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rickmorton
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8 core Mac renders slower than dual core iMac ! ????

Jun 25, 2010 10:51 AM

I have a 3.6 gig core duo iMac witgh 8 gigs..

Also an 8 core Mac Pro with 12 gigs of ram.

I have an AE comp with some particles, motion, etc.

Watching the render in the queue the iMac renders a frame per second.

Watching the render on the Mac Pro, the render is about 1 frame in 4 seconds.

We've changed the settings in the Multi-processing prefs, but the most we can get

is one frame in 1 second using multi-core. Why is the iMac as fast as the Mac Pro?

I don't get it.

1513 Views   11 Replies   Latest reply: Todd_Kopriva, Jun 25, 2010 4:18 PM
 
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  • markerline
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    1. markerline,
    Jun 25, 2010 11:20 AM   in reply to rickmorton
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    Please specify, are you using CS5 64-bit or CS4 32-bit?  If it's the latter, the most RAM that After Effects will use is 4GB.

     
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  • rickmorton
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    2. rickmorton,
    Jun 25, 2010 11:25 AM   in reply to markerline
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    I'm using CS4.

     
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  • Todd_Kopriva
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    3. Todd_Kopriva,
    Jun 25, 2010 2:09 PM   in reply to rickmorton
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    markerline is mistaken about the use of memory in After Effects CS4.

     

    Each instance of After Effects CS4 can only see and use 4GB of RAM, but the Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing feature starts multiple instances of the application to render frames in the background. Each can see and use 4GB. (The difference between CS4 and CS5 is that each instance of After Effects can see and use more RAM.)

     

    Please read the documents linked to from here and then report back, giving your exact settings, especially the Memory & Multiprocessing settings.

     
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  • rickmorton
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    4. rickmorton,
    Jun 25, 2010 2:12 PM   in reply to Todd_Kopriva
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    OK. However, my original question was why is my little iMac as fast at rendering as an 8 core Mac Pro?

    With NO special settings.

     
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  • markerline
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    5. markerline,
    Jun 25, 2010 2:46 PM   in reply to Todd_Kopriva
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    Thanks for clarifying Mr. Kopriva.  I was wondering why CS4 said 4GB RAM on the splash screen.  Now I know I can run multiple instances on my multicore PC.

     
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  • Todd_Kopriva
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    6. Todd_Kopriva,
    Jun 25, 2010 2:48 PM   in reply to rickmorton
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    Rick, it's not a matter of "special" settings. Rather, the settings can be optimized for various scenarios. It may just so happen that the defaults align better with the configuration for one computer than with the other.

     
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  • rickmorton
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    7. rickmorton,
    Jun 25, 2010 2:51 PM   in reply to Todd_Kopriva
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    Thanks.

    Just wish I could figure out how to make the MacPro render faster than the iMac!

    We tried changing most of the ram/processor settings and couldn't get it to render

    any faster than the iMac. Strange.

     
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  • Todd_Kopriva
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    8. Todd_Kopriva,
    Jun 25, 2010 3:56 PM   in reply to rickmorton
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    Did you read the documents that I pointed to?


     
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  • TimeRemapper
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    9. TimeRemapper,
    Jun 25, 2010 4:00 PM   in reply to rickmorton
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    Are you using footage that is being accesed over a network? Are you rendering locally or to a network or peripheral drive?

     
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  • rickmorton
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    10. rickmorton,
    Jun 25, 2010 4:02 PM   in reply to TimeRemapper
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    I read the docs...   just a bit confusing. Guess I'm not very good at this.

     

    No.. no network. All local and rendering to an internal drive.

     

    As I mentioned, I DID try changing settings of processors and ram, etc. and the best I could

    seem to get was the same as the iMac. I did manage to get some SLOWER renders, but the

    fastest I could get was the same.

     

    I guess I was hoping someone could just say, "Ohhhh.....  here's what you have to do.... "

     
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  • Todd_Kopriva
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    11. Todd_Kopriva,
    Jun 25, 2010 4:18 PM   in reply to rickmorton
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    > I guess I was hoping someone could just say, "Ohhhh.....  here's what you have to do.... "

     

     

     

    That someone is me.

     

    And since I answer this question a _lot_, I wrote up the general documents that I pointed you to. If you aren't able to make use of those, I can help you further, but I didn't want to waste my time retyping something that I already typed once.

     

    I need to get something else done right now, but I'll come back to this thread soon.

     
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