue with AE.
Lars
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