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AE use of RAM
Several weeks ago I posted a question regarding the “Ultimate AE workstation” and got such a mixed response I still do not have an answer to the question. The primary issue of confusion is AE’s use of RAM. I spoke with Adobe yesterday and was told that AE is a 32bit program and cannot use more than 3.2GB of RAM no matter how many processors you have even on a 64bit machine.
Can a truly knowledgable AE/hardware expert shed more light on this issue?
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5 Replies
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Hi Ross,
The answer is yes and no. AE is a 32-bit program, and thus limited to 3GB of RAM — sort of. The limitation is per process, so on a 64-bit OS like Mac OS X or Windows XP/Vista 64-bit editions, AE can launch multiple processes to speed up rendering.
While you’ll be limited to 3GB during your designing (the UI runs in one process only), you’ll notice a big speed increase in rendering with a multi-core system and a lot of RAM. For example, an 8-core Mac Pro can launch 8 individual render processes, running one on each core, but to maximize your speed, you’ll still want 2-3 GB per process, or 16-24 GB total system RAM.
Walter Soyka
Keen Live, Inc.
Digital Media Design & Technology -
Thank you very much for your reply. Does this apply to a Windows XP Pro, 64 bit machine as well? Is there any advantage to using Vista Ultimate Pro? Do you have any idea when AE will become a 64 bit program?
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As long as it’s Windows XP Pro 64-bit Edition, yes, it works the same way. Sorry, but I’m not sure about any differences between XP 64-bit and Vista 64-bit.
After Effects CS4 was just released, and it’s 32-bit, so I’d imagine it’ll be quite a while before Adobe releases a 64-bit edition.
If you’re interested in increasing your working speed, you should check out Nucleo Pro from Gridiron Software. It runs the After Effects renderer in the background while you work, and it’s got some time-saving features like spec RAM preview and spec render, commit to disk, and background rendering.
Walter Soyka
Keen Live, Inc.
Digital Media Design & Technology -
I hear that CS4, AE on Vista64 is capable of using 6GB of RAM for Creation/Preview. Is anyone familiar with Vista64 with AE, or Vista Ultimate?
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cs3 will use all the cores that it can for previews if you have opengl disabled for previews, i assume cs4 is the same way.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
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