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Premiere Pro project size
Hi, Folks,
We have been using Premiere CS3 since its release on Windows XP, and I’m wondering if anyone out there has the same problems we’ve been having with project size.
We have several projects with perhaps 75-100 clips, lots of audio tracks and a fair amount of effects. The problem I have is that after awhile I can barely open these projects. When I open the Performance tab of Windows Task Manager, I see memory allocation in the PF Usage graph climb – and climb – towards 3GB, whereupon as often as not Premiere simply quits, or throws the dreaded “Premiere Pro encountered an error and has to close.”
This is more likely to happen with a so-called “boomerang” project, one that keeps coming back no matter how hard we heave it out the door.
Anyone else out there having similar issues? The system in question is a dual 3.73 GHZ OneBeyond machine with 3GB of RAM, and extended addressing enabled.
We have noted that Vista will handle about as much RAM as one can afford, but the thought of converting over to Vista just isn’t do-able right now, for all sorts of reasons.
Thanks!
Mike Chapman
Senior Editor, DigiNovations, Inc.
http://www.diginovations.com -
7 Replies
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I’ve been working on a pretty big DVCPro HD 720P project, about 75 clips (and your usual archive B roll, and pictures), and a Dual Core2quad, with 4 Gigs of ram on Vista as been a smooth ride. We are also using a Raid 5 with 3 drives configuration for media, and Raid 1, with 2 drives for the OS. This is Vista Ultimate BTW. Vista is using about 500 Megs of Ram with all the eye candy turned off, but I rarely get close to 3 Gigs of Ram in use, unless of course AE or Photoshop are open.
Vince
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Have you got all your resources (assets) on the one drive? How much of the project you have rendered? Try dumping that.
Seq> Delete render files.
I found that asking my system to remove unused clips once I’d got the cut really up and going unstable edits (larger one’s) would start running fine after that.
– Jon -
Picking up on Jon’s “How much of the project you have rendered?”
This issue seems to have surfaced for me as well just now. The two windows of simultaneous video in one frame is continuous for 2 clips just under 60 minutes each, and the “sluggishness” and delay, if I may call it that, only started after I rendered the entire hour – alas, very long – up to 5 plus hours. Previously, I had just rendered only the first 5 minutes while I constructed the Opening Titles. No sluggishness then.
I can dump the rendering files (which are on the same drive as the assets) and will do. Waiting to do a final render, after all the bits and pieces are in place. But I wonder: could you put the render files on another drive to avoid the delay?
The other thing I notice (in dixdiag) is that only half the available page file of 1640MB is in use (on the main programme drive). (CPU 2.8G with 1024MG RAM)
Cheers,
Bill in Toronto -
You can set the render files AKA: Video/Audio Previews to another place in the Preferences Setting “Scratch Disks”
That might help.
– Jon 🙂 -
I read that in the help section, but I wasn’t so sure if putting it on another external drive would speed it up I were to render bit-by-bit, rather than a long run. The help section cautions against putting it on an external drive. In this case I running the entire project on one external drive via USB2. What do you think about putting the render files on still another external drive? Hhmm. that might cause complications, I suppose if Windows decides to rename the drives in a different order.
Bill in Toronto
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Big Projects are not recommended on EXT harddrives, and usb(1 or 2) are not really better than FW Drives in speeds. I find FW better, but big projects should really be on a RAID 0 Internal Harddrive Array.
I would maybe put the render files on the internal drive before using another ext.
– Jon
(PS: Defragging a drive might help. Make sure there is plenty of space on your C drive too, memory will like it if you have more than 10% free space). -
This is good advice!! My HDV project would crash every ten minutes from a ‘system error’ and I could only render once each session (at the very beginning). So I deleted all my render files (which were stored on the external drive, along w/ project files, USB2.0 connection), and switched the render files location to the internal C drive, where Premiere program files are located. I haven’t had a crash since, and rendering works perfectly!
Thought I’d share, since it was soo frustrating till the switch.
Ram
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