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Hello,
The title says it all.
When launching a render, the message "background processes initializing / this may take a while" gets stuck more than 70s in CS6, whatever the project, whereas it was never on more than 10s in CS5.
We're back to the CS4 delays here. Is this a known issue ?
On a side note, the multiprocessing is a bit weird:
Before it was pretty straightforward : When 10 cores were used for the render, the frames were rendered by batches of 10. With CS6 it's different : A first batch of 3 frames get rendered, then another one of 14 (!!), then I lost track of the process.
Is multiprocessing so different in CS6 ?
Thanks to whoever can answer...
JM
...
Mac Pro 12-Core / 32GB RAM
Mac Os 10.6.8
AE MP settings :
2,5GB per core / RAM reserved for other applications : 4GB
CPU reserved for other applications : 4
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Having exactly the same problem with the multiprocessing ram prv enabled.
Very very slow initialization and slow render and sometimes the app gets stuck.
Win7, 32GB RAM, Gtx 580/3GB. 12 core
btw. Working on a trial
bg alex
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I tried with 12 cores instead of 10, and it takes even longer (1m40s) before the rendering actually starts.
So the more cores the longer to initialize, which sounds logical, but still, it was much much faster with CS5.
I don't have this problem during Ram previews though. The previews start immediately, and I don't even have time to see the actual display of the background process message.
But the renders are unbelievably long to start.
Oh, and also on last week's trial.
JM
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RAM previews favor hardware accelerated fast preview. If there is not much to process, it may simply be chugging away on one or 2 processes rather than launching all BG instances. Also do not forget the new cache system, which would further contribute to MP not being used when it may not be necessary. as for why initialization of the MP rendering takes so long is another matter, but again, without knowing the exact nature of the projects and what's involved, it's slightly pointless to speculate. could be perfectly normal if it involves flushing the then not so persistent caches, could be specific plug-ins and features or whatever else you can imagine.
Mylenium
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Hi Mylenium.
Sorry, I assumed the primary precautions taken before posting here would be obvious. Since it's not, let me specify :
I've tried in several configurations, including rebooting the mac and do nothing else than press render, so no ram to flush.
Also, when I say "no matter what the project", it means that I even tried with nothing more than a simple fractal noise with animated evolution, and even with just a simple text layer. It's always the same : The message "background processes initilizing" stays for ages before the render starts, while the very same project, on the same mac, starts rendering almost intantly on CS5 (I skipped CS5.5).
By the way, before starting discussing the specifics of my projects, I just wanted to know if it's a known issue. I don't want to keep spending time experiencing with it if the problem is with the current AE version.
Thanks,
JM
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same thing is happening to me with MacPro 8-core with 32gb ram. In fact, I waited for a few minutes before different settings...
Interestingly enough, when I tried disabling multiprocessing, the render started immediately. I'm wondering if there's a bug when it comes to multiprocessing. I don't see why it takes several minutes to initialize the different cores that way...
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Of course, with MP off, rendering starts immediately for me too.
I'm glad to see we're not the alone experiencing this, thanks for your reply.
It seems the problem is quite similar to what happened with CS4... only this time it's worse.
I'm afraid I'll stick To CS5 as long as this issue is not officially aknowledged and solved.
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Restarting my computer did the trick... only took a few seconds to initialize after that. Prior to do that, I don't think I restarted for a while and have been working on multiple projects since. I wish the information display was a bit more informative, would be nice to see what the hold up is.
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Same issue here. thanks for the tip. With Multiprocessing off it now works fine. it is definitely something wrong with the process, not the machine.
with Multiprocessing on, the Ram preview only works if I press spacebar and play the part I want to view. When done then I hit Ram preview and it works otherwise it will just sit there Initializing background processes.
Sometimes it will stay stuck when I try to output a movie.
But with Multiprocessing off, everything works fine.
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Ditto,
Im on a
3930k
32gb ram
680 gtx 4gb
ssd 840 pro
windows 8 pro
And after effects cs6 isnt doing it good at all.. MP is buggy and freezes my computer. works sometime but even then its meh...
Its sad that you have to search like a mad man through google just to get any information at all about the subject. Cause as soon as you contact Adobe the only help you will get is: update to 11.0.2.... well we have already
+1 to smoke's proper playback
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It seems that the latest update (11.0.2) did not fix this. Are Adobe actually going to acknowlegde this problem exists or just bury their heads in the sand over it? I just tried rendering out a TIFF sequence and a WAV file into an mp4. After 3 minutes of it saying 'background processes intializing this may take some time' I cancelled it, turned off multi-processing and it then rendered straight away. This was using an i7 on Windows using 6 cores to multi-process with. The majoirty of time the delay in ram previewing with multi-processing turned on completely negates the speed advantages you get than if you don't have it turned on as well - especially with small, easy comps. I also see the same problem with the Mac Pros at work. Could you please possibly spend less time inflating the software by adding plugins and components that we don't need ie Camera Tracker (I have Boujou, PFMatchIt, Matchmover and The Foundry Camera Tracker already) and that god awful slow raytracing engine and actually speed the whole programme up which is what we all want?
And one last thing. When are we going to see proper playback from disk and not ram like a Smoke, Flame or Avid system does? I have 5 SSDs in RAID 0, more than quick enough to playback uncompressed 2k+. Why if I'm working in any comp longer than 10 seconds even with 32Gb or RAM am I constantly having to re-render the front part of the comp because AE has used the RAM elsewhere - just store and play it back directly from disk??? This is the only thing that is stopping AE from being a proper online finishing system.
Rant over. Breathe.....
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This is very annoying! It happens to me too when MP is on. Adobe really need to do somethign about this...!!
Runnning AE 11.01.12 in 12 core, 16GB RAM mac pro with a ATI Radeon HD 5870 video card...
I kno Ppro's mercury playback doesn't support some video cards, this could be a similar issue..? ADOBE really needs to support so many more video cards...
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> Runnning AE 11.01.12
Start by installing the After Effects CS6 (11.0.2) update. Choose Help > Updates.
Then tell us exactly what your Memory & Multiprocessing settings are. A screenshot of that part of the Preferences dialog box is the easiest way to do that.
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I have the same issue after upgrading to CS6. Driving me crazy. Attached is a screenshot of my settings. Everything works with Multiprocessing off.
Mac Pro 2x2.8 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon
18 gigs RAM
OSX 10.6.8
AE 11.0.2.11
NVidea GT 120
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Same boat here. Funny it's happening cross-platform. With MP turned on, I've allocated all CPUs and then only 2 and every time I see "Initializing Background Processes" in the Info Panel for several minutes with no apparent progress. Now, if I cancel it, AE crashes. However no render problem at all if I turn off MP. Tried it with two different video cards and same result. (Not that it would make a difference, but was trying to solve the problem.)
Mac OSX 10.8.3
AE CS6 11.0.2.11
32 GB RAM
16 cores
Video card: GTX 660 / ATI 5770
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Same problem here (after two years it's still there?!) on CS 6:
sometimes After Effects simply freezes saying "Iinitializing background processes blah blah". It happens quite often, as well as error notifications saing it failed to render multiple frames during RAM preview.
Below are my settings, can someone tell me what is wrong in there? I mean come on, this "not enough ram" thing is a complete bull****
All that stuff just makes me uncheck multiprocessing option and at least I can be sure it will render eventually, and not just freeze and crash pretending it's preparing something.
REALLY annoying.
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Notice anything wrong with your MP settings? 8 cores, 2 for other apps, 4 for AE. What happened to the other 2? Set your ram allocation so that all cores are displayed. If you have 8 then you should see 4 and 4 or 2 and 6.
Also, only about 1 out of 10 of my projects work well with MP turned on. Any codec or plug-in that is not MP aware will kill the render times and can foul other things up. I keep it turned off almost all of the time.
A better way to diagnose your initialization process is to watch the details and see what is hanging things up. It could be fonts, codecs, or display drivers.
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Thanks for the info about MP and plugins not liking each other, that may be the issue. However, I still don't understand the whole concept of memory set-up and what is what:
My "actual CPUs that will be used" dropped to 4 after I bumped up RAM reserved for other applications to 8GB.
What I don't get is why AE keeps telling me that it "failed to render using multiprocessing, and allocating more memory to background processes might help". What parameter is it? The one where I have 8GB? I don't have much stuff running in background and yet there's always something wrong with my memory settings. This totally confuses me, I thought when I put 32gigs of RAM into my machine I wouldn't have to worry about constantly having not enough memory every other click I make.
Can someone help me sort it out?
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Try dropping the ram to even numbers. You should be able to get 4 or 6 cpu's for AE and 4 or 2 for other apps.
Todd has a link to an article on setting up MP for your machine, but I have to say again that if you are using temporal effects or codecs or 3rd party plug-ins that are not MP aware turning MP on will slow down your render and could cause lots of other problems. I keep it off 95% of the time, use AM to do 99% of my rendering, and seldom if ever stop working and let AE grind out a render. Every time I stop creating or editing a project in AE to push out a render I'm loosing productivity. Finish a shot, load it into AME to render, start the render, then move back to AE to work on another shot, or to PPro to edit, or somewhere else to be productive. Hopefully you can get to the point where you will not need to see a full rez, full length ram preview of your project to know what it will look like when rendered.
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I have exactly the same problem. CS6 on Windows 8. Only when MP is off it wirks well. Is there a solution?