Cache question

[Mathias Duch]

that really depends on how you use cache.

if you need the 500 gb, for big stored projects.. i’d say the HD.

but if you flush it often, then the SSD.

[Mike Mackenzie]

I’m not sure I can answer that, as I don’t know what flushing means. If it’s a conscious act, I do not do it.

[Mathias Duch]

i am asuming, that you are talking about the allocated disk cache.

Some people who makes projects with huge settings( 100 3D layers offset in z space.. ect.) are very sensetive about deleting cache, as it’s a lot of wasted work time re rendering, the entire scene.

Though if you are like me, who only makes 10-20 sec tv adverts, and dont really do any major projects.
I.e Re rendering your scene wont be too big of a deal.

you want the fastest drive you can get.

you “flush” (delete the all the cache files) by going to the “Media & disk cache” menu in prefrences.
And then clicking “empty disk cache”
hope it helps 🙂

[Mike Mackenzie]

I do all kinds of work, from the very simple to ones with hundreds of 3d layers. What is the purpose of flushing the cache? I thought a full cache was good, that it helped with ram previewing.

Motion Graphics Designer / Art Director
Boston, MA

System:
Mountain Lion on SSD
2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800
18 GB RAM

[Mathias Duch]

that is exactly what it does.. but cache from a job you did 2 years ago dosen’t help you much now, but take sapce… right?

[Mike Mackenzie]

I had always assumed it was self-purging, that is once it needed space it purged the oldest stuff. I am the opposite of an expert on this though, so I’m sure you are right. Seems like this would be good memory management though…if my Tivo is smart enough to delete old unwanted stuff to make space for new stuff, surely AE could pull that off too.
Anyway, thanks for your advice, it’s been very helpful!

[Walter Soyka]

[Mike MacKenzie] “I had always assumed it was self-purging, that is once it needed space it purged the oldest stuff.”

Yes, Ae automatically prunes its cache.

For me, the question here is which is better for the cache, speed or space?

In my experience, even though the larger amount of space sounds nice, I think the cache is best served by fast disks. The cache uses lots and lots of relatively little files, and these read and write requests can easily saturate a single spindle. The SSD doesn’t suffer the same latency as the HDD does on these requests, so the cache can be more effective.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

I agree with Walter.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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