Need help with AE memory problem

[Jimmy Brunger]

AE natively will only use 2GB – as it is a 32bit app. You can switch something in the registry called the “3GB switch” to force it to use 3. Do a search on here for that and you’ll find how to do it. I think there might be something on the microsoft site about it too, but they don’t recommend it (to cover their @sses..)

Speed of preview/rendering I think is more to do with your processor/s and your GFX card (if using OpenGL to render) than RAM. From what I understand RAM only enables you to preview more of your project/have more info open at a time. Exactly what effect RAM has on speed when rendering I don’t know. Anyone?

I guess it can’t hurt to have more rather than less!

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Steve Forde]

[jimmybee500] “Exactly what effect RAM has on speed when rendering I don’t know. Anyone?”

RAM has a huge impact on rendering speed. When AE renders, it cache’s individual layers to RAM. It also creates an overall render buffer to more or less “save that for later” when each frame is rendered.

What this means is, the more information that AE can store and use again, the less it has to re-render things it may have already rendered before. It does all of this in RAM.

Therefore – the more RAM the merrier. Keep in mind the caveats (there are multiple posts on RAM usage in the common questions area) when on Win XP 32bit. Also keep in mind that AE will not use more RAM than it can see (again see the sticky posts).

Since “seeing RAM” is not an issue with our product Nucleo / Nucleo Pro – we benchmarked a Win 64 bit system with 4GB RAM doing a render at 13 minutes. That same project / same machine using Nucleo Pro with 8GB of RAM took 9 minutes. The only difference was “more RAM”.

Steve
GridIron Software Inc.

[James Williams]

Thanks guys for the informative reponses. I did find the detailed answer on this site after i posted. I have another question now. Since my system is 32bit and i’ll have to through away 2 512 sticks of ram and replace with 2 1 gig sticks to get to 4 gigs…is it worth it. AE only uses 2 gigs where will my return come from.
Also give me a heads up on a good graphics card that would meet AE’s minimum standard for true opengl. I need to speed up the previewing.
I’m seriously thinking bout purchasing a Mac.
Thanks
J. Williams

[Jimmy Brunger]

Ahhh…sorry Steve – of course! So does more RAM speed up RAM previews in the same way then? I was told not so long ago that previews was all Proc/GFX card intensive as far as speed is concerned and more RAM just equalled more frames to cache?

James – with regards to extra RAM neccessity – if you use other apps at the same time as AE then the extra RAM will come in handy there, as the 2GB limit only applys to each individual app. EG: if you have AE working it’s tail off using the full 2GB, then Photoshop for instance will have access to the other 2GB on your system, after the OS has taken it’s chunk.

I guess with the 3GB switch for AE you need to make a judgement based on the facts there are out there. I think quite a few people use it to no detriment, but there are some horror stories.

I am thinking of maxing out my RAM to 4GB, mainly cos Im jumping around apps so much it’d be good to have more open at once and giving AE a full 2GB (or 3) would help too. If it speeds up previews aswell then bring it!

Graphics cards – there should be a list on Adobe’s site, but I’ve got quite an old card and AE works ok with that. Guess it depends on your Open GL requirements.

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Steve Roberts]

[Steve Forde] “When AE renders, it cache’s individual layers to RAM. It also creates an overall render buffer to more or less “save that for later” when each frame is rendered.”

Thanks for the correction Steve, I was one of those guys who said that RAM doesn’t affect rendering speed. 🙂

So how does this caching work in the context of the masks/effects/transform/modes render order? At what render stage is each layer cached?

[Steve Forde]

[Steve Roberts] “So how does this caching work in the context of the masks/effects/transform/modes render order? At what render stage is each layer cached?”

Unfortunately – it all depends. Plugins, layers etc all have impact. As an example, the cycore effects make heavy use of layer cache’s for its effects. Many of the temporally dependent effects out there do as well – meaning that if you were to say purge every frame (i.e. using the secret prefs), you wind up re-rendering alot of stuff that in terms of the algorithm of the effect, does not need to be re-rendered. This can have huge impact on render times.

This also shows that AE renders layer by layer by frame, starting at the bottom working its way up. AE’s caching is opportunistic, meaning that values are stored for each layer and frame, and based on certain criteria, AE decides whether to cache or not. I believe the decision is at the end of the render for each layer, then subsequently for each frame that these decisions within AE are made. (but don’t quote me)

CPU and Disk are also really important, and in many cases more important. I think the moral of the story for AE users is – CPU, Disk and RAM must all be working in harmony for AE to perform. Each factor has the opportunity to either really streamline, or completely bottleneck AE from a performance perspective, in pretty much every aspect of its operation. (Rendering, Previewing, using the UI, etc)

Hope that makes sense…

Steve
GridIron Software Inc.

[Steve Forde]

[jimmybee500] “So does more RAM speed up RAM previews in the same way then? I was told not so long ago that previews was all Proc/GFX card intensive as far as speed is concerned and more RAM just equalled more frames to cache?”

Obviously things are stored in your RAM cache for previews, and that the more RAM, the longer the preview. While AE is building that frame cache (the green line) per frame, it is also building layer caches as well. This allows for potentially speedier rendering of subsequent frames if there is not much change on a per layer basis – frame by frame.

Therefore – CPU is really important, GFX card important only if using OpenGL for previews or renders, HDD speed is really important as it throttles how quickly AE can read source assets (important for both previews and renders) and write files to disk, and RAM impacts how easily AE can re-use cache when rendering previews and renders, as well as the length of previews. All 3 (plus GFX if you really like OpenGL) must be singing in tune for AE to work at its optimum.

Hope this makes sense…

Steve
GridIron Software Inc.

[Steve Roberts]

Thanks, Steve – it made sense, especially about the temporally-dependent effects. I’ll avoid purging often when they’re on the menu.

Steve2

[Jimmy Brunger]

Thanks Steve1 & Steve2! Really useful info there.

Now…where was that convincing arguement for my boss to buy me a super speedy dream machine…. 😉

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
————————————-
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation