AE8 on MacPro

[Darby Edelen]

It runs supah-fast on my Mac Pro. The downside is that most of the 3rd party plugs that I’m accustomed to using aren’t universal binaries, so in order to have access to these I have to run CS3 under emulation anyway. I’ve done tests without Rosetta emulation though, and it runs beautifully.

One thing to note is that when you enable multiple core processing in CS3, each instance of CS3 expects to get at least 512MB of RAM. So you need to make sure you have enough RAM to feed the beast on each instance you’re going to run.

If you have your memory prefs in AE CS3 set to use 60% of 2GB of RAM then each instance is going to try to use 1.2GB of RAM and cause problems. If you want CS3 to use 2 cores (you can choose how many instances to create in preferences) you’d want to set it so that each instance gets about 1GB of RAM (maybe a little less to be safe) so set your RAM prefs to use “45%” (in reality each core will use 45% of the total meaning 90% of your total RAM). At least, that’s my understanding of the current multi-core setup with CS3.

Also, the multi-core benefit is only seen with RAM Previews and Renders (which is when it really counts anyway).

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

You can expect most third party plug-ins to be ready when CS3 ships, or very soon after that.

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

[Wvladik]

Where in preferences can you choose how many instances get to run ? I ask because my Mac Pro is really having trouble with AE8 due to having inefficient amount of RAM compared to cores.

I’ve gotten Mac Pro 8 core, and soon realized that i cant afford more than extra 4 GB for time being(for total of 5GB). When i enable multiprocessor in preferences it says it’s going to use 6 instances of AE to render stuff and i get horrible performace as a result. I’d like to limit it to 4 cores.

Thanks

PS> I can attest 1st hand, dont even attempt to run Octo core with anything under 8GB of RAM.

[Stefan Kroesbacher]

Hi all,

for anyone interested in benchmarks of the cs3 beta
running on quad- or 8-core version of the macpro
should take a look at:

http://www.barefeats.com

they posted nightflight test results running the 8core cs3, 4core cs3,
and 4core AE7….

be amazed!!!!!

regards

stefan

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

Be even more amazed now that they updated the results after enabling “Render Multiple Frames Simulataneosly”!
The results they first posted were without even turning it on in preferences…
And you know what’s even better? You can expect general performance to be even better in the final release.

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

[Accountclosedduetonorealnameused]

thanks, very helpful!

and a Q:
Does just having the plugins loaded make AE run under emulation?
Or is it only when you actually USE a plugin on a layer?

Is there anyway to tell if AE is cunrrently running under emulation, rather than native?

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

If you don’t do anything, it will run run native.
When you ask for it to run under Rosetta (via the Finder’s get info window), everything will run under emulation. Not just the PPC plug-ins.
Fortunately, as i said before, I would expect most of the third party plug-ins (and of course, all of the bunlded ones) to be ready when CS3 ships. Very soon. Many developers showed Intel ready plug-ins at NAB, for example.

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