performance questions

[Kevin Camp]

[homers] ” I sometimes get the error “After EFfects error:RAM Preview needs 2 or more frames to playback”?”

if the playback cursor in the timeline is at the end of your comp, and you time controls setting is set to play ‘from current time’ you will always get that message… either change time position in the timeline or uncheck the ‘from current time’ option in the time controls window…

[homers] “when i press RAM preview it says that multiprocessing is off even though I have a dual core processor.”

if you have opengl enabled for previews, it will disable multiprocessing for previews (you can’t use both, they aren’t compatible). set opengl to interactions, or just turn it of all together, and use adaptive resolution. i’ve found that multiprocessing is almost always faster than opengl for previews (i have a 4-core macpro with radeon x1900xt).

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Sam Rose]

Hi
With Leopard it says that OpenGL is not compatible when I try to enable it so It is disabled. Any other ideas why multiprocessing is disabled?

[Kevin Camp]

are you running the latest ae (mine says 8.0.1.8, although i had only installed the 8.0.1 update a few months ago)…

also, when you go to the multiprocessing preference, how many ‘additional processors’ does it say it ae will use for multiprocessing?

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Sam Rose]

Hi
Adobe Updater said it was installing updates today but then I had a power cut. I will install the updates now.

It says 0 additional processors

[Kevin Camp]

after installing the update, try setting the max ram cache to around 30% (or enough to give you 1gb of ram).

this max cache size is how much each processor can use, since you have 2gb of ram, limiting the cache size to 1gb (or a little less) should allow both processors to be used for rendering…. if you start getting image buffer errors, you can decrease the max ram cache size a little and enable disk cache.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

one other thing… the 8.0.1 update will enable opengl acceleration on mac. but as i mentioned before, in my experience multiprocessing is faster for previews, so you may still want to keep it disabled…. of course, you can see what works best for you.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Brendan Coots]

Generally speaking you want around 2GB RAM per CPU core for AE to really shine in the multiprocessing department. With a quad-cpu machine 8GB is ideal. I know it’s expensive, but Other World Computing sells Apple certified RAM (OWC Branded) for half or less what Apple charges.

Also, the memory settings tweaks mentioned above will help you get multiprocessing out of AE with only 2GB RAM, but According to Adobe this method can lead to “undesirable” results whatever that might mean…

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com