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

[duranduran]

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?

[Szalam]

sdandrus wrote:

Even for the fanboys that have been coming out of the woodwork on this thread (most of whom don't have the 10+ years of context on the issue I'm guessing) should do this exercise and see for themselves what they have been missing. Don't waste your life rendering.

I'm not a fanboy, but I think my 10+ years experience is why I'm so excited to see AE finally changing! It's been the same basic core since I started working with it over a decade ago. Granted, it was ported to 64-bit and they tacked on multiprocessing, but otherwise, not much has changed. As you (and all of us in this thread) have pointed out, it performs pretty poorly on modern hardware compared to how we feel it should behave.

The fact that the After Effects team is taking the time to redo everything means that, perhaps, my years of experience won't go to waste as I have to start working in a totally new tool!

(That being said, I have both Nuke and Fusion on my machine at home so that I can learn them and stay up on what's happening in case AE doesn't pull through. [But not HitFilm yet. ] )

[martinc13962311]

‌I suggested this months ago, and also in a direct conversation with Adobe.

Just do a quick test comping some CG passes in the Fusion beta on a mac. It is unbelievable how much quicker even importing image sequences is. Playback and rendering are amazing, it shows just how good things can be. And just how bad AE currently is (that includes 2014).

We aren't the only shop moving away from AE. Adobe can't be trusted to put the brains and money into developing AE in a timely manner. The only thing even keeping them in the game is the talent pool of AE users.

[rlmilton]

I hope AE gets there, but like others, I’m not holding my breath. It’s a shame all these years learning AE and it has been so slow to leverage new hardware. 

[martinc13962311]

Here is an example of exactly what I am talking about and why we have given up on AE... Over 1 minute to import just one pass in AE, under 5 seconds in Fusion. I have bought this issue up at the highest level at Adobe and have done for years. They show nothing but contempt for genuine professional criticism and carry on regardless. Over a year just this poor feature alone would cost us thousands of pounds in wasted operator time. A fundamental feature like import is so poorly implemented as to be laughable!

This is the same image sequence imported on the same mac over the same 10Gbe network, AE2014:

password: adobeblows

AE:

Fusion:

5k Imac, 32gb RAM over a 10gb network. Also bare in mind Fusion is in Beta!

[martinc13962311]

If anyone at Adobe wants to explain why something this fundermental is still so poorly implemented I would love to know? These aren't the ramblings of crazy people with no knowledge of the subject. This is genuine professional feedback trying to understand how these issues continue to get ignored. Surely even the most reasonable person can see these are genuine issues? That is why people are so angry and let down. We have invested large portions of our careers learning software that seems to be stuck in a time warp. And despite several assurances still heading in the wrong direction, or having key fundamental features like this still completely unusable. Or does everyone else think this is acceptable?

[martinc13962311]

Until basic features like import are professionally implemented how do you expect this software to be taken seriously? Import, playback, render and viewport speed should be the number one features to get 100% right before anything else. I can't really see any argument for why this would not be the case. And just to be clear the exact same import issues occur in 2015.

[sdandrus]

I actually spent most of yesterday with my jaw dropped working with Fusion (I hadn't intended to, but man it was hard to stop playing with it). I'm officially making the switch. I mean, it's FREE - and WAY BETTER. Most of the same plugins I use are either available for Fusion or replaced by a standard feature within Fusion. I wanted to make the switch to something node based anyway and was planning to go to Shake until Apple killed it. Blackmagic seems to have the right idea. Poach AE users with a free version and then make studios pay for collaborative features that most freelancers won't need. Anyhoo, no hard feelings After Effects, i'll keep you in mind should things change.

[rlmilton]

I'll be trying Fusion as well.. have been meaning to for a long time.  Will report back  with my comparison results.  My only concern is something that would replace Element 3D which saves me time occasionally.

[martinc13962311]

Errr... C4D!

[Jonathan Lutjens]

Suppose I'ma check this out too. It's a bummer to have to switch tools time and time again. When Apple bailed on FCP, it took time to get acquainted with Premiere. I think a truth in traditional craftsmanship, that a master is proficient with his tools over years and even decades, is difficult to maintain in the digital world. Your tools are constantly changing, or you're being forced to change them. I currently feel quite comfortable with much of after effects. That intangible, second nature knowledge of how to navigate a program takes a very long time to develop. Going back to zero with something else, regardless of how great it is will be trying.

Adobe, listen up: there are a lot of folks out here who would like to stick with AE but if the software continues to lack basic hardware efficiency, we will leave.

Cinema 4D, while not perfect, is a good example in my view of a tool that has continued to improve release after release.

[rlmilton]

Ok, just found an answer over on postperspective.com - they have a great review on Fusion.  Had no idea... looks incredible.  This will probably make my little Mac Pro trash can explode with CPU and GPU utilization.  Leverages OpenCL fairly well apparently... Two parts particularly relevant to my concerns:

#1 A good support group:

"The Fusion development team has been a rather small one over the past few years, but they always answered emails regarding bugs, hang-ups, unexpected software behavior, etc. Now that Blackmagic is invested, I can’t imagine that changing. I’ve actually been in contact with the support team several times in the past month, and they’ve either helped out or passed along concerns to the development team."

#2 It handles 3d objects natively.. this looks very promising (no need for Element)

"An awesome 3D compositing package — Fusion has a great 3D system that allows you to create shapes and/or import 3D geometry. You can texture, animate, deform, project onto and emit particles from the geometry. It supports the latest FBX import, and has more recently added Alembic support. To give you a quick idea, you can do pretty much anything you could do with Andrew Kramer’s Element 3D and, frankly, a lot more. What you won’t have is the extensive library of pre-made shaders, objects and the animation engine."

[the_dudes]

I don't want any of this to sound overly negative, since I know AE has a small team and this sort of stuff isn't trivial to implement.

AE has a small team? How many people would that include? Just wondering...

[Todd_Kopriva]

> AE has a small team? How many people would that include?

This picture from the After Effects World Conference last year shows nearly the entire team, including software engineering, quality engineering, marketing, UI design, and product management:

After Effects World Conference's Photos - After Effects World Conference | Facebook

[the_dudes]

Thanks for posting the pic! I had a completely wrong idea about the team size of such an important & big application...

[Szalam]

the dudes wrote:

Thanks for posting the pic! I had a completely wrong idea about the team size of such an important & big application...

Right?!?

Once you see the size of the team, it's suddenly very impressive that AE works as well as it does and is capable of as much as it is.

Can you imagine what AE would be like if Adobe put just a little bit more of their resources into properly staffing the AE team?

[Herbert2001]

The size of a development team may have nothing to do with the actual quality and/or feature set of software. Too many devs may actually hav a detrimental impact. The goal is to find the right balance amidst a number of interrelated factors, and also depends on the scope and nature of the project.

For example, Photoline is developed by just two devs (brothers), and is impressive as an image editor.

3DCoat is a brilliant 3d voxel-based sculpt app with excellent 3d painting and uv unwrapping options. Mostly developed by one extremely smart guy.

The quality of the developer(s) involved is far more important than the size of the team in my experience.

[martinc13962311]

Somehow we are supposed to feel good about this? This shows everybody if you needed any further evidence that Adobe could not care less about AE!

[GES-Design]

I'm having a similar experience. I just upgraded to a new Mac Pro and AE CC is just running really slow in general. I am using a plug-ins like Particular and Plexus 2 in a project that I had been working on with my old computer and on the Mac Pro I get the Mac spinning beach ball even if I just want to move a solid. I have not changed my settings. Final rendering seems fine. It's just working on my project is so slow! I even have lag when I scroll up and down my timeline.

[Stephen Barrante]

Was just about to author a very similar post in the interest of find out what settings will allow me to make the most of my new 2013 Mac Pro? Rendering and refresh shouldn't only be marginally better than a 2011 Quad-Core with a 16GB RAM, single 1.3Gig Nvidia GTX570.

Currently running 2014.0.2 (13.0.2.3), on a 3.5ghz 6-Core, with 32GB of RAM and the dual D500s. All the media is being pulled in off a 12TB Thunderbolt 2 RAID 5.

Let's push this machine as far as it can go! I want flames coming out the top, right now I probably couldn't keep my coffee warm

Very interested to see the next update, cheers!

[Stephen Barrante]

It's comforting, while also a bit disturbing, to know that I'm not the only one experiencing these issues. But there's that sinking feeling you get after throwing $4k down on a machine and seeing hardly an improvement on the software you use day-to-day.

@Todd_Kopriva, until recently I've always considered AE to be a rockstar, and I know that's because you have a great team over there. So If there are any opportunities to hand off some updates you are working on to the "power users" so we can put it through some real world testing, I'd be pleased to jump on some pre-release software and do some side-by-side comparisons. Hopefully something constructive can come from all this feedback...

Steve

[Andrew Yoole · Accepted solution]

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.

[GES-Design]

Personally all our Macs are on lease. Our IT department automatically upgrades us about once every two years. I guess shame on our IT department for trusting a software company as tiny and unknown as Adobe to make software where they considered some of their Pro users preferred hardware choices?

[toneproductions]

Can anyone from Adobe chime in and give us a solution or at least a glimmer of hope for using AE effectively on the new mac pro? I too have invested a lot of money into this new machine and am in the same boat. Slow.

[NordicFilmworks]

Still having this problem with my MacPro.

[Static and Motion Studio]

My specs are yours except I'm running D500's instead of 700's. 26Gb dedicated to After Effects and I swear CC2015 (just updated last week) is as slow or if not slower than MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel core I7, 8GB DDR3, but GeForce instead of AMD, running CS5.

Call me naive, but doesn't this just seem odd? Yes I do purge memory, reboot, and all the normal stuff you do to try to get the hamsters to

run faster on the wheel.

Called tech support last week and was asked if file I'm working on was created in an older version. Seriously, why should that have any bearing?

Please Adobe, at the risk of sounding terse, can you provide any answers. If you came out and said there aren't enough of us Mac Pro users for you to maximize performance on our machines to justify the R&D then please do so and maybe I could adjust to the fact I bought the wrong machine.