[Craig Wall]

No the CPU doesn’t make a difference in how attractive the render is. It’s the software settings and the craft that make something more attractive.

There is either something else missing in the equation when you render…maybe some post color grading…

Alternatively…perhaps you are comparing the quality of the image based on different monitors? For instance, did you look at his work on a beautiful new LED monitor, and compare it to your work that you are viewing on an older, drabber monitor?

Life is full of funny particles.

[Craig Wall]

Jonathan…You have been smart enough to take the necessary steps to get your work done, and not bogged down with endless experimentation.

I’m usually too stubborn for that!

Life is full of funny particles.

[Craig Wall]

Jonathan…that’s a very stiff sacrifice you are making, I’d sure think, in render time.

Hopefully there’s a happy middle ground.

Life is full of funny particles.

[Craig Wall]

Background rendering in c4d, Darby? …while simultaneously using AE? The RAM decorum police are going to hunt you down!

LOL…I did the same thing with Vue a couple of years ago when I was grinding. I’m spoiled now: I have an 8 core Mac in the back room just for rendering.

(I’m also a c4d guy here)

Life is full of funny particles.

[Craig Wall]

I thought I’d post a follow-up in case others are struggling and looking for solutions.

I have 24 GIGs of RAM and am currently only working at 640×360 web resolution. So I figured that 1 gig per CPU and 4 GIGS for other apps was plenty.

Perhaps I was wrong in my assumptions!

I’ve found that my system has run much better (so far) by doing the following:
-Only using 8 of my 16 threads/CPUs (2009 Mac Pro with 8 core/16 threads)
-Setting an allocation of 2 GB per CPU
-Leaving 5 Gigs of RAM for other application

I have an additional 8 GIGS on order–bringing me up to 32. Hopefully I can use at least 12 of my 16 threads and stay rock solid.

I also am hopeful that Adobe will continue to improve their 64 bit architecture…providing better stability and also permitting a more reasonable RAM allocation per CPU. With the proliferation of multiprocessors (24 threads now…more in the next MacPro) it will be increasingly unreasonable to allocate so much RAM for each thread.

It wasn’t but a few years ago when the program only had 2GB available for everything, so I can’t understand the need for 2-3 GB per CPU for rendering.

Life is full of funny particles.

[Craig Wall]

Yes, Kevin. Yesterday I performed the ‘ole trash prefs step. No benefit. I did see some improvement when I released half of my cores for other apps…and raised the allocation per cpu.

Dave…as I indicated in a post above…yes I reduced the cpu/thread usage from 16 to 8…and as I was just saying…that did seem to help

Too early to say how much things have improved.

I really REALLY appreciate all your suggestions very much!

Life is full of funny particles.

[Craig Wall]

Thanks guys…Yes I installed the 10.0.1 patch right when it came out, so we can rule that out.

I had a better day yesterday when I changed my configuration to only use half of my cores/threads and increased the allocation to 2 Gigs per “CPU”.

However I still got a “Crash” when I quit the app…something that happens about half the time it seems.

Does Adobe still have a problem if you have Script UI panels open on quit? (I thought that was fixed)

Life is full of funny particles.

[Craig Wall]

Eric, thank you for sharing your experience.

I wasn’t having many problems until the past two weeks.

I have an 8 core/16 thread system with 24 Gigs of RAM. (Mac Nehalem 2009)

I’m reserving a few of the core/threads for other applications…as well as 5 gigs of RAM for the system and other apps.

One thing I just discovered a moment ago…is that when I quit AE (which took forever) my processors were still churning with instances of AESelfLink…so something is up with those AE multiple CPU render instances getting hung up.

I had to force quit them from the Activity Monitor. I cannot help but wonder, course, if, this is related to my problems.

I will soon have 32 gigs of RAM, and I’m obviously hopeful that this resolves or helps my problems.

Life is full of funny particles.

[Craig Wall]

I don’t know what to attribute my problems to…but in the last week or so…all hell has been breaking loose with my Master Suite CS5/Mac Pro Early 2009/10.6.6 system.

I get repeated beach balls, hangs, corrupt or truncated renders.

I’ve used AE for 15 years and this is the worst it has every behaved.

If anyone has a suggestion…I’d sure welcome it.

Life is full of funny particles.

[Craig Wall]

I can only imagine how much work it must be! Thanks for the update.

Life is full of funny particles.