rendering time

[Steve Roberts]

Ah — of course.

[Rdub]

If my system is taking up to 20 times longer to render a standard benchmark file than I would think I need to check some system settings, not simplify the files others are testing with.

[Steve Roberts]

Yep, it’s your system. Did you try Benchmark comp #1? It’s more processor-intensive, less disk-intensive.

Anyway, what did the render details show?
What does Task Manager show? Processor at the max? RAM overloaded so using the disk for memory?
Can you hear your hard drive thrashing about?

Steve

[Rdub]

I’m defragging my drives now. Will render again when finished. Comp 1 took about 8 minutes.

[Rdub]

I’m rendering to a different drive than AE is on. Make any difference?

[Steve Roberts]

Assuming AE is on your system drive (which is preferable, IMO), you should always have your sources on another drive. I suppose rendering to a third internal drive would speed things up even more, but I’ve never tested that hypothesis.

I think the benchmark comp 2 winner is fastest because of the RAID. (array of disks)

Also, search the COW for “secret” or “schecret”, to find the secret prefs that can allow you to purge RAM during a render.

Steve

[Michael Duff]

if I get a crazy long render it is normally because I applied a flare or similar effect to a huge solid by accident. Or, using a flare, starglow, shine, whatever, if I blow it right out and am using that as a background to continue into the next shot I exprot a still frame and re-import it. Otherwise the system is calculating a really intesive effect over and over and over again. Or maybe, if you have zoomed right into one of the 3D layers it might be struggling to calculate the whole thing every frame.

Try switching off or on suspect layers. If you find the bad one, then maybe do something to simplify that layer (ie, exporting a still or something)

[Matt Stoltz]

I think the guys pretty much summed it up –one thing that will help –like steve said is too keep all of your files that youare using in that project on the same drive –AE slows down when it has to pull files from numerous locations- plus it does have a lot to do with the effects – most of the time AE is working on that one effect and once it gets past that effect it will speed up or slow down –so i would say dont always go buy the time its giving you on the render que –cause that could speed up or slow down quite a bit

restart your machine befour u render as well –this will help clear out the cache memory-so that may help as well

dont have other programs running in the background either while AE is working –that might help

thats about all i can think of

matt

[Jerry Witt]

[duffbeer911] “f I get a crazy long render it is normally because I applied a flare or similar effect to a huge solid by accident. Or, using a flare, starglow, shine, whatever, if I blow it right out and am using that as a background to continue into the next shot I exprot a still frame and re-import it.”

You don’t really need to do this. If you have a layer with a complicated animated effect, use the “Toggle Hold Frame” option on the last keyframe. AE is smart enough to know that nothing is changing any longer and will hold that image in memory during a render. This gives you the added advantage of being able to change the value of the keyframe later. It’s a huge timesaver over exporting and importing the still.

[Rdub]

I’ve made some settings changes and defragged my drive. I’ve rendering the benchmark again and I see I seem to be stuck on fast blur. Program not responding. Hasn’t moved in about 30 minutes.