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Answered

WHY AFTER EFFECTS STILLS SO SLOW IN THE NEW MAC PRO?

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
May 11, 2014
51 replies
119683 views

I have the new mac pro with this settings:

3 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon E5

64 GB 1867 MHz DDR3 ECC

AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB

Software OS X 10.9.2

And the AE performs slower than in my old mac pro. I have set the preferences as seen on all those tutorials on this site, I have an SSD external disc for cache files, memory and multiprocessing settings correctly...and previews are very very slow, and I can not even render a single comp without waiting 10 minutes. I am very disappointed and frustrated with this situation...

Am I missing something?

Correct answer Andrew Yoole

Without wanting to sound condescending, because I genuinely understand your complaints, I must point out here that some of the onus here belongs to the hardware purchaser. How carefully did you assess the purchase of the Mac Pro?

In my own facility, we were torn about which hardware to purchase this year. After lots of research of available benchmarks, and assessment of what hardware After Effects relies on, we decided not to buy Mac Pros just yet, and bought a bunch of fully specced out iMacs for now.

The thinking for this:

• All the benchmarks we found showed AE performance didn't get a significant enough bump to justify Mac Pro expense. If you're a FCPX editor, Mac Pros are a no brainer - FCPX is optimised for this hardware. But AE is not.

• A significant part of a Mac Pro's cost is in GPUs, which are irrelevant to our main AE use.

• The cost of one reasonably specced Mac Pro workstation was about equal to two fully specced iMac 27" i7 workstations, with 1TB SSDs and 32GB of RAM.

• Any new generation tech is fraught with danger. We decided the 2nd Generation Mac Pro will be a much safer bet, especially since they are manufacturing in an entirely new facility, and the machine itself is a major new design.

Show previous replies

ryanw82896654

Participant

what’s new and changed in the upcoming update to After Effects CC | After Effects region of interest

T

toneproductions

Participating Frequently

if these issues aren't fixed in the next update I am going to loose my shit!

T

toneproductions

Participating Frequently

Adobe have told me 'the development team is working with the partners to fix the issue & hope it would be fixed in the next update'

poilp97290607

Participant

Good news ! When the next update ?

Szalam

Community Expert

According to the Adobe AE team, it's coming in "spring". So, pretty much any time from now until mid-June.

ryanw82896654

Participant

sorry if this has been posted here already but I found this interesting. Torn between getting a maxed out 12 core (previous version) or build from the bottom up on the new mac pro. I want AE and C4D to scream but I'm afraid I'd regret investing in an older tower that may be unsupported once adobe updates AE.

This is the best value for money Mac Pro configuration. : Adobe After Effects

T

toneproductions

Participating Frequently

Why does the Title of this thread have 'answered' at the top.

What's been answered?

Snakedogman

Inspiring

Well since the OP hasn't really elaborated further on the sort of project he's trying to render it's hard to give a specific answer as to why his rendering is slow (or slower than expected).

The answer to the more general question being asked (why is AE slow or not showing performance increase on new Mac Pro's) has been answered I think: AE is simply not (very well) optimised to utilise multiple CPU's and it does not use the powerful GPU's of the Mac Pro at all. Basically the best for AE right now is getting the highest speed CPU (rather than a lot of cores) with lots of RAM. Therefore a Mac Pro simply has very little, if any, benefit over an iMac or well specced PC when it comes to AE performance. Whether or not your project benefits from "render multiple frames" as it is implemented right now depends entirely on the project and you'll have to experiment with it. Adobe is currently working on rewriting (parts of) AE for better performance.

Szalam

Community Expert

There is a very interesting post from EchoOut regarding render speeds on Macs comparing various configurations that was branched from this one for further discussion: i7 beating Xeons with multiprocessing off despite lower clock speed

NordicFilmworks

Known Participant

bogiesan Feb 5, 2015 3:56 PM

Every time Apple gives us a new machine (to spend our money on), Adobe tries to get the most out of it. But the two companies don't work together when planning the future. I think Adobe catches up when it can.

That sums it up pretty well.

T

toneproductions

Participating Frequently

Has there been any movement on this performance issue? Does anyone know when the next AE/Prem update might be coming from Adobe + if it will address these issues?

K

kyledettman

Participant

Same problem here.

Bought a late 2013 Mac Pro (3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon e5 // 32 GB DDR3 // 500 GB SSD // Dual 3 GB AMD D500) and hardly notice a difference from my

mid 2011 iMac (3.4 GHz i7 // 16 GB DDR3 // 256 GB SSD). Even my late 2013 MacBook Pro seems faster (2.3 GHz i7 // 16GB DDR3 // 500 GB SSD // NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB).

I should have done my research first.

I can't stand the long render times in After Effects, and am trying to figure out what I should do. Should I hang with the Mac Pro and wait for Adobe to release better software? Or should

I quit Mac altogether () and build a custom PC with Nvidia video cards that my Adobe programs can actually use? Or should I ditch AE in favor of Nuke? I work frequently with raw video files

(r3d and dng) at resolutions that vary from 1920 x 1080 to 4k. Additionally, I'm getting more and more into some 3D work (C4D and Element).

Any experience, insight, or advice would be appreciated.

And Adobe, thanks for putting up with us fast-paced consumers being impatient when your software won't work well with our new hardware. Though, I am curious if you're working on stuff, and how far out it is.

Cheers

B

bogiesan

Participating Frequently

Get the PC. Let us know what changes.

I have the same MacPro, maybe a bit earlier so a bit less oomph than yours.

I do not run Premiere, I use FCPX. I prefer AE to Apple's Motion because I've used AE for 15-20 years (and someday soon I might figure it out). I can't say my newer machine renders AE projects any more slowly than my previous giant aluminum box MacPro because I have forgotten everything about that machine. But I do not get the feeling that AE is sluggish or unstable at all.

Every time Apple gives us a new machine (to spend our money on), Adobe tries to get the most out of it. But the two companies don't work together when planning the future. I think Adobe catches up when it can.

Every time Apple gives us a new Mac, some of us try to get some benchmarks together, a set of standardized test renders. The project never seems to work out. But someone MUST have a series of reliable benchmarks for AE running on various platforms. Gotta be out there, maybe. If you post a benchmark project file someplace where I can get to it form behind my corporate firewall, I'll run it for you.

M

martinc13962311

Known Participant

You really should have done your homework before wasting your money on the new Mac Pros for AE work.

The performance issues of AE have been talked about on here for years. If AE doesn't use the power of a 2010 Mac Pro what chance do you have?

So although you are justified in your questions of Adobe's seemingly pathetic focus in this area, they have explained they are working really hard to address it. We like others on here opted for the Nvidia equipped IMacs as a stop gap.

So fingers crossed in a year or so you may get a usable version of AE. Going on recent experiences of the complete lack of quality control on AE releases you might be better looking else where. The man hours we are wasting keeping up with the constant issues is beyond a joke!

Stephen Barrante

Inspiring

Just installed 13.2 - realized I haven't kept up as to whether multi-processing has finally been improved. Last I had read, it was being "overhauled significantly". Has anyone been using it with great success? It should would be nice to be able to really leverage the 6 processors I have running right now...

Dave_LaRonde

Inspiring

That overhaul hasn't been released yet. It's still in the works.

At least Adobe's telling people they're working on fixes -- it's more than you get from Apple.

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