AE performance // Hardware & Preference Settings (assigning CPU value)

[Walter Soyka]

Multiprocessing (or “render multiple frames simultaneously”) starts multiple instances of the After Effects renderer, each of which is responsible for a different frame. Each renderer instance requires its own RAM.

As you have only 4 GB total, a significant portion of which is used by the OS and other applications, you don’t have enough free RAM left to start multiple render processes. This means that a lot of your CPU power sits idle during Classic 3D renders.

Ray-tracing doesn’t exploit the older-style multiprocessing, but rather uses an NVIDIA CUDA GPU if available (what GPU is in your MBP?), and if not, it falls back to all available CPU resources. The GPU rendering is significantly faster than the CPU rendering. RAM is less important here unless your scene is extremely complex. Also, please note that Adobe is moving away from the ray-tracing renderer [link] in favor of C4D/CINEWARE or third-party plugins for 3D workflows.

Giving the disk cache a big SSD to use will help you avoid re-rendering frames, but it will not speed up the initial renders. Maxing out the RAM in your system would go a long way, or even considering a new computer.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Linda Quinlan]

Walter,
Many thanks for your reply and valuable information. It’s great!!

To answer your question my GPU is AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB graphics.
Unfortunately I’m not in a position to buy a new computer!! So I have to work with what I have and kit it out a bit.

MacBook Model :
– MBP. 15-inch, late 2011.
– Model Name: MacBook Pro
– Model Identifier: MacBookPro8,2
– Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
– Memory 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3

I will buy the 16GB. If I get the 16RAM do you recommend that turn on Multiprocessing in Preferences?
Do you know why I cannot assign or change the CPU value of “Actual CPU’s that will be used” in my preference settings at the moment?

Do you think I can benefit from purchasing the SSD?
If yes, could you be able to recommend something from this link? 265GB or 512GB?

https://eu.crucial.com/eur/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Apple/macbook-pro-%2815-inch%2C-late-2011%29

3D
Thanks for the link to ray tracing and info about its (non)Future!!!
I’m an artist and I have worked in AE and FCP but I just started to explore 3D. I like that I can extrude and work in 3D space with AE, without learning a whole new complicated 3D programme!!

Sincerest thanks. I’d really appreciate it if you could consider some of the questions.
Warmest regards from Dublin
Linda

[Walter Soyka]

[linda quinlan] “I will buy the 16GB. If I get the 16RAM do you recommend that turn on Multiprocessing in Preferences?”

With 16 GB of RAM, you will be able to use multiprocessing for Classic 3D renders. You should be able to use at least two render processes.

Again, though, more RAM may not impact the performance of the ray-tracing renderer much. When you are rendering some extruded 3D text, what does your CPU usage look like in Activity Monitor?

[linda quinlan] “Do you know why I cannot assign or change the CPU value of “Actual CPU’s that will be used” in my preference settings at the moment?”

That value is calculated, not set by the user. Basically, the actual number of CPUs that will be used follows this formula:

(Total system RAM - RAM reserved for or actually used by other applications) / (RAM allocation per background CPU)

OR

(Total CPU cores) - (CPUs reserved for other applications)

whichever is smaller.

Since you have only 4 GB, at least 1.5 of which is reserved for other applications and more of which is probably actually being used, you do not have the 2 GB minimum free to launch even the first background process.

(One note: Ae does not actually control the memory usage of other applications via “RAM reserved for other applications.” Rather, that controls how much RAM Ae will specifically NOT ask for. It’s ultimately up to the OS to allocate RAM.)

[linda quinlan] “If yes, could you be able to recommend something from this link? 265GB or 512GB?”

If you are replacing the internal hard drive in your laptop, you should get the 512 GB or larger. The contents of your current hard drive would not fit on the 256 GB drive, let alone any extra room for the cache.

You may want to clear off some things from your new internal SSD hard drive to make more room for the cache.

[linda quinlan] “I’m an artist and I have worked in AE and FCP but I just started to explore 3D. I like that I can extrude and work in 3D space with AE, without learning a whole new complicated 3D programme!!”

There are other much faster options for extruded 3D in Ae (with different features and limitations than the CS6 ray-tracing renderer), including Video Copilot Element 3D, Mettle Shapeshifter Ae, BorisFX 3D Units, and Zaxwerks Invigorator — but make sure you check you check compatibility with your graphics card.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Linda Quinlan]

Walter thank you once again for such thorough and helpful information.

3D in AE
I do have Video co pilot3d elements. My question is do you know if it is possible to animate the depth of the extrusion? I cannot find how to do this in Video Co Pilot 3D Elements.

I have been making the shape (peace symbol) in Illustrator, then I convert it to a shape layer in AE. And use the Ray trace to animate the extrusion.

PROJECT – 3D in AE
The motivation for this is for another project where i want to animate lips in a way that they appear and push out from behind a cloth. So it’s quite a ghostly effect! Do you have any ideas how I might achieve this in AE.

SSD
I didn’t mean to replace my hard drive with an SSD I understood I could add another SSD to my existing Hardrive (500GB) In the optical bay. Is that a good idea in your opinion? Or use an external SSD?

THANKS SINCERELY

Linda

[Walter Soyka]

[linda quinlan] “My question is do you know if it is possible to animate the depth of the extrusion? I cannot find how to do this in Video Co Pilot 3D Elements. “

Maybe try this:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/1046691

[linda quinlan] “The motivation for this is for another project where i want to animate lips in a way that they appear and push out from behind a cloth. So it’s quite a ghostly effect! Do you have any ideas how I might achieve this in AE. “

Mettle FreeForm Pro is good for this:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/1055986

[linda quinlan] “I didn’t mean to replace my hard drive with an SSD I understood I could add another SSD to my existing Hardrive (500GB) In the optical bay. Is that a good idea in your opinion? Or use an external SSD?”

Oh, that would work. The optical drive might be on a slower internal bus on that machine than the HDD, but it should still be faster than external USB or Firewire.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Linda Quinlan]

Walter thank you kindly for you’re reply. The link to the mettle pro tools is fantastic, it’s a great tutorial and I’m sure I’ll be able to find a way to adapt it to my project needs and incorporate it using cloth. Cheers again