[Nicola Scodellaro]

Hi Michael,
maybe I can spare you some sweat on the ram side: I tried to remove the two original apple gigs that came with the mac pro and had the machine with 8 gb of the same brand for almost two months with no discernible gains in performance. So I put back the 2 gbs a week ago and everything was the same. Except that I configured an additional core in the maxprocesses preference file and got an even faster multicore render. So, as far as I can tell you: for me RAM was nevere the issue.

From your symptoms I can only imagine a scenario. AE cs3 has a hard time working with all 8 processors if it doesn’t have approx 2 gbs for each core:if you use mp with 10gb the app can become unstable. If you have ‘multiprocessing’ turned on in the preferences the mp settings kick in even if you try to do a ram preview, hence the lockups.
I suggest you to turn off MP and try to do a ram preview. Also, the only thing I learned so far about this problem is to switch off audio in the ram preview pane to get an instan green bar progress, instead of the hated ‘locking existing frames’ with a processor clogged at 100%.
Also, try to preview with the spacebar!

[Nicola Scodellaro]

Hi Kevin,

my findings are more an intellectual speculation than real-world help, since having literally hundreds of layers on the same comp would be madness… At least now I know that if sound previewing is important I should reduce precomposing at the minimum possilble to avoid too much mess on the timeline.

>> do you have a lot of compressed footage or compressed audio in the pre-comps?
there are almost only my usual big psd layers and mostly no audio or the occasional single aiff uncompressed track, but I tried also deleting audio from the precomps with no results.
So the situation is that a precomp with NO audio would slow an audio preview (‘.’) and a ram preview (‘0’), while the same data of the precomp pasted into the main timeline with audio would not have delays when previewing audio or ram previewing.
At the same time, I will get instant ram preview if I switch audio off from the ram preview panel.

I really can’t see any logic to it. The only rule is that the presence of audio and pre comps causes a delay w/spinning beachball with the message ‘locking existing frames’.

I will definitely post something on adobe forums, thanks!

[Nicola Scodellaro]

And I thought pre-composing was good for me… None of the things I tried helped reduce the delay before the ram preview start… then I concentrated od the message ‘locking existing frames’ that appears when I click ‘0’ to get the preview… the time I have to wait watching the spinning beachball for 10 seconds or more before the ram preview rendering begins is NOT directly related to he complexity of the project, but on the amount of precomps involved. I discovered this by deleting one by one all the layers in a comp with 4 or 5 precomps in it. At every deletion the waiting time for the ram preview to start was shorter, and when I had no precomps it was instantaneous. To have the final proof, I then pasted all the contents of all the precomps I deleted into the main comp and guess what: with the same amount of data but without precomps the ram preview started instantly, with sound.
Couple this with the fact that ram preview with audio disabled from the ram preview options is instantaneous, even with a lot of precomps, as well as hitting the space bar (but again with no sound).
There is no apparent logic.

So, I guess that my plans to switch ram banks, try ae on boot camp and such are just useless, since this looks like something tied to how ae manages things and not really on my setup or settings. Having hundreds of layers in the same comp is really messy, but I can say that in my case it somehow helps performance!

[Nicola Scodellaro]

Hi Brendan, thanks for your post. As Dave said, your is a really good point. Come to think of it, I’m rellay clogging the channels in my projects. The downside is that I’m doing it because it’s the best workflow: I make illustrations in PS and then I have to animate every single layer (and I had even a hundred of them) to make a fluid animation; Also, zooming in and out is necessary, so my images are at the least 1000 pixels wide, when not 2000 or 3000. The bigger is 5500×5500 and it was a nightmare because I was still on the Imac 24″.

At this point I really don’t know how to optimize things, because even saving every layer to an external file I would still end with tens of single jpgs at the same moment on the same frame. I could probably pre render the animated illustration once I finished to apply effects on every single layer, that would save me some lagging later, but would not help a lot in the moment of the animation process.
I will try to adjust my workflow knowing that data per frame is a very sensible aspet for ae.

On a positive note: multiprocessor rendering is really, really fast. A full res rendering of the project took 2 hours with motion blur and post- effects on, while a comparable 3 minutes movie on the Imac 24″ 2.33 was a matter of 10 hours or so…

[Nicola Scodellaro]

Hi Kevin,

thanks for your post! I made some research before buying the mac pro ram and I was fully aware of the delicate balance (and sheer luck!) that’s needed to buy the right ram for the mac pro and make the system take full advantage of it. As you imagined, I mistyped: I have 10 gigs configured just as you said with the exact same distribution that you wrote. There was an apple document online that I usaed as reference that was a quick guide with all the rules for properly installing ram on the early 2008 mac pros.
I also remember that barefeats post! When I read it I thought that if the system sees all the ram, fine… I’d rather have 2 gigs more than less, even if a little faster.

What I’m wondering is if it’s possible that different brands of RAM can cause my kind of problems. I don’t know how actually ae manages ram and data. I hope to launch the final render tomorrow (it’d better be fast…), so I can finally test ae without the apple ram and see what happens.

Also, I’m finding multiprocessor previewing really unusable: the processes take a lot of time to start and even to stop when I want to see the preview and ae feels a lot more laggy and unstable when mp is on. On acitivity monitor the processes launched by ae and the ae app itself is intermittently not responding, plus very rarely all the processor use more than 50% at the same time.
I’m working with mp off and plan to switch it on for the final render.
Can somebody confirm this not so great implementation of mp?

[Nicola Scodellaro]

Thanks for the answer Dave!

>> When I work with the MOST complex audio I ever do,

My audio right now is a music track and a speaker track which is split one or two times, no other effects, looks very simple!

• Not using an audio track at the moment? TURN THE STINKIN’ THING OFF, DAVE!

That’s what I learned today!

• Limit your Work Area when doing RAM previews! It’s a big time saver! Go to the spot where you want the preview to begin, and hit the b (for Begin) key. Go to the spot where you want the preview to end and hit the n (for eNd) key. The work area is now constrained, and AE won’t try to render an entire comp’s worth of audio: just the VERY small portion you designate.

This looks interesting,

• RAM preview at one-half, one third, or one-quarter resolution. If you’re of the “I’ve got to see the best resolution all the time, no ifs, ands or buts” school, you’re just slowing yourself down. Almost always, reduced resolutions are just fine for checking motion in a RAM preview, and the preview is generated MUCH faster.

Eh, I trained myself to work at lower resolutions a long time ago, usually I’m at 1/2 or 1/4, when I’m really pissed off I even enter in ‘mondrian mode’, at 1/16 or 1/24 resolution. You don’t see anything but helps for checking the general movements.

• Turn off Motion Blending and Frame Blur when RAM Previewing. It usually just wastes time.

As a strong fan of motion blur I know exactly how much it slows down things, so it’s the first thing that I switched off.

• Need to see action in just a PORTION of the screen? There’s a button at the bottom of the comp window that lets you draw a rectangular box, and AE will both display and RAM Preview ONLY what’s inside that box. Lots faster!

That’s really useful, but the audio preview lags even with the region render on.

I still have to try the ram removal thing, but I’m almost convinced that my project is just too much for ae as it is now (can’t address more than 3gb of ram, multiprocessing is not so well built – for me previewing with mp on is really unusable), I guess I will be patient and wait cs4. sigh.

Anyway thanks for the answer, I will post feedback if I get any progress.

[Nicola Scodellaro]

>> I’ve most DEFINITELY had issues with mixing RAM manufacturers and types… Pull that original APple RAM and see what happens…

I will test as soon as I can… by the way, what kind of issues?
I’m still working on the project and I noticed that, roughly, as te comp becomes more complex – at some point – the audio causes the lag before rendering the ram preview. At initial stages, even with big subcomps and layers, things run smoothly, but after some time (and work) suddenly the delay is there.

[Nicola Scodellaro]

Hi Brendan, thanks for your feedback!

>> 1. – What happens if you create a totally new project with a 720×480 comp, single solid layer and attempt to draw masks etc. If you are still getting these issues there is something very wrong with your setup, be it the computer, RAM, preferences or install of AE. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

everything works ok. Even if I add an audio track or two (read my other answer), previews start instantly.

>> 2. – How MANY of these big layers (2,000×2,000 or larger) do you have, not just in your main comp but any subcomps that feed into it?

let’s say 10 or 12 in total, but not at the same time. I’m trying to subcomp the main project so i can say in a 40″ timeline I have thee or four big layers and I trim them for the only time they are in the frame, so I have at most two or (rare) three of them onscreen at the same time. Note that the main comps has some post effects on it, so I basically use it now and then to check the full resolution single frame, but I work mainly on the subcomps and they are always 1/2, 1/3 or less. I sometimes work on 1/16 which is trippy.

>>3. – Are there any odd format items in your comps like HDV footage, MPEG4, H.264, MP3 audio etc? What file format are the large stills?

Audio is in aiff, everything else is big psd files (~5 to 50 megs, but mainly around 20) or jpgs. Some small quicktime movies.

>>4. – While this isn’t usually a huge problem, are you using OpenGL acceleration?

turned it off after the first opengl error. Now I’m adaptive resoluted.

>> 5. Try downloading Aja’s disc speed test utility (free) and run it on all of your drives, including the FW800 drives to make sure there isn’t some screwy throughput issue. You should be getting at least 35MBps average read speed from each drive in your system.

Done: all the drives read at least at 35 mb (r/w internal: 72/70, fw800 52/53 fw400 28/36)

As I wrote in a slightly earlier post, I tracked audio preview as the main delay cause. I will look into it as soon as I don’t have any deadline approaching in 24 hours… do you have any suggestion audio-wise?

[Nicola Scodellaro]

>> IF THE DESIGN ALLOWS. That’s a big if.

it is, indeed. I would post something here but I’m under a sort of NDA (until the videos get broadcasted, at least). I’m doing long animated movies (3 mins or so), all motion graphics, and I constantly have to check and re-check animations for minimal adjustments of curves, camera movments etc. so pre rendering is out of the question and the use of proxies can help only in certain situations – for example when a big animated layer is considered ‘done’ I can replace it with a low res still, but this is after i painfully done all the animation work.

Anyway, I discovered two things. First: for my workflow, which is continuous adjusting and previewing with the ‘0’ key even for less than a second preview, what is annoying is the lag between the ‘0’ pressing and the time when ae actually starts rendering frames, also there is a delay when I’m satisfied with the number of frames previewed and want to see it in realtime by pressing again ‘0’. For me, the smoothest work is when Multiprocessing is off: previews start quicker and I really don’t need a fast preview of 2 minutes, since in the time that ae starts all bg processes, a one processor preview of 2 seconds is already done.

Second, and more important: the damned audio is the cause of the preview lags. by simply switching off audio in the ram preview panel I get previews that start instantly and replay instantly, with no delay at all. I’m baffled. My project actually has three or four audio tracks. I remember faintly an hideous ‘mixing audio track’ message or something like that in the previews of ae 7… only this time ae doesn’t say that. Has any one any clues on how to optimize audio previewing? I often have to sync music and animations, so having audio is vital to me.
They are aiff files 48khz, 16bit and the project is set at the same freq/bit.

Any clues?

[Nicola Scodellaro]

Hi Dave, thanks for your answer, I was beginning to blame the project, too… on your checklist i qualify only for the second one, but in large quantities!

• Big layers (like yours) with multiple — and especially animated — effects applied

And I understand that this can be the problem! So I will begin to pre render and use proxies more than I already do (which is not very much, I admit… ; ). What really irks me are the smaller, continuous, lags while I’m working – for example – on the curves with the display set to wireframe. WHY in the world the thing has to be painfully slow if I’m using wireframe? I suppose wireframe mode it’s there because if you have a really big and complex comp at least you can adjust curves without getting old… but no, I have to wait four or five seconds for the handle to follow the mouse, and then when I release the clic, the thing continues to follow the pointer invisibly and after another 5 seconds the handle is in another place, which is totally random, because by then I moved the pointer away.

I will try to optimize my comps and see what happens, but I’m constantly adjusting the details so I will have to update the proxies a lot, I think…