AE CS3 running on Boot Camp – any drawbacks or advantages

[Brendan Coots]

“I am wondering if it is worth getting a powerful multi-processor version so I can run all my Windows versioned CS3 Production Premium software on it.”

I would say definitely worth it. I would go for the 2.66Mhz quad-core Mac Pro with the default Apple configuration in terms of RAM, video card etc.

It comes stock with 1GB RAM, which is nowhere near enough but Apple charges an arm and a leg for RAM. Other World Computing (https://eshop.macsales.com) sells very affordable Apple certified RAM that I have in all of my Macs and it works great. If you can, get 4-8GB RAM.

As for Boot Camp, I’ve never had any problems with it. Even the beta version was stable and worked great. The only thing that ever worked funny was bluetooth on my macbook laptop, but the final release of boot camp fixed that.

You may want to install Windows XP 64-bit if you use boot camp. The reason is that XP is still the preferred Windows OS for content creation – Vista has many problems and is a RAM hog. The 64-bit version of Windows XP will let you take advantage of as much RAM as you stuff in your Mac Pro, whereas the standard versions of Windows only support up to 3GB RAM.

With regards to the CS3 software, you can call Adobe and request a product cross-grade from Windows to OSX for the software you own. This will convert your Windows licenses to Mac licenses. you just have to provide your serial numbers and pay for shipping, and they will ship you new Mac-based versions of everything. This would almost certainly be easier than always having to reboot/switch between OSX and Boot Camp every time you want to pull a render from After Effects into Final Cut Pro.

[Scott Thomas]

Brendan, thanks for your reply.

I didn’t know about Adobe cross-trading to Mac – that just adds to my decision making! I would probably stick to Windows since all my other software/plug-ins are windows and I presume I can’t split the license – or can I? Since a license for two simultaneous users is included I might – any thoughts on this. Of course a neater way of doing this would be to buy a Mac version of After Effects standalone. But are there any compatibility issues of moving a Windows created AE project to a Mac AE version?

64-bit Windows XP is somethings I have considered in the past (my PCs each have 4Gb RAM) but it is not compatible with some of my other software such as Avid. However since the Mac would be a very dedicated machine it would be OK. I presume there is no problem with the Mac running 64-bit. I wouldn’t even consider Vista.

This is one of those posts that seems to generate as many questions as answers, so I appreciate the help. I am sure others are thinking the same way.

[Scott Thomas]

Since my last post I have been searching for info about using Windows XP 64-bit with BootCamp. Much of the info is from forum replies in 2006 so things may have changed, but generally it doesn’t appear that a Mac Pro running BootCamp has drivers to fully benefit from 64-bit.

Say I had a quad core Mac with 8Gb of RAM and was running XP 64 bit via BootCamp, would each core be allocated 2Gb of Ram? If I went 8 core would 32-bit be better or would it still only “see” 3Gb of Ram? Does the Mac OS make a difference (is Leopard better than Tiger)?

Am I contemplating something that is really going to cause more trouble than it’s worth? How many question marks are you officially allowed in one post?

Thanks

[Brendan Coots]

“I would probably stick to Windows since all my other software/plug-ins are windows and I presume I can’t split the license – or can I?”

Doubtful. As for the license including 2 users, that would only be for the same platform (the serial numbers issued to you are platform specific).

“But are there any compatibility issues of moving a Windows created AE project to a Mac AE version? “

Not that I’ve ever encountered and I do it often. You would of course need all of the exact same fonts and plugins used in your project on both the Windows/OSX installs.

“I presume there is no problem with the Mac running 64-bit.”

OSX is a 64-bit OS so no, a Mac shouldn’t have any issues.

“generally it doesn’t appear that a Mac Pro running BootCamp has drivers to fully benefit from 64-bit. “

That may be true, honestly I haven’t tried installing XP 64-bit on Boot Camp. Then again, I don’t use the Windows side of my Macs for things that would utilize 64-bit anyway, such as RAM intensive applications. You may want to research this more, but even XP 32-bit will work fine and give you access to 3GB RAM, which isn’t horrible unless you are doing heavy Maya work or something.

“Say I had a quad core Mac with 8Gb of RAM and was running XP 64 bit via BootCamp, would each core be allocated 2Gb of Ram?”

No, because CPUs aren’t allocated RAM. Each process (i.e. application) would be allocated 2GB RAM. After Effects CS3 can use so much memory simply because it spawns up to 3 additional of copies of AE (one AE copy per CPU core) in the background, invisible to the user, all working together to render your files but each seen by Windows as a separate process and therefore getting more RAM into your AE renders.

“If I went 8 core would 32-bit be better or would it still only “see” 3Gb of Ram? Does the Mac OS make a difference (is Leopard better than Tiger)?”

32-bit would be fine, but yes it would only see 3GB RAM no matter how many cores you pop in, since this is a limitation of the OS not the computer specs. A 32-bit OS can only see 4GB of RAM no matter what, and Windows reserves a set amount of that RAM for itself, leaving only 3GB or so to allocate to applications. It should also be noted that 99% of the applications out there are only 32-bit as well, and therefore can’t use gobs of memory just because you have it. Only 3D applications and other high end, memory-hungry apps are 64-bit.

Windows 64-bit and all versions of OSX since v10.0 are 64-bit, and therefore aren’t constrained by this 4GB RAM limitation – they can see up to 16 exabytes of RAM. Not that it matters today since most modern computers have a physical and logistical limitation of 8-16GB.

As for the 8-core question, you would need 2GB RAM per CPU core to really see performance gains from those 8 cores, and even then so few applications could take advantage of that setup that you would see diminishing returns in terms of cost/performance benefit. If it were me, I would stick to the quad-core, 8GB+ RAM setup given its cost/benefit ratio.

And no, the Mac OS doesn’t matter in terms of what will happen inside of Windows (RAM allocation issues, etc.) With Boot Camp, you are completely booting from startup into Windows and OSX has no part in it. When you restart your machine you are given the option of booting into Windows Or OSX.

One other option you may consider here is VMWare Fusion which I have installed on a few machines. It allows you to fire up Windows from within OSX, just like any other application. It opens Windows in a new window which can be small or full screen, it can access all the same hardware as OSX etc. but it doesn’t require you to restart you computer etc. You can even have a share folder between OSX and your Windows/VMware so moving files between the two is simple. This way, you can be editing in FCP, pop open VMWare/Windows to work on that graphic in your Windows-licensed copy of After Effects, export it and drop it into the share folder and instantly import it into FCP without missing a beat.
Fusion doesn’t sap system resources at all, when it is running the program itself only uses 30MB RAM in addition to whatever Windows draws. You can also set how much of your RAM will be allocated to Windows vs. OSX, how many processors etc. And no, I don’t own stock in the company, I just like this product.

Definitely worth looking into, I like it much better than Boot Camp myself.

[Scott Thomas]

Really helpful reply Brendan – many thanks.

I will go down the Quad core route and look at the VMWare Fusion software, which sounds very good.

Thanks for clarifying so many issues. Please keep attached to this thread as I am sure to have a few more questions before bending the plastic.

Thanks