CS4 performs worse than CS3

[Kevin Camp]

there is something else going on here, there’s no reason why a ram preview will not play from ram in realtime unless there is another factor like a video output card (aja, decklink, etc) that is interferring.

if you have a video output card installed, try turning off previews to it (preferences>video preview, set previews to monitor only).

you might also give resetting the prefs a try. quit ae, then hold shift-option-command while starting ae, click ok when it asks to reset the preferences.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Brian Tario]

[Kevin Camp] “there’s no reason why a ram preview will not play from ram in realtime unless there is another factor like a video output card (aja, decklink, etc) that is interferring.”

I totally agree, that’s exactly why this is so frustrating!

[Kevin Camp] “if you have a video output card installed, try turning off previews to it (preferences>video preview, set previews to monitor only).”

I do, an AJA Kona LHe. It was and remains off in the Video Preview tab of Prefs. That’s set to “Computer Monitor Only”.

[Kevin Camp] “quit ae, then hold shift-option-command while starting ae, click ok when it asks to reset the preferences.”

Done. Then I tried the exact same test setup from scratch without adjusting a single thing in the software from the new default prefs. Same results. This is a completely brand new install of the OS, apps, etc. Built from scratch last week and up to date as of late last week. It sure works great for streaming Internet radio though! Grrr….

Please keep those ideas coming. Anyone from Adobe want to make a comment or suggestion? Thanks, Brian

[Kevin Camp]

i have to ask… you are hitting the zero on the numbers pad to perform a ram preview (vs. hitting spacebar to create preview to disk)…?

if so, then i think you have a legitimate support issue and might want to contact adobe support.

you could try posting on adobe’s ae forum just to see if anyone there can give some input (maybe it’s a known issue, but i’m not having any problems — 2008 2.8ghz macpro, 12gb ram, decklink card).

since you have done a lot of recent updating/installing on this system, you could run the disk utlity (applications>utilities) and perform a permission and disk repair (it seems unlikely to fix this issue though).

you could also run terminal (applications>utilities) and type: sudo periodic daily weekly monthly to force basic disk maintenance, but that seems even less likely to help.

and, lastly, you can run the apple hardware test to make sure that everything is ok with your system. instructions should be preinted on the original osx install disk that came with the system, run the exrtended test to fully test your ram. note: this will take a long time, so only do this if you have a hour to kill.

i guess you might consider pulling the aja card out, just to see if that has any effect. after that, if nothing helps, i would definitely call adobe support.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Brian Tario]

[Kevin Camp] “are hitting the zero on the numbers pad to perform a ram preview”

Oh yeah, but I understand why you’d ask. I’ve been using AE since 4.1 in 2000 and I’ve never had problems like this on the various Macs over the years.

[Kevin Camp] “might want to contact adobe support.”

I opened a ticket with them yesterday and haven’t received a response yet.

[Kevin Camp] “i’m not having any problems — 2008 2.8ghz macpro, 12gb ram, decklink card”

I’m so jealous. You’re running CS4 Prod Prem also? Do you have any of these plugins installed?:
BCC6
Zax Invig Pro
most of the Trapcode plugs
Red Giant Datamator, Text anarchy, Planespace

I’ll try the other maintenance things you suggested but I agree they’re not likely to fix this problem. But who knows, at this point I don’t care if the fix makes sense or not.

[Kevin Camp]

[Brian Tario] “Do you have any of these plugins installed?:
BCC6
Zax Invig Pro
most of the Trapcode plugs
Red Giant Datamator, Text anarchy, Planespace”

just several of the trapcode plugins… doubtful plugins are creating issues, but who knows.

i guess if you are pulling third-party things out of the mix, you could look at third-party quicktime components too. move any files in library/quicktime and users/username/library/quicktime to a new location (on the desktop or someplace outside the library folders). leave the system/library/quicktime folder alone, unless you know you installed some codecs in there (those should only be the standard apple codecs). usually bad quicktime components cause ae to crash at startup, but who knows.

within ae, there are only three settings i can think of that would effect preview rendering… opengl acceleration — always on, multiprocessing and external video preview… maybe there’s a bug with cs4 and the aja drivers, but stumped too.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Todd Kopriva]

Did you install the After Effects CS4 (9.0.2) update?

If not, you should.

The update fixed several errors that impeded performance.

———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Brian Tario]

I’m wondering if it’s related to the fairly new AJA codecs for CS4. Maybe removing those would help. I did speak with AJA support yesterday and their tech was getting similarly poor RAM preview results. Hmmm…

[Brian Tario]

You bet. I wish it were that simple. This box is fully up to date as of late last week – OS, QT, CS4, FCS2, Episode, Sonicfire Pro, etc. Could it be related to the AJA Kona LHe or the new AJA plug-ins for CS4? The AJA tech I spoke to yesterday hadn’t heard of any problems, but maybe I’m the first with this particular config. Any other thoughts? This is truly awful, I’m using my old box with CS3 for billable work while this ridiculously expensive upgrade streams Pandora all day. Help please!

[Adolfo Rozenfeld]

Brian: Your octo-core computer should play back a RAM Preview for 1080 comp at full resolution and full frame rate very easily. And without skipping frames at al. Machines way less powerful can do that.
So there’s something getting in the middle.
As I said in another post, the “video desktop” feaute in some AJA and Decklink cards make the card appear to the system as if it was a display card, and this can cause extremely slow performance. So, check the AJA control panel and see if this could be the case.
I also recommend re-creating the preferences, in case there’s any odd setting preventing you from getting proper real time playback of RAM previews.

To re-create the prefs, quit AE and go to username/library/preferences/Adobe/After Effects/9.0

You want to rename the file called “Adobe After Effects 9.0 Prefs” to something like “Adobe After Effects 9.0 Prefs.old”, for example.

Next time you launch AE, it will create fresh preferences.

Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe

[Brian Tario]

[Adolfo Rozenfeld] “Your octo-core computer should play back a RAM Preview for 1080 comp at full resolution and full frame rate very easily. And without skipping frames at al. Machines way less powerful can do that.
So there’s something getting in the middle.”
Yes, yes and yes. I couldn’t agree more. Really. My original post explains how much worse my performance is on this new system versus my older CS3 system.

[Adolfo Rozenfeld] “the “video desktop” feaute in some AJA and Decklink cards make the card appear to the system as if it was a display card, and this can cause extremely slow performance. So, check the AJA control panel and see if this could be the case.”
I’ve checked the control panel and it’s setup for Beta SP analog I/O. I don’t see anything that could be a video desktop feature. Do you know which tab that function is in? I know when I installed the AJA drivers I specifically used the installer that does not contain the “Desktop Display” feature. (As referred to on their support page.) BTW, this Kona card is the same card that was in the older CS3 box until a couple weeks ago so I know the card works. I’ve had it for almost 3 years.

[Adolfo Rozenfeld] “I also recommend re-creating the preferences,”
Already tried that, no difference.

Anything else to try?