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?

[RealSting]

Szalam wrote:

RealSting wrote:

...I want After FX to continue but learn the lessons of its users.. if we let Adobe know about things, then they have something to work with and goals to meet.

I for one, will continue to post my findings (and no doubt my frustrations) here constructively (i will try!!) .. Adobe will then have no excuse to rectify the issues if they are presented with all the evidence!

Isn't that right Adobe?!!! 😉

Since this is a user-to-user forum, it's good to share issues we're having in case others have found solutions and to make sure we're not alone, but it's not an official way to contact Adobe. RealSting, post your issues on the forums, by all means, but if you want Adobe to see it, you should also file a bug report or feature request: Feature Request/Bug Report Form

Really?! I thought this was an Adobe forum?!!! Its what it says .. its where the real issues appear to be spelt out!! Why on earth don't Adobe look at their own forum?!

[Szalam]

RealSting wrote:

Really?! I thought this was an Adobe forum?!!! Its what it says .. its where the real issues appear to be spelt out!! Why on earth don't Adobe look at their own forum?!

They do look, but not at every thread and not all the time. It may be maintained by Adobe, but it's a user-to-user forum. That being said, here in the AE forum, we get a lot of input from some of the guys on the product team which is more than can be said for many of the other forums around here. However, the best way to get issues in front of them is the bug report/feature request form. Those go directly to one of the guys on the AE team, not to some Adobe-wide drone which is nice.

[martinc13962311]

Didn't think I could have made a clearer demo of it being a software issue! It has absolutely nothing to do with hardware, how much clearer could I make it!!! Stop buying into Adobe's BS... It has been said by so many people on this thread, just try other software on the same machine and see how well that performs. I'm sure there are challenges in OS X and on Apple's new hardware, but other developers seem to have the talent and ability to deal with it and produce quality products. And not take nearly two years to not fix it!

After Effects as it currently stands is a complete and utter mess. It isn't fit for professional use and no matter how many blinkered fan boys pipe up on here, that fact does not change. If you can't even get import to work, exactly how bad is the development team!!!

I have shown in black and white as simple as I thought was possible that import is completely unusable professinally. I could also show how when rendering, your whole machine gets bogged down due to catastrophic memory leaks. Or the poor GUI performance in 3D space.... Or how Cineware is absolutely useless compared to the old c4d import plugin... This is in AE2014, I won't waste time on pointing out the massive issues with 2015, which is clearly only beta software.

This would be largely pointless as Adobe just tell you 'that's just your experience, we have plenty of happy users'. Denial upon denial, never accepting evidence even when you present what I think is crystal clear evidence of utterly substandard performance issues.

Now this all sounds a little harsh when taken on its own, but let's all stop kidding ourselves. After Effects is not important to Adobe, It's only important to us few fools who have stuck with it like brain washed idiots! Do yourselves a favour and move on, AE is dead for Mac users... Can't speak for PCs... Sad and unwelcome as that news is... It's time to move on and just stop hoping for something that is never going to happen.

Just read back through the thread... It's all hopes, wishes and anger! Nothing has really been fixed in over 20 months! Just accept it and move onto another platform. AE is not professional software... AE is dead...

Unless they change the management and culture of the whole dev team... Can't see anything changing anytime soon.

[RealSting]

UPDATED:

I just found out by increasing the adaptive bit to 1/2 has a big impact on playback!!!! after rendering preview, it does '40-50fps' playback (on 50fps material) instead of the 15-20 fps i had earlier. Still using ProRes 422 HQ. However, turning on the second monitor (preview monitor) options (I output to a 40" Samsung 4k UHD monitor) screws up the real time play back.. and drops back to the terrible 15-20 fps again!!!!

[P.M.B]

@A. Cobb wrote

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.  I do appreciate this application and all it does, particularly for me creatively and professionally.  I just get a bit tired of seeing new releases come every year and this stuff seems to go unaddressed.

Amen to that.   If Adobe puts a priority on just one of the many suggestions made by the community it should be what A. Cobb wrote.   Stop with annual releases and "work in progress" unfinished releases. If you're making earth shaking changes to the base code and such....make them!  And when you're finished. Release it!  Maybe some inboxes need to get filled up with that message.  And then filled up again.

[Dave_LaRonde]

When I first started hanging out in AE forums in '97, a recurring theme among users was, "forget the shiny new bells and whistles for a version, and please concentrate on making AE work better".

You'd think Adobe would have gotten the message after having been clubbed over the head with it for about 20 years.

[Aaron Cobb]

But that is exactly what they are doing!  They are making things better, and in order to do so, they had to temporarily scrap the old, dysfunctional MP architecture.

I really do think a lot of folks here are taking the wrong message from the state of CC 2015.  From my conversations with them, and from the stuff they have said publicly, I am very much persuaded that the AE team gets everything we are saying here, and CC 2015 represents stage 1 in the development of a much more robust After Effects.  Granted, it is easy for me to say this, since I lost nothing from the removal of the old MP architecture -- I never found it to be of any significant benefit.  But I am confident that it needed to be replaced with something else, and I am optimistic that what we are seeing right now (in the absence of MP) is the empty hole where something much more functional will be built.  And, like I said before, anyone who desperately needs MP now can still use CC2014 for those renders.

[Szalam]

Dave LaRonde wrote:

When I first started hanging out in AE forums in '97, a recurring theme among users was, "forget the shiny new bells and whistles for a version, and please concentrate on making AE work better".

You'd think Adobe would have gotten the message after having been clubbed over the head with it for about 20 years.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Adobe HAS gotten the message. CC 2015 is a focus on making AE better. No bells or whistles have been added, they've REALLY cleaned up how expressions work (it's SO MUCH BETTER), and they've begun work an a much improved core rendering architecture.

I mean, it's not very flashy that the UI and renderer run on different processing threads, but it makes a HUGE difference in your day-to day work. I was messing around with Trapcode Tao yesterday on my very old MacBook Pro and it was so refreshing to be able to swing my camera around in buttery smooth real-time (seeing the layer controls, lights, null objects, etc. in the viewport) without having to wait for Tao to render the bajillion polygons I had it creating. It made me smile to work like that.

It's not very flashy that expression errors pop up an error banner instead of stopping your work with an error box with a button to press, but it saves so much time! In the past, you'd break an expression and have to click through several (or sometimes dozens) of error windows as each expression complained. Then, (if that wasn't bad enough) if you pressed undo, it wouldn't re-enable the expressions that broke! So you'd have to hunt through your WHOLE PROJECT for the expressions that you broke and re-enable them. That's all gone! It's so much faster and better and exactly the kind of thing AE needed.

Also, look at the list of changes coming in this month's update! It's all a focus on improving core workflow things (and, of course, fixing the major bugs so that CC 2015 will be useable for everyone).

Yes, for many people, CC 2015 is too buggy to work with at the moment. So I would understand a newbie to AE thinking CC 2015 didn't represent a change for the better because of that. I mean, for some people, it's unusable, so it's obviously not better for them! But you've been around these forums for long enough to understand what's happening with the new architecture and the direction the After Effects team is going. As you well know, they have dedicated the majority of the AE team for over a year to redo the core architecture. That is exactly the kind of thing you're asking for! Yes, it's a bit bumpy right now (and I blame corporate Adobe for that), but the After Effects team is going in the right direction.

[martinc13962311]

I have never seen a more pointless discussion than this thread... And a year and a half after the original post all the self rightoeus brown nosing still hasn't answered the original question! After Effects still doesn't work on a mac and the idea that 2015 is somehow a step in the right direction is a complete false hood. Unless people start being honest about the issues, nothing will ever get addressed. And exactly where does this separation between corporate Adobe and the AE team occur? Pretty sure on all their pay checks is will say "Adobe" and just because you exchange emails with them doesn't make them any less accountable. This entire debate is like being stuck on a nightmare merry go round, having some annoying kid keep throwing up on your lap on every turn!!! Personally I think 20 months is enough time to have made a little more progress, but hey what's 20 months when you have had over a decade of disappointment...

[Dave_LaRonde]

I. for one, am not holding my breath that the next bug fix will be the cure-all, Michael.  I've seen too many of these things come & fall flat on their face.

[martinc13962311]

Only a complete fool would believe it...

[Aaron Cobb]

orchardpost30 wrote:

Only a complete fool would believe it...

Thanks, now I'll have the Doobie Brothers stuck in my head all day. 

[Szalam]

Dave LaRonde wrote:

I. for one, am not holding my breath that the next bug fix will be the cure-all, Michael.  I've seen too many of these things come & fall flat on their face.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I thought it would be a cure-all - especially not for the core issue of this thread which is that the new Mac hardware and OS, for whatever reason, doesn't work well with Adobe software! I try to choose my words carefully. If you'll look at what I wrote, I said the focus of the update was on fixing the bugs to make CC 2015 useable. A focus is not a guaranteed outcome.

I really do hope that the update does fix a lot of the issues because I miss the days when my time on the forums and Reddit was spent offering useful advice on how to creatively use AE instead of just saying, "It's an issue Adobe knows about, here's a workaround in the meantime, and/or downgrade."

I agree with Orchardpost30 in that if we pretend things aren't issues, those issues will never get fixed. But having an optimistic outlook does not necessitate dishonesty about issues - it's just a different perspective on the issues. A glance through my post history will show that I've been a vocal proponent of filing bug reports. That's a great way to call attention to issues and get them in front of the people who can fix the problem. I don't advocate ignoring issues; I advocate sharing them!

[martinc13962311]

‌Optimism is fine, but listening to anything Adobe says these days requires a leap of blind faith and an ability to ignore all evidence to the contrary.

Just go back and watch the WWDC conference from the summer... You would have thought AE and metal were literally the second coming! Oh wait... Todd then comes out and rubbishes the entire claim! Adobe like so many other walks of life, think if you just say something is great and ground breaking that is enough. Just cut the spin and BS and get on with doing your jobs!

Name another instance in business, sport or simply life where no competition has led to a better result. Whilst AE has no competition we will continue to get these half baked, unprofessional and unfinished versions. By all rights and applying the normal rules of business AE should have been buried years ago. It's quite simply a terrible product which has the amazing knack of getting worse with every edition!

[Jonathan Lutjens]

I'm certainly frustrated with the speed issue in AE. While I wouldn't go so far as to say it gets worse with every edition, I would say that it has NOT gotten tangibly faster over the past 3-4 years. It's fantastic how much people can add by creating scripts and plugins. As someone who just doesn't understand coding, being able to visit AEscripts.com for a wide range of 3rd party tools is awesome.

Let's also not forget that over the last few years this software is being used on major motion pictures in hollywood. If there's anyone that has a reason to be picky about animation/vfx software, it's post houses in LA.

All that being said, I still think Adobe needs to pay closer attention to A. how the software utilizes current hardware and B. how they handle updates and "new" releases.

If you're releasing a new version, every change made should be faster, more intuitive and NOTHING should be a step backward.

[martinc13962311]

‌Don't believe what you read... AE is certainly not being used as the go to compositor in Hollywood or any other big VFX company! For motion graphics on a title sequence perhaps, but for comping and CG passes I'm afraid it's just not the go to program Adobe would have you believe. Which goes back to my exact point...

[Herbert2001]

True. For comping and high level VFX Nuke, Fusion, Houdini, Maya, etc. are used. After Effects has no place there, but is used at times for end credits animations for example, and smaller parts (such as screen animations running on computers in scenes). But that is where its role ends usually.

[Pat481]

Could not agree more. Well said.

[Aaron Cobb]

Gutter-Fish wrote:

@A. Cobb wrote

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.  I do appreciate this application and all it does, particularly for me creatively and professionally.  I just get a bit tired of seeing new releases come every year and this stuff seems to go unaddressed.

Amen to that.   If Adobe puts a priority on just one of the many suggestions made by the community it should be what A. Cobb wrote.   Stop with annual releases and "work in progress" unfinished releases. If you're making earth shaking changes to the base code and such....make them!  And when you're finished. Release it!  Maybe some inboxes need to get filled up with that message.  And then filled up again.

Not that I claim or deserve any kind of authority here, but just FYI I'm on record as approving of the "work in progress" nature of the CC 2015 release.  I think it is very encouraging, and that it shows that the After Effects team is working to address a lot of the issues folks are complaining about here.  What surprises me is that so many others here don't seem to see CC 2015, even in its current state, as a needed course correction.  I understand that it is disappointing that it doesn't yet address a lot of the raw performance problems (particularly for people with newer Mac Pros), but I honestly believe the new render architecture will make these improvements possible in a way that the old architecture never could.

[P.M.B]

A. Cobb wrote:

Not that I claim or deserve any kind of authority here, but just FYI I'm on record as approving of the "work in progress" nature of the CC 2015 release.  I think it is very encouraging, and that it shows that the After Effects team is working to address a lot of the issues folks are complaining about here.  What surprises me is that so many others here don't seem to see CC 2015, even in its current state, as a needed course correction.  I understand that it is disappointing that it doesn't yet address a lot of the raw performance problems (particularly for people with newer Mac Pros), but I honestly believe the new render architecture will make these improvements possible in a way that the old architecture never could.

I get it...it's like if the channel changer on your TV occasionally skipped certain channels or had a slight delay.  So it goes for repairs and gets returned to you with the channel changing module completely removed and no ability to change the channel.  That's a good thing because the channel changing wasn't functioning right and needed to be fixed so at least it's absence, and my inability to change the channel at all is an indication that it is being worked on and that when they do restore that critical module it will be working correctly.  Yah that makes perfect sense.   It didn't work that good so totally gut, remove and start to tinker with all that needs fixing and then when the pieces are lying everywhere release it as an annual update.  Genius 

I understand the OP was not about 2015.  Still...

[Aaron Cobb]

‌

Gutter-Fish wrote:

I get it...it's like if the channel changer on your TV occasionally skipped certain channels or had a slight delay.  So it goes for repairs and gets returned to you with the channel changing module completely removed and no ability to change the channel.  That's a good thing because the channel changing wasn't functioning right and needed to be fixed so at least it's absence, and my inability to change the channel at all is an indication that it is being worked on and that when they do restore that critical module it will be working correctly.  Yah that makes perfect sense.  It didn't work that good so totally gut, remove and start to tinker with all that needs fixing and then when the pieces are lying everywhere release it as an annual update.  Genius

I understand the OP was not about 2015.  Still...

Except you left out the part where you get to keep and continue to use the old TV.

[P.M.B]

A. Cobb wrote:

Except you left out the part where you get to keep and continue to use the old TV.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm perfectly happy using 2014.  The way I see it for $50 a month it would take many years without an update before I felt I was being ripped off.  I just resent people who try to argue that 2015 is an improvement.  I get it...the work they are doing is moving in the right direction and I'm confident its being improved and I have no problem using 2014 until the improvements are completed.  But if you try to tell me that 2015 is an improvement over 2014....If you try to argue that it's roll-out was proper..I'm going to call bull-****.  Because that's what it is.

Anyway it doesn't need to be argued anymore.  I'm glad you're happy with the yearly releases of broken software.  Personally I would prefer a stable release every three or four years.   

[Szalam]

Gutter-Fish wrote:

Don't get me wrong.  I'm perfectly happy using 2014.  The way I see it for $50 a month it would take many years without an update before I felt I was being ripped off.  I just resent people who try to argue that 2015 is an improvement.  I get it...the work they are doing is moving in the right direction and I'm confident its being improved and I have no problem using 2014 until the improvements are completed.  But if you try to tell me that 2015 is an improvement over 2014....If you try to argue that it's roll-out was proper..I'm going to call bull-****.  Because that's what it is.

Anyway it doesn't need to be argued anymore.  I'm glad you're happy with the yearly releases of broken software.  Personally I would prefer a stable release every three or four years.   

I agree with this.

If CC 2015 doesn't work, CC 2014 is still a worthwhile expenditure for quite a while.

I understand the resentment you feel. For me, CC 2015 is an improvement, but that's because I haven't run into the show-stopping bugs many others on this forum have. For me, the benefits of the updates outweigh the annoyances and bugs on my system with my workflow.

But I know that isn't the case for many folks. And I'm trying to get better about communicating that. (And I'm sorry for any anger my earlier, oblivious posts may have caused.)

I agree that there are way too many bugs for Adobe to roll it out in the way that they did - especially with it defaulting to remove the old versions! The After Effects team even publicly said that was a bad idea and I think we would all agree with them!

I would have preferred a "this is a first look at part of the new architecture - try it if you want". That would have gotten people excited (like I am) about the direction AE is taking and they would have patiently waited for the improved version if they didn't want to mess with the potential issues.

But Adobe just marketed it like a regular update which was not cool. They could have avoided this whole poop storm if they had just been up front about it. The After Effects team was very public about the state of AE CC 2015, so I'm not complaining about them, but too few people read the AE team's blog! Most people just look at Adobe's website and there wasn't anything there to indicate the fundamental changes that were occurring. So I guess the people I have a problem with are the Adobe marketing folks and whatever corporate nincompoop decided that CC 2015 was the time to remove all the older versions. SERIOUSLY. That could not have come at a worse time.

Again, I apologize for any resentment I may have caused. In the future, I will try to do better. I was just too excited about the direction AE was taking and didn't respond as I should have to folks who aren't as into using AE as I am. I just assume others research things because I do. (Especially when it comes to updates - I don't understand not researching them before installing.) I just really like my creative software and I follow news about it a lot. Right now, I'm super-excited about the upcoming update for X-Particles and I'm on Insydium's Vimeo page every day hoping for more updates! X-Particles 3.5 releases on November 30 - Christmas comes early/I'll have something to give thanks about! (Also, that may be the same day as the AE update since they've said "the end of the month". If so, that will be a good day for lots of folks here too!)

[P.M.B]

Szalam wrote:

I understand the resentment you feel. For me, CC 2015 is an improvement, but that's because I haven't run into the show-stopping bugs many others on this forum have. For me, the benefits of the updates outweigh the annoyances and bugs on my system with my workflow.

But I know that isn't the case for many folks. And I'm trying to get better about communicating that. (And I'm sorry for any anger my earlier, oblivious posts may have caused.)

I agree that there are way too many bugs for Adobe to roll it out in the way that they did - especially with it defaulting to remove the old versions! The After Effects team even publicly said that was a bad idea and I think we would all agree with them!

I would have preferred a "this is a first look at part of the new architecture - try it if you want". That would have gotten people excited (like I am) about the direction AE is taking and they would have patiently waited for the improved version if they didn't want to mess with the potential issues.

But Adobe just marketed it like a regular update which was not cool. They could have avoided this whole poop storm if they had just been up front about it. The After Effects team was very public about the state of AE CC 2015, so I'm not complaining about them, but too few people read the AE team's blog! Most people just look at Adobe's website and there wasn't anything there to indicate the fundamental changes that were occurring. So I guess the people I have a problem with are the Adobe marketing folks and whatever corporate nincompoop decided that CC 2015 was the time to remove all the older versions. SERIOUSLY. That could not have come at a worse time.

Again, I apologize for any resentment I may have caused. In the future, I will try to do better. I was just too excited about the direction AE was taking and didn't respond as I should have to folks who aren't as into using AE as I am. I just assume others research things because I do. (Especially when it comes to updates - I don't understand not researching them before installing.) I just really like my creative software and I follow news about it a lot. Right now, I'm super-excited about the upcoming update for X-Particles and I'm on Insydium's Vimeo page every day hoping for more updates! X-Particles 3.5 releases on November 30 - Christmas comes early/I'll have something to give thanks about! (Also, that may be the same day as the AE update since they've said "the end of the month". If so, that will be a good day for lots of folks here too!)

I appreciate that.  I have no resentment toward you personally.  I don't even know you.  I'm glad you are excited about using 2015.  I am excited about using it too...hopefully it wont be too long before I get start working with it.  I didn't sign up to be a beta tester.

[sdandrus]

I just want to throw out there that today I decided to check out Blackmagic's Fusion. First of all it has a free version that works up to 4k res and is fairly robust as a compositor just by itself. For the "studio" version it's about 900 bucks which makes it well within the realm of purchasing as compared to software like Nuke. I was AMAZED to see all of my cores, all 56 of them, running at full speed as Fusion powered through my rendered C4D frames like butter. The performance difference between this free software and a product that I have to pay monthly for was excruciating to experience. I use AE about 50% to composite and about 50% for motion graphics. I'm starting to think that maybe Apple Motion with it's real-time capabilities (id have to make my system a hackintosh to run it but BFD) might be the way to go for Motion Graphics (I think I paid 50 bucks for it in the app store?) and a product like Fusion (Free) for compositing. Seriously, If you're not intimidated by a node based interface (I actually prefer it for compositing) and you don't do 100% motion graphics I suggest downloading the free version and just take a look at the insane performance difference so you can at the very least see what your machine is capable of doing. 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.