Steve Forde
Forum Replies Created
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Please send the project (do not need the footage at this point) to support@gridironsoftware.com.
Also – in the email please include any other steps you can think of to help us reproduce the problem.
As for never using Nucleo because of this, well, we obviously wouldn’t have a product if all Nucleo did was crash all the time. Thats like saying all AE is good for is crashing…;)
Steve
GridIron Software Inc. -
Essentially – yes. Obviously adding movie support and previews is a key differentiator, but the primary other things are managing AE’s RAM usage and how it writes to the disk.
As an example, if you started 4 instances of AE on a Quad, and got them to render a multi-machine sequence of a project using the manual multi-instance trick. What would happen is that all 4 instances would be trying to eat as much of your RAM as possible, irrespective of the other instances that are also trying to grab RAM. Even more importantly, you would have 4 instances also trying to simultaneously write files to the disk.
When a system runs out of RAM – you get a problem called swap space hell. It means your instances have no physical RAM left, and are asking the OS to use the disk in a virtual RAM capacity. This will drop your CPU utilization to about 4-8%.
When a system is writing too many things to disk at the same time, the hard drive has trouble keeping up (see swap space hell), and the system grinds to a halt. (Thats why fast disks are really important, and why RAID arrays work- a RAID reduces the impact of simultaneous reads / writes on a single hard drive)
These two issues are the primary barriers to the old multi-instance trick providing maximum performance. Not saying the there isn’t going to be a gain with the multi-instance trick, just that it could be alot better. (plus no movies and previews…;)
Nucleo doesn’t actually render anything, its still AE doing the work. Nucleo is really just a software management umbrella over top of AE, that tells it what to render and when, and also constrains how it writes to the disk, when it accesses CPU and what RAM it can access. Users also get the integration with previews and movies as a result of this.
Nucleo Pro also is a management umbrella – just more focused on controlling the foreground AE instance (the instance of AE that you use), and creates more features for accessing your “farm” of CPU’s in the background. (Speculative Previews, Speculative Renders, Commit to Disk and Background Render Queue)
In short – we treat your workstation like a render farm. (the fact that you can buy 4, 8 and 16 CPU workstations now also helps…;)
Steve
GridIron Software Inc. -
Minor bit of pedantia – Nucleo or Nucleo Pro on OS X can consume up to 21GB of RAM on a Quad G5. Therefore, the only clarification is a single instance of AE can use up to 3.5 GB on OS X. This 3.5GB is “per” instance. On a Quad – Nucleo uses 5 additional instances of AE.
Steve
GridIron Software Inc. -
We can chime in on this one. The part of AE that rasterizes Illustrator files is …well….super slow and quite old. Its actually a piece of AE that isn’t really from AE (comes from Photoshop), and is not optimized at all. Unfortunately, the size of the vector images you are using will really amplify this problem (and the use of Nucleo will amplify it even more…). Since the module that rasterizes Illustrator files was meant for a single image in Photoshop (not a sequence of frames like in AE), using vector art in AE can be fairly expensive in time.
I would recommend, if at all possible, to rasterize the image first in something like Photoshop, then import into AE, which can then quickly replicate raster images. This should help things dramatically if your project allows for it.
Steve
GridIron Software Inc. -
Did AE startup automatically before you installed Nucleo? You should also check your System Preferences –> Accounts –> “Your Account” –>Login Items and make sure that After Effects is not in there to start when your system starts.
Could you list what items are in there – this will give me an idea if Nucleo is part of the problem.
Lastly – Nucleo freezing may be a result of the same issue as AE starting when your machine boots.
Let me know
Steve
GridIron Software Inc. -
I would highly recommend NOT doing the 3GB switch in Windows XP. In short – the 3GB switch was not really meant for Win XP – but Win 2000 “Advanced” Server. Its only because Win XP and Win 2000 Server share “some” of the same codebase that the 3GB switch works. Microsoft also made it available to Win XP (since they share some common characteristics), but only provide it on a “use at your own risk” basis.
That said, Win 2000 Advanced server can do something that Win XP cannot – access more than 4GB of RAM (it can support 8GB). Therefore, in Win 2000 Advanced server, using the 3GB switch comes at really no penalty because there is still plenty of RAM for the OS to access, even though large address aware apps (like AE) can now access 3 GB instead of only 2GB.
This is not the case in Win XP pro. By using the 3GB switch in Win XP pro, an application like AE will eat all RAM allowed to it. This leaves only 1GB for the OS (dramatically less if you have integrated graphics or PCI Express), which may sound like alot, but its not. You will wind up in SWAP/Pagefile hell faster than you can shake a stick, and any performance or preview gain you desired by using the 3GB switch, will not only be gone, but the system may become unstable as well. (as I mentioned Win XP and Win 2000 Advanced server only share “some” of the same code).
Therefore – really long geeky answers aside, if you are in a deadline driven environment, and absolutely need to rely on the stability of your machine – DO NOT USE the 3GB switch!
If you are a performance nut that loves to tinker with systems (like me) and system stability be damned….go for it! (just don’t use our Nucleo product and the 3GB switch at the same time!)
Steve
GridIron Software Inc. -
Easiest way is to hold cmd-option-shift mac or ctrl-alt-shift win, when starting AE. A dialog will come up asking you if you want to reset AE’s prefs to the factory defaults.
Steve
GridIron Software Inc. -
I wish I could share something – but, have to give the usual frustrating (for both of us) software provider response….no comment. I will say this though – have heard an awful lot of users like you request it.
Steve
GridIron Software Inc. -
Ya – unfortunately, your system will not really benefit too much from Nucleo. I think for many of our new users that are going right to the Nucleo Pro pre-order, getting the currently shipping Nucleo in the meantime has helped get over the usual nervousness of pre-ordering. This isn’t really the case in your situation.
(Although we did do testing with a setup similar to yours with 4GB of RAM and saw an average of about 10% performance gain with Nucleo)
In short though – my team is working round the clock on Nucleo Pro. We got a huge sense of pride when users reported Nucleo working exactly as advertised, and feel confident that we’re going to hit that again with Pro.
At the end of the day, our primary goal is to not let down anyone who has invested in us.
Steve
GridIron Software Inc. -
Nucleo Pro will run on that machine. A couple things to keep in mind since Nucleo Pro will only have a single CPU with HT logical CPU to work with. I wouldn’t expect any huge savings in time for renders and previews in terms of raw computation (as in the currently shipping Nucleo). However, the workflow enhancements (render while working) in Nucleo Pro should net you savings in time and/or better comps.
Also, even though it is a single CPU with HT – put as much RAM in there as possible. Win XP can take a max of 4GB, and would be the best investment to get the most bang for your buck with Nucleo Pro on that system.
Steve
GridIron Software Inc.