whats better for AE

[Amir Abed]

I understand that the imac isn’t the ideal choice but I’m not trying to build the ultimate AE computer. I just need something that will be fast enough for me not to get so frustrated at how slow its going that I give up trying to learn. What would you suggest? And any opinion on the 2 imacs?

[Walter Soyka]

[Dave LaRonde] “The one single thing that can speed up After Effects is to give the application enough RAM to work efficiently. Can you do that on those iMacs? If not, then you will indeed be frustrated”

I agree about the importance of RAM. The graphics card will have no impact on AE at all, so you can skip the ATI card and get 8GB of RAM instead.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Amir Abed]

Thanks guys I didn’t know the graphics card played such a little role with AE…I’ll put the extra money into ram

[Todd Kopriva]

I’m not adding anything other than a “yeah, what he said” to the statement that you should spend money on more RAM and fast local disk drives before you spend money on a better graphics card.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Ngo Truong an]

hello,

i want to ask you.
is the graphic card important for the preview ?
because i´m thinking about buying a new graphic card ( ati hd4890 )
to accelerate ae´s preview function.
or is the graphic card for the preview not important too.

[Ngo Truong an]

hello dave,

thank you for the information.
i always thought that the graphic card is important for the preview.
but now i know why it is called ” ram preview ” 😉