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Windows on a Mac and After Effects CS3
Hi All,
My company just recently purchased a Mac Pro with Dual Quad-Core 3 gz Xeons and 16 bg ram. We’ve also purchased the new CS3 Master Collection, unfortunately for the PC.
We’ve installed windows XP with mostly positive resaults, multicores are recognized, the old Open GL issue is also not a problem; however it does not recognize more then 2gb or 64 bit (being XP is only 32bit), more importantly 14 gb of ram are just acting as an internal paper weight.I want to use After Effects to its full potential in windows and have read some attempts with Vista 64bit but nothing concrete enough to make the purchase. Any recommendations?
Thanks,
JasonP.S. OSX is great too! But we licenced the software long before we purchased the Mac and they wouldn’t let us get a multiplatform licence without some serious $$. Besides windows has some advantages over OSX too (ie. Battlefield, but don’t tell my boss that ;o) )
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2 Replies
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That xtra 14 GB or RAM is wasted on XP but not on After Effects if you get Nucleo Pro. It will speed rendering, RAM previews etc.
Your other options are Vista 🙁
OR
XP 64 bit which I’ve no experience with but understand is flakey.
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That extra RAM is not going to help much with most common apps since they can only use the amount of RAM XP can see. But After Effects definitely will consume most of it if you set it up properly. AE CS3 has a multiprocessor option (in your preferences) that must be turned on manually. When you select “Render Multiple Frames” it will use as many CPUs as possible to render both previews and final output. The number of CPU cores it will use is dependent on how much RAM you have – it is recommended to have 1-2GB RAM (depending on who you ask) per CPU core or they simply will not be used in MP. Obviously you have that covered, you just need to set it up!
This is all a separate issue from XP’s ability to address more than 2GB RAM, since the multiprocessing option silently launches multiple instances of AE in the background, each using up to that 2GB limit regardless of what Windowz “sees.”
Also, I should mention that you don’t necessarily need a cross-platform license unless you really want to use it in both platforms. You can call Adobe and get a cross-grade, turning your Windows license into a mac one. It’s easy and you only pay like $10 for them to ship a new package out.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com
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