question for mac 8-core users

[Kevin Camp]

the first thing you need to do is enable ae to use those extra cores to render multiple frames simultaneously in the multiprocessing preference. i believe you need a minimum of 512mb of ram per core, adobe recommends 1gb per core and most users will tell you get 2gb per core.

with the 2gb of ram that you have, after enabling multiprocessing, go the the memory and cache settings and try a max ram cache setting around 30% to allow ae to use a few more of your processing cores. also, since you are a little short on ram, i’d suggest not running any other applications while using ae, to avoid limiting the available ram.

next, i would disable opengl for previews all together in the preview preference. opengl is not compatible with multiprocessing in ae, so you will lose the multiprocessing for previews if opengl is enabled.

i would try to shoot to add around 8gb of ram when you get a chance. and you may want to buy 2gb sticks so you will have room to expand, particularly if you want to go hd. fyi, third party vendors, like otherworldcomputing.com, have better prices than apple for ram.

also, as you install ram, you would prefer to install like sized ram in respective slots on each riser… so if you purchased 4x2gb sticks (8gb), your installed slot allocation would be something like this:

riser a – slot 1: 2gb
riser a – slot 2: 2gb
riser a – slot 3: 1gb (orig ram)
riser a – slot 4: 1gb (orig ram)

riser b – slot 1: 2gb
riser b – slot 2: 2gb
riser b – slot 3: empty
riser b – slot 4: empty

this configuration would give you a total of 10gb (8gb new and 2gb original). the first 8gb of ram will benefit from the performance gains of the interleaving between risers a & b, but you’ll still be able to use the original 2gb of ram in new slots. you can squeak out a bit more performance if you were to add 2x1gb sticks to the last 2 slots, but if you think you may upgrade further and add 4x2gb sticks for a total of 16gb, then you’d be throwing away (or ebaying) the 1gb sticks.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Jay Brown]

Thanks for that Kevin

Very appreciated

[Jay Brown]

Hi Kevin

In true Columbo fashion ‘ just one more question’

Having just reading your previous post regarding RAM configurtions and splitting it over the 2 risers if i get the 4G I can afford would you regard the following to be a suitable set-up

riser a – slot 1: 2gb
riser a – slot 2: 1gb (orig ram)
riser a – slot 3: empty
riser a – slot 4: empty

riser b – slot 1: 2gb
riser b – slot 2: 1gb (orig ram)
riser b – slot 3: empty
riser b – slot 4: empty

many thanks

[Kevin Camp]

nope… you’ll have to add the matched pairs together. so i believe the best way to install that configuration would be like this:

riser a – slot 1: 2gb
riser a – slot 2: 2gb

riser b – slot 1: 1gb
riser b – slot 2: 1gb

you won’t lose that much performance benefit from by not utilizing the interleaving between risers a and b. here is some good info and benchmarks for various ram configs, if you’d like more info, ‘columbo’ 🙂

now, i have to admit i’m having trouble figuring out if, since you can’t benefit from the interleaving of the separate risers, can you just add all the ram to riser a…? it may not matter, but i can’t seem to find anything definitive.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Jay Brown]

Thanks again

Great link

With what you suggested I tried rendering a small particular heavy file b4 and after style. With the mutlicore enabled and ram cache dropped the render time dropped from 59sec to 34sec.

Impressive drop even on only 2G Ram

[Kevin Camp]

cool…

if you want to continue ‘optimizing’ you ram and mulitprocessing to suit your typical projects, in the multiprocessing preference, ae states how many ‘additional processors’ will be used based on you current ram cache configuration.

so, you can make tweaks to the ram cache settings, check out the multiprocessing effect, then choose edit>purge>all and do a render of a typical comp to test any benefit of the new settings.

you may not see too many problems with limited ram if you work in sd, don’t use a lot of time based effects (echo, cc widetime, cc force motion blur….) or ae’s 3d too much….

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW