Alex Gerulaitis
Forum Replies Created
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No need to get parts that old. Nearly any new computer with a PCIe slot will work, including current HP models (Z420). Graphics cards: a $100 card like GT-640 will work.
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Thanks Eric. No doubt this is useful to recent converts to CinemaDNG and BMD cameras that shoot raw. For the sake of fairness, it’s been discussed on Cow and Todd Kopriva wrote about it on Adobe blogs over a year ago:
“In the meantime, of course, you can use After Effects to transcode your CinemaDNG footage to something that you can edit with in Premiere Pro.”
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[Nick Montgomery] “I have constantly taken care to optimize program preferences and memory settings, keeping my computer files neat and tidy. So what else could I be missing?”
In general I agree with Eric: CPUs are probably the limiting factor in your configuration yet it’s never a bad idea to try and zero in on the potential bottlenecks.
AE can be especially sensitive to memory-to-core ratio, resolution, memory and CPU utilization, cache settings, codecs, plugins used.
Start rendering, open activity monitor, take a few screenshots a few minutes into it, and then maybe 20 or 30 minutes into it (just in case it’s different). What I want to see is individual CPU core utilization, memory utilization, disk activity. These may vary depending where on the timeline you are and what exactly is happening there, so it’d help to monitor rendering and take notes.
If you work with a good techie (e.g. who sold you the system) who understands AE (Walter Soyka comes to mind), he/she may be able help even more to see if anything in the system can be tweaked to make it faster.
Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Engineer
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA -
[Jan Janowski] “Once I went to “My Adobe” was warned about the change needed, then they sent an email…”
Same here.
(Sent from my phone on a motorcycle at 115Mph on 405.)
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[Bill Dewald] “Yikes. I was hoping it was an elaborate phishing e-mail.”
Unfortunately not. A phishing email wouldn’t have sent you to Adobe.com.
You are one of the 2.9m affected users… 🙁
If you re-used that password elsewhere, and just in case the intruders do manage to decrypt that password (and possibly a credit card if Adobe had one on file for you), change that password on other sites. Just in case.
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Yes, totally makes sense.
Personally, I’d hold off adding more RAM until you get a better hang of where the potential bottlenecks are in the system, after using it for a bit. With light AE use, you may be OK with 16GB for a while.
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[Chad Self] “Other than using the SMART utility in the HPT GUI, how would I test the individual drives?”
Break the RAID set, set it up as JBOD (i.e. no RAID at all) – most controllers support that. This way, all drives will show up individually to the OS.
The other way is to take drives out of the array, connect them individually to onboard SATA or a different system.
Either scenario results in losing whatever was on the array, so tread carefully.
[Chad Self] “might be moving to something like a ProMax ONE”
I keep hearing about it. It’s Windows only, right? What attracts you to One? The CPU power and the ability to have a bunch of drives internally?
[Chad Self] ” I’ve been waiting to see what Apple was planning for the new MP before upgrading”
The new MP leaves three storage connectivity options: Thunderbolt, 10GbE (again, via TB-to-10GbE), and whatever you can put in a TB expansion chassis – which includes a RAID controller. So that investment doesn’t have to be written off, and has advantages over either pure TB or 10GbE: expansion, cost and proven performance.
All that aside, try first a different benchmark, e.g. simply copy a large file from one location on the array to another one (or your boot drive) and time it. If this confirms AJA results, I’d try the other tests I mentioned.
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I think the short answer is “yes” for light to medium duty AE use: you have a decent CPU, decent amount of RAM, possible use of the SSD for GPC (Global Performance Cache). One thing that’s missing is a media volume: what do you plan to use as source files storage – the SSD?
The longer answer depends on how you plan to use After Effects, and your expectations of performance., i.e. the complexity of your compositions, file formats and resolutions, effects and plugins, how long you’re willing to wait for things to render, and how important are smooth previews (which depend on all of the above).
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Have you tried a different benchmark?
Tried testing individual drives and/or this array configured in RAID0?
The usual suspects here are the drives, the controller, and to a lesser extent, the chassis, the OS (and the file system), and the benchmark tool. To zero in on the problem, I’d start by eliminating the first two possible culprits: testing the drives individually and/or in a different RAID level, and I’d certainly try a different controller. There’s a reason G-Tech switched away to ATTO after using Hipoint for years on their G-Speed eS Pro drives.