My MacBook Pro render time same as Quad Core

[David Franklin]

This does not surprise me at all.

I have participated in previous threads with other MacPro users with machines like yours (and mine) that are excruciatingly slow given how much processing power they have.

Go figure, indeed…

Here are links to two previous discussions:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_thread.cgi?forumid=2&postid=912045&univpostid=911927

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/913534?univpostid=913328&pview=t

I’ve been too busy to set up the benchmarking that was discussed in one of these, but would be happy to participate if someone else gets to it before me.

[Craig Wall]

Yes, I remember that thread.

I’m not having so many problems with a lag–but with just very slow renders. The comp in question is only 11 seconds long–yet with motion blur it is taking approximately 90 minutes to render…on either Mac. I can’t say exactly but the render times are pretty close.

I have got to think that something in the pipeline is NOT multiprocessor aware.

[Kevin Camp]

that is interesting… do you have render multiple frames simultaniously enabled in the multiprocessing preference on the macpro? iwth 9gb of ram you should have no problems rendering with all 4 cores.

it is possible that zax is interfering… essentially being a separate piece of software running within ae, its hard to tell how it might effect ae’s new multiprocessing render engine.

Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

hear is a link to a barefeats article comparing the new mbp to other macs… the second or third graph shows the mbp compared to a 4-core macpro on a ae benchmark test… the macpro is nearly 2.5 times faster in that benchmark.

Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[David Franklin]

I tried the “free download” version of Nucleo Pro, but didn’t see any time improvement over my native AE renders. And I’ve been using Activity Monitor to watch what’s going on on all 4 cores, and except for the lag time that I discussed previously, they’re definitely all four getting used.

Maybe I’m just expecting too much? I do have bunches of layers, with complicated things like bezier warps, keylight, etc. going on. Maybe it just takes a while.

And while I believe that the benchmark test mentioned in the previous post is true, I’d love to have other people’s opinions about how this is working for them.

I’m not at my Mac right now, but anyone who wants to try benchmarking a common project can email me at artisanaltelevision (at) gmail (dot) com. I’ll send you a small project (with media) for a 7 second long shot that I remember taking a while to render. I was going to use Pando.com for the actual distribution as it can handle LARGE files. If anyone has a better idea, let me know.

Not sure if it’s kosher to give out an email address this way, but I don’t know how else we might exchange a file of this size.

Thoughts? Anybody else want to get in on this? Let me know…

[Kevin Camp]

if you want to test your machines against the ae benchmark used by barefeats.com, you can download the total benchmark project files that brian maffitt developed a few years ago.

but like you had mentioned, there may be an effect that you’re using in you project that is not multiprocessor friendly.

Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[David Franklin]

Thanks moldyboot for this link. It saves me having to upload stuff of my own.

SO…

I downloaded the file “TotalBenchmark_AE6” and opened it in CS3. It told me that the “Standard 3-D” plug in was not found. But the project opened fine and the comp called “Then Click the Render Button” looked normal. Or as normal as a comp made by someone else that I’ve never seen before can look.

I opened the render cue and directed paths for the two files in it, then hit render.

(I actually did all this twice. Once without Multiprocessing engaged, then a second time with it turned on.)

The results were interesting:

The 119 PSD frames, and 5 second long MOV file took a total of 8:27 without multiprocessing, and a total of 5:25 with multiprocessing. That’s 8 min., 27 seconds, vs. 5 minutes, 25 seconds. Not a huge bump in speed, but appreciable.

As for my settings, I have added 2GB of RAM to my system in the past week, so I’m now running a Dual Core Intel 2.66 GHz Mac Pro with 6GB of RAM. I set the Memory to the default 120% of 3GB, and the RAM Cache to 50% which = 1.5GB. I have the disk cache turned on and set to the default of 2000 MB — otherwise known as 2GB?

I left the settings the same for Multiprocessing (which works out for my machine because then the four processors are splitting 6GB four ways).

Anyway, long story short, I didn’t see a huge lag time when the multiprocessing render kicked in. I think this may be because I finally have enough RAM to make it meaningful.

But whatever the case, I’d love to hear what other COW users who have similar machines find from downloading the file and running the test. The whole thing took me about half an hour, so hopefullly it’s worth your time.

[Kevin Camp]

i have a 4-core macpro at work and just got ae8 (cs3) last week. if i have time i’ll try the totalbenchamrk test next week. i’m a little more ram challenged with only 4gb, i’m planning on hounding my boss for more when she gets back from vacation…

purely for the sake of speed, you might try disabling the disk cache.. ram’s much faster than even sata ii drives, so if the render is hitting the ram limit that may slow down multiprocessing. you may also need to decrease the default memory to around 2gb or maybe even 1.5gb to allow all the cores to have enough ram. likewise, i think you would also need to reduce the ram cache to half the memory setting, around 1gb or 750mb.

just a thought, it may not make any difference… i’ll try to do some experimenting next week.

[Wvladik]

artisanal television -> did you use Animation , Quicktime .mov as a export on your test ? I’m benching my 8core 8gb ram right now… will do the same with my 15″ macbook pro newest santa rosa 2×2.4ghz , 4gb ram and report later today.

take care.

[Wvladik]

Sorry about stupid questions in my post. I re-read your post and it all makes sense now 🙂

My Map pro secs : 3.0Ghz x 8 ,8Gb RAM, and source and destination HDD was same boot drive (raptor 150gb). Everything in AE8 was set to default except Multiprocessing check box enabled and cache drive is set to another raptor HDD.

My time was 3min 40 sec.

I Noticed i ran out of memory half way through and was using drive as a cache. I’m guessing it’d be little faster if i had more RAM.

My MacBook Pro specs : 2.4Ghz x 2 ,4Gb RAM, and source and destination HDD was same boot drive as well ( 160GB 7200rpm drive ) Again everything was set to default in AE8 except Multiprocessing was enabled and cache drive was enabled as well but this time on same boot drive.

Time in this thing was 11min 4 sec.

Now question is …. is Mac Pro THAT good or does MacBook Pro suck that bad ?!