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danaos1996
Participating Frequently
January 26, 2011
Question

What improves Rendering Speed? Processor,Graphics Card,RAM?[HELP]

  • January 26, 2011
  • 2 replies
  • 45292 views

Hello people

I would like to know what will improve my rendering speed,I have a composition at 1024p with many layers and effects in it,It says it will take 33 Hours to render, I think that;s too much,so what to buy to improve my Rendering speed? A new Processor? A new Graphics Card? A new RAM? Please reply as soon as possible.

PS:I have Windows XP 32 bit and I use CS3

My System Info:

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.100216-1441)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E6550  @ 2.33GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT


Thanks for your interest

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

bogiesan-gyyClL
bogiesan-gyyClL
Participating Frequently
January 27, 2011

danaos1996 wrote:

I would like to know what will improve my rendering speed,I have a composition at 1024p with many layers and effects in it,It says it will take 33 Hours to render, I think that;s too much,so what to buy to improve my Rendering speed? A new Processor? A new Graphics Card? A new RAM? Please reply as soon as possible.

We see this post often around here. For some reason, newbies tend to think AE is a near-realtime applciaiton or can be turned into such by throwing money at it. As Todd suggests, you must spend several hours reading through and following the suggestions in his link to improve performance. After Effects doesn't look at the entire project and estimate rendering time. Maybe your supremely intense effects are removed after a few seconds and the rendering could drop to near instantaneous.

You have not described the length of your project or the types of effects you are trying to apply or your motion blur settings or you output codec so 30 hours might be an optimistic prediction; your project might actually take days.

However, the math is incontrovertible and inescapable. Unless you are carefully precomposing and prerendering, you are processing millions of individual pixels over and over again, shuttling entire frames in and out of RAM, storing dozens of frames in RAM only to force them to be re-rendered each time they are called from a previous or following frame's effects routines.

I've been using AE since it was CoSA and rendering ten seconds of one effect on one layer used to take a weekend. I learned to prepare my comps very carefully and I have employed those time saving tools and project management skills on ever major project since then.

bogiesan

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danaos1996Author
Participating Frequently
January 27, 2011

OK,I will follow your advice and spend some time reading the guide and How to improve performance.So I don't have to buy a new RAM or Processor for better perfomance,just to follow the guide and wait as many hours as it takes,I though a better RAM or Processor would make rendering speed faster,so if this is true please suggest me a new and fast one.Something last,You Suggest me to use CS3 or CS4?I used CS3 and it took 33 Hours...Now in CS4 when i click render is freezes...Oh well,if someone can help me in any of these I would appreciate it..

Dave_LaRonde
Dave_LaRonde
Inspiring
January 27, 2011

danaos1996 wrote:

I though a better RAM or Processor would make rendering speed faster,so if this is true please suggest me a new and fast one.

If you're really going to use multiple layers of HD video in AE, a new processor or more RAM won't help much.  You need an entirely new machine, capable of running a 64-bit operating system, about 24GB RAM and AE CS5. 

If that's impossible, put as much RAM into your current machine as you can, stick with AE CS3, and listen to Bogesian's wise advice.  You'll have to face the fact that you won't be able to work quickly in AE.

Todd_Kopriva
Todd_Kopriva
Inspiring
January 26, 2011

The graphics card isn't very important for rendering to final output.

A faster processor and more RAM can help, but After Effects CS3 isn't as able to take advantage of the extra RAM and multiple cores as is After Effects CS5. After Effects CS4 is somewhat better than After Effects CS3 in this regard.

This page includes many tips for improving performance with After Effects CS3:

"Improve performance"

Depending on the length and complexity of your composition, the frame size, and the source footage, 33 hours might not be an unreasonable amount of time. It is common for people doing professional visual effects and compositing work to leave a movie for an entire weekend to render.

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danaos1996Author
Participating Frequently
January 26, 2011

Thank you Mr. Todd

I will check CS4,maybe you can insist me a good and fast Processor?

Edit:Can CS4 import project files from CS3?

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