Open GL Card, Advise needed

[MagicCat]

Hello All

I would appreciate it if someone can help me here. I am starting to use AE for a lot of different basic FX and CG manipulation. Over the years, I have thought that buying a good open GL card would boost my rendering speed, time and preview quality. Right now, there is just a Stock 256meg Nvidia FX card in my Intel Duo core machine. (Win XP Pro w/SP2 and AE7Pro, 2 gigs of memory, all workspace and media is VIA External USB 2.0 HDD) Every time I make up my mind to purchase something like a used Quadro card, the reps from various on line stores tell me it wont do anything for my speed needs and try to sell me faster computers or some card with built in render chips like the Matrox Edit cards.

Personally, I feel this is inaccurate info. I thought I would take this question directly to those who would know first hand rather than those who have something financial to gain from my dillemma.

I dont have 800 dollars to drop on a Card, but I do have 2 to 400 to spend on the one PCI express slot on the machine I was going to upgrade. I would probably get a used card from a E-Market/Auction type site we will leave nameless. Is this worth it, if so, detailed info and reasons are warmly welcomed?

Also, While Im at it here, why does it seem AE is very poor at handling Audio. There seems to be no real time audio and it is impossible to edit FX to Audio with AE. I am assuming I am doing something wrong. It does not make sense after what I see people put out with AE, knowing that much of thier edits are Audio Driven/Timed.


I hope I have provided enough info for someone to give me a failry accurate response. I know what it is like to have someone call and say, "My car wont start, how much will it cost to make it go?"


Many thanks in advance

MagicCat
David Walker
http://mediamagicproductions.com (http://mediamagicproductions.com/)

[milksac]

Regarding the OpenGL card. If I had $800 to spend I would spend it on RAM. Most AE users turn off or disable OpenGL because it causes problems than it solves. Also, OpenGL cards will speed RAM previews but will not speed rendering. IMHO, they're not worth the money.

Regarding the audio issue, are you hitting the period on the numeric keypad to preview the audio? For timing purposes I'll add markers where there's a change in the audio or a beat that I want to land on, etc. Also, don't use MP3 audio. Convert your audio to AIFF or WAV for stable performance.

[MagicCat]

Thank you, that is interesting. So it is pretty much CPU and Ram dependent, if I am reading into this right?

I have 2 gigs of ram right now and a Duo Core 1.6 something. I could go up in Ram a bit but I think XP does not see much past 3 or 4 gigs.

I think I may have already turned off the Open GL because yes, I noticed it seems to slow things down considerably.

My board supports higher CPU's, I think it may even support the newer Dual, Duo Core's (I think they call them the Extreme or something) Ive never upgraded my machines until current CPU clock rates increase by 100% or more. Maybe that would that be something to look into sometime in the very near future?

I had also thought about buying a pair of the 10,000 RPM Sata Drives. I know it wont do alot for little tasks and quick render's, but Im a believer in giving the system everything It wants. All the little things add up to 1 big increase IMHO.

Regarding Audio, I am not hitting anything but the space bar or Ram preview. I will try this right away as Im doing a project in it right now.

[milksac]

Yeah, I don't think AE will see anything past 2 or 3 gigs of RAM. Note - hitting the period on the numeric keypad loads up the audio into RAM. For previewing sound and picture hit "0" on the numeric keypad.

[MagicCat]

Thanks for the Info. That helped immensely. So much of the time, I end up having to put these programs into use so I never really get a chance to learn them past the needs of whatever it is I have to accomplish. AE is such a cool prog, I hope to get more time to learn it. I know I have barely scratched the surface.

If I were software, I would be personally offended be people like me, Using them like a bloomin idiot and never giving a chance to show what I can do. Instead I ask very basic things like Sit, Stay, Rollover and Bark. I know it can probably fly and make me dinner if I asked it to....

Thank God for places like this Forum, Im so very grateful for all the good folks here and having access to a what I can only call a "Virtual University". I bet if somebody added it all up, there would be a couple thousand years of combined experience on this forum. I wont even get into cultural insights and experiences that can be shared as it pertains to the industry.

I cannot call anyone of my friends as say, "Hey, I'm doing a shoot, in a 3 foot high cave in Nigeria and the walls are purple. Can you suggest any helpful hints for lighting this?

But you could do that here and I bet you would get a response. Now how cool is that?!

[Drew Ott]

Now how cool is that?!

Perty cool!