after effects machine?
- Started
- Last post
- 26 Responses
- arne
i need to replace my antiquated power mac to work with new adobe software, mainly after effects (complex compositing and animation). i know windows is better but i decided to stay on mac. but i could not find any mandatory information on what would be the best mac set for this. advice or links would be much appreciated.
- animatedgif0
High end iMac can do most of it these days, AE isn't even that good at multicore.
If you're going to do 3D (outside of AE) then you'll really feel the benefits of the Powermac. If it's just AE then it's debatable how much better you'll feel for the cost.
- uan0
you need multiple harddiscs to really get the max of AE rendering speed. considering a RAID is also a very good (and also expensive) idea. and get the maximum ram. I would go for the MacPro.
...multiple macMini wired into a cluster could also be a route to go...
- grafisk0
Fastest Tower you can afford, with plenty of RAM, all your media on a good RAID array, and a big screen to view it all on.
Funnily enough ive just spec'd a setup like this, and spent £6k
- Miguex0
what is this RAID you guys talking about?
(I feel like a grandpa)- Multiple hard disks working as a single hard disk.animatedgif
- vivid0
you'll get far more power for your money if you go pc! (as I'm sure you know) I had these guys build me one last year >> http://www.workstationspecialist…
...its the dogs :]
- arne0
thanks everyone so far. yes i know about the pc advantage,but everything i ever made is mac and my new computer has to handle everything so i really don't want to switch. it looks like i have to leave the final decision to the buget.
does anyone know about the amount ratio processor cores to ram modules? i heard there is one specific very good combination that is even better than just a lot of everything?
- NONEIS0
You want like 2Gb per core, then evenly scale up from that. Def get a MacPro – it will make your life much easier when it comes to upgrading, adding or swapping harddrives. I would sport at least 3 Tb drives, one for render, one for system and one for assets / work files. Get the best card they offer, upgrade options on that are generally pretty limited. Also, depending on how handy you are get the smallest amount of ram possible from Apple, then go to Crucial and fill her up, it's like %50 cheaper...
- Miguex0
I already have an imac, what can I do to make my renders go faster?
I'm currently working from an external FW800 drive, is there any other drive that you would recommend and that it will make it for considerably faster?I already have it maxed out on ram.
thanks in advance
- M_C_P0
the cheapest and often overlooked answer is to not render everything at the very end. precompose and render those pre comps out. bring them back into your master comps. much faster for final renders and scrubing thru timelines.
- THIS. I will usually render a pre-finish pass as PNG sequence, and then render that w final FXifeltdave
- Miguex0
^
I'm actually doing that right now, was wondering if there was a way to speed up
- M_C_P0
If you haven't already, try enabling and playing with multi-processing. Just beware there's no one size fits all and in fact if you aren't careful you could actually slow down your rendertimes. I think allocating enough ram to each core is the secret sauce.
If you're maxed out on RAM and have multi processing on, the only other bottleneck (other than cpu speed) is your drives. as was stated, RAID is a good way to go and sounds like that would get AE as speedy as your system will go. short of that, the only way to speed up renders is to get more computers and set up a render farm.
- arne0
sidenote: since i started this thread i receive gazzillions of Ad0B3 spam offers. i recommend not to even type that.
- benfal990
i have a Intel i7 with 18gb of ram and hard disks set in raid. works fine
- xcreonx0
I've got a 2 x 2.93ghz 12-core Mac Pro with 32gb of ram and I set up multiprocessing like this:
Installed RAM: 32GB
RAM reserved for other apps: 4GB
RAM for AE: 28gbyes for Multiple frame render
Installed CPU cores: 24
CPUs for other apps: 2
RAM per background CPU: 1GB
Actual CPUs to be used: 22I render out 5k Pro Res 4:4:4 files from a Red Epic-M and these seemed to be the most efficient settings for that. They work fantastic for 1080p as well.
rendering multiple frames at once can have mixed results I've found. I don't always use it when rendering complex 5k files. Just play with it and take note of the render times.
- xcreonx0
Oh and I have 3 x 1TB drives striped in a RAID 0 as my main project drive. This is vital for working with large video files, 1080p up to 5k. Really speeds up render times.
- autoflavour0
when i freelance i get away with my 2011 macbook pro, 8gb ram.. and a 7200rpm drive..
its not as fast as a 12 core mac pro, but it will get it done..
depends of course on what you are doing..
havent tried 5k from a red on it.. i am guessing it wont handle it as well..
- arne0
setting a limit at 3k a maxed out imac pops up:
Display: 27"
3,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16 GB DDR3 SDRAM, 1333 MHz
2 TB 7200 + 256 GB SSD
AMD Radeon HD 6970 2 GB
- zombee0
Just a little tip regarding Apple and RAM - never, ever buy it from them, as they really do have your pants down on cost. Apple charge £480.00 for 16gb RAM. At crucial.com/uk you can get 32gb for £374.
- arne0
related question: does anybody have experience with switching from final cut to premiere? are they as people say all same?