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All Rammed up with no place to go…
Ok so I have a great mac system at home ( I think ) but I have a few issues and questions. First, I have a Mac G5 2.3 GHz duel core PowerPC with 7 gigs of ramm (I can max it out at 8) Its a 32 bit system OSX 10. When I am using AE I cant use all 7 gigs to preview my work. I dont have Open GL nor do I know how much of a difference that would make. How can I get my Ramm working in AE. It only reads 3.9 gigs not the full 7. Am I doing something wrong? PLEASE HELP!
Brett
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2 Replies
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[Brett Triantafillou] “Am I doing something wrong?”
nope, despite having a 64-bit os, ae is still only a 32-bit app and can only address 3gb of ram on the mac os (for the foreground process). this is normal.
the actual ram that is available for the preview is defined in the memory and cache preference. the default is 60%, meaning that you only have 60% of 3gb for the preview, so 1.8gb…
now, before you go and up that value to 100%, you should know that it is not a good idea to exceed the 60%. ae needs that other 40% for rendering processes and image buffering. if it does not have enough for rendering, it will cause stability and performance issues… it is ok to reduce the value to try and gain some render performance.
if you have cs3 (you didn’t mention the version of ae), you can utilize that extra ram by enabling multiprocessing. this will let ae launch a render process for each available core that you have. each extra process can access up to 3.5gb of ram. so with cs3 and 2 cores, you’ll be able to utilize your 7gb.
even without cs3 or multiprocessing, having more ram will allow you to have other applications open without cramping ae’s rendering. even with a single process ae will try and grab as much ram as it can (up to the 3gb limit). this can often cause problems for other applications as they can get shorted on ram. so if you like to have your web browser, itunes and photoshop open while you are working in ae, having extra ram available will keep things running smooth.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Sweet thanks! I do have CS3 I forgot to mention that. Ok I will take a look at my settings and see about what you have mentioned. Thanks!
Cheers!
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