8core vs Quad for AE

[Barend Onneweer]

AE is still mostly CPU based for rendering. GPU assists in certain previewing and rendering processes.

The only question is how AE CS3 will compare with or without Nucleo Pro, in terms of efficient use of all 8 cores. But I have no doubt that the 8 core will be substantially faster than the quad core. Over to Steve…

Bar3nd

Raamw3rk – digital storytelling and visual effects

[Kevin Camp]

we’ll start getting a good idea of what ae cs3 can do very soon, when the beta is released. the rumors have been that it will better utilize multiple processors (or processing cores) and better (or more widely) utilize opengl and your gpu.

once the beta is released, the testing will begin… and we should get a good idea of how effectively ae uses muliple processors and how many features and effects are accelerated by opengl.

in addition, we’ll get to see the benifit of universal binary ae on an intel mac. heck, having a ub version of ae might feel like having a 8 core mac, at least for a little while…

Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Russell Lasson]

We won’t really know until AE goes univeral in CS3.

-Russ

[Danny Princz]

dont forget to figure in RAM when you compare the quad v octo machines as you really should have a minimum of 1gig of ram per core

who is that masked man…

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

To say CS3 takes better advantage of multiple processors is a complete understatement. For most projects (the exception being very time dependent effects) you can expect performance will almost be multiplied by the number of cores/processors. A quad core machine will perform RAM previews and Render Queue renders about 400 per cent faster than a single core one. I’m not exaggerating (your mileage may vary, depending on the nature of the project, of course).
Bear in mind, however, that each one of these background processes needs a respectable amount of RAM. A good starting point is to think half a gigabyte per core, plus what you would normally use for the main app and the OS. So, in the case of this new 8 core beast, you will want around 8 GB of RAM to make it sing.
I have not tested an eight-core machine myself, of course, so i have no idea if at some point overall system bandwidth may limit the linear improvement in processing speeds.
Hope this helps.

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
ar(AT)adolforozenfeld.com

[Jan Sherlink]

And don’t forget the hard disks !
Playing with AE7 and Nucleo on a dualcore quickly made clear that the speed-increase depended on my project type.
Rendering with six 1080p uncompressed sources in my Comp made my 3disk Raid-0 the bottleneck of the system.

cya,

Jan

[Jimmy Brunger]

I was wondering about this – I’m getting a single dual-core proc, 4GB RAM and Nucleo in a couple of weeks, as a an interim setup until we go HD…Would a 2 disk RAID 0 consisting of 2 x 300GB 7,200rpm drives be OK for uncompressed SD projects on a dual-core do you think?

*Production Studio Premium / *Combustion 3
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[Jan Sherlink]

Working with uncompressed SD shouldn’t be a problem.
If you use a lot of Video-layers in your comp Nucleo (don’t know about Nucleo Pro) may need several seconds for caching files, after that renderspeed will increase.
Gridiron advises that the NucleoPro-cache should be set on a raid too.
Rendering my output to a separate disk also increased performance a bit.

cya,

Jan

[Steve Forde]

AE CS3 uses technology identical to Nucleo “Standard”. It will spawn multiple processes of AE, and under the hood feed the other “AE’s” frames based on what needs to be done. This is how Nucleo scaled, and this is how AE CS 3 scales. The performance benefits are essentially identical between Nucleo and AE CS3.

This means that IF you have the RAM – Nucleo and AE CS3 will scale quite easily to 8 cores, and in many cases give you up to 8 X speedup. Again – IF YOU HAVE THE RAM. (using caps as you should really have at least 1-2GB per core = 8-16GB = $$$)

Nucleo Pro 2 does a whole bunch more than just use all CPU – https://www.gridironsoftware.com/nucleopro2

Also – when you have this many CPU – you need to balance HDD as well. If you have a single 7200 rpm disk holding the data (or god help you a firewire drive) for your projects, your entire machine will grind to a halt. You MUST use striped RAID to see performance on fast disks.

Please remember – when you use Nucleo Pro, Nucleo or just AE CS3 – on an 8 core workstation your machine is acting just like a render farm. 8 different instances of AE will need to open your project, read all the data, then start rendering. To see performance, you need to manage it. It means that CPU, RAM and Disk must all be singing in harmony or frustration will follow. Not to mention if you are PC – you cannot use Win XP or Vista 32 bit. You MUST use XP 64 bit or Vista 64 bit to make sure the RAM is available.

Overall, the hardware folks have decided that the more cores the better. When 4 was pretty much the maximum, it was manageable without having to really worry about it. Now that 8 cores are out, and 16 not far behind – we need to do some education.

My honest $0.02 – if you are at all technically daunted by any of the above – stick to a quad. Your stress level and wallet will thank you time and time again. IF you are adventurous and have some cash burning a hole in your wallet – go for it, but be prepared to spend some time tweaking.

Steve
GridIron Software Inc.

[Kevin Camp]

i ran the blackmagic speed test on a 2 drive sata raid0… 10 bit yuv 4:2:2 tested at 120fps (pal) r/w; 10-bit rgb 4:4:4 tested at 80fps (pal). i don’t know if that helps you?

Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW