How to get to use all 4 GB

[KOHR]

Hey you guys, I've just been wondering for a while now, how do I get After Effects (and Premiere Pro for that matter) to recognize all 4 GB of RAM that my computer has to offer? I read somewhere that 2 GB is the default limit unless manually changed.... but I have no idea how to go about this. I have a computer completely devoted to editing HD video, but half of its RAM is wasted! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: Instead of cluttering the forum and making another thread, I'll just ask my other question here.-- It would appear that my Adobe Dynamic Link is not functioning correctly! Everytime I attempt to use it, my after effects composition is 4:3 while my Premiere Pro composition is 16:9! Does anyone know a fix for this? When I try to change the aspect ratio in the Comp settings, it only seems to mess the image up further! Thanks!

Btw, I'm editing this all on a PC with Windows XP. I use Premiere Pro CS3 and After Effects CS3.

[Dewy-dB]

Mac or PC?

I have 10.5 GB in my mac but I'm out of luck. I know you and max it out a hair more on a PC,.. there's a thread in here somewhere if you search for it.

- G

[KOHR]

I'm running it all on a custom built PC

[tcindie]

I'm pretty sure you can only get access to 3gig on a 32bit XP system.

[Neal Buconjic]

Windows XP (32 bit) has a memory cap of 3.25GB of RAM, even if you had 8GB installed in the motherboard.

[joshtownsend]

It's a quick fix to get windows to accept the 3gb limit. Just google "after effects 3gb ram limit" and you'll find how to raise the ram limit......

[Neil Rowe]

for your AE comp, make suret the pixel aspect ration correction is turned on its a button beneath your monitor window. then check the settings of your comp and make sure they are 1.2 PAR , and otherwise correct as well. Then interpret the footage elements in the AE comp by right clicking them in the project bin and make sure they are listed as 1.2 PAR as well.

for using 3 GB in AE (which is the most it will ever use regardless of how much system ram you have and what your o.s. supports.. if you want faster rendering, use a multi core machine with more cores. or netweork rendering to speed things up .. just remember that each core in the machine uses a minimum of 400 mb of ram while rendering so you need to adjust your memory settings accordingly to allow for the left over ram to be used up by the additional processors being used while you are rendering) .. aaaaaanyway. visit the microsoft site here:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

to overcome the 2GB limit. its a setting in the boot.ini file which is only switcheable in XP PRO + ..so you need to upgrade to use it .. i havent yet and dont really feel the need to. at best AE would use the full 3 GB and your os would be left with the rest of what you have up to the maximum of what it can actually address. but since you can adjust your memory settings accordingly to have each core render well within its memory needs to begin with, your performance increase is only going to be marginal if any from the hassle of swithing your O.S. XP server edition will work as far as i know, but i dont know about vista ..and dont really care to be honest.

[pinakbeth]

for using 3 GB in AE (which is the most it will ever use regardless of how much system ram you have and what your o.s. supports.. if you want faster rendering, use a multi core machine with more cores. or netweork rendering to speed things up .. just remember that each core in the machine uses a minimum of 400 mb of ram while rendering so you need to adjust your memory settings accordingly to allow for the left over ram to be used up by the additional processors being used while you are rendering) .. aaaaaanyway. visit the microsoft site here:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

to overcome the 2GB limit. its a setting in the boot.ini file which is only switcheable in XP PRO + ..so you need to upgrade to use it .. i havent yet and dont really feel the need to. at best AE would use the full 3 GB and your os would be left with the rest of what you have up to the maximum of what it can actually address. but since you can adjust your memory settings accordingly to have each core render well within its memory needs to begin with, your performance increase is only going to be marginal if any from the hassle of swithing your O.S. XP server edition will work as far as i know, but i dont know about vista ..and dont really care to be honest.

http://www.fruitygreen.com/Sampler/aftereffects.jpg


Here I am running XP64bit, 8core Xeons, 8Gig Ram, Adobe CS3.

Besides the operating system (235M RAM) I have running, I also got Windows Onscreen keyboard (3.4M RAM) and AfterEffects (Approximately 4.4 GIG RAM).

Now it peaks sometimes higher than 4.42 GiG RAM , but it's nearly impossible to capture at that exact moment. But you get the point. AfterEffects can utilize more than 3 gigs. More than 4Gigs in this case.

Never messed with the boot.ini file, however I tried to turn off all the Windows services that is not relevant to Rendering Content.

I am waiting for further updates so there still might be hope for even greater rendering increases.

As long XP64bit is around I'll stick to it because of my experiences with Vista .

There are some tutorial on how to manage your RAM with AfterEffects Preferences with CS3. It's not all about having more , but rather more on how to use it.

P.S. The link above was last Updated: February 9, 2005. and excluded XP64 for the PAE.

[Neil Rowe]

Each instance of the program can only allocate 3GB on a windows machine.

..As i understand it ( and correct me if im wrong anyone..cause id like to have it cleared up if im off) I would assume that the reason you are getting more addressed is because the additionally spawned rendering programs are accessing RAM for each of the additional available processors on the machine. If your check your task manager you likely have 8 instances of AE listed each with thier own small memory usages because AE allocates ram for each additional process using a different processor and ram allocation on the machine when you have render multiple frames suimultaneously turned on. and without it turned on it can still use multiple proccesses to render single frames faster. @ 4.4 GB each process is likely getting only the minimum of 400 MB of RAM needed to function when rendering multiple frames simultaneously. anyway. This can be true regardless of whether you raise the limit of the program to utilize 3GB or it can ony use 2GB .. when you have 4 or 8 or however many copies of the render programming running .. your total usage of RAm from multiple instances of the rendering app can total more than 3 GB as long as each rendering app has enough memory left to function after the main app and your O.S. ect has taken its share. the question however isnt whether the singular main app can use more than 3 GB to gain speed, because it cannot. and the question is not whether installing more RAM can help. its whether the main program and each additional render applets is going to benefit from having acces to 3 Gb rather than 2 by flipping the 3GB switch. any render only needs the maximum RAM value for the most intesive single frame in the comp in order to get the job done, and will only use that much RAM at most during the render process. so you would only benefit from using 3 GB of ram over 2 if you have a frame that actually requires more than 2 GB of RAM to render. otherwise there is no real benefit to the extra RAM from the switch. Personally I have yet to require 2GB to render a single frame, but I'm sure there are peole that do it all the time when working with 4K . but working in 1080p ..even with plenty of layers and effects ect. has never required it for me so theres no benefit to switchnig an O.S. to flip a switch and give the program something it wont use ..again unless you actually have frames needed more than 2GB to render to a maximum of 3GB per frame on a windows machine.

[joshtownsend]

What about the advantage of having a longer RAM preview? I thought that was the main reason for the added Ram when used with AE.

[Neil Rowe]

well pending what your doing and need thats quite certainly one great reason to up the limit if you have to have longer previews. The disk cache, lower preview quality, render que of work area, and any preview through dynamic link are happy alternatives because they all enable much longer previews. but if you need the higher quality or frame rate or just a really long run to preview outside of rendering it then its certainly something worth looking into. ..its important to understand that my opinion isnt that it wouldnt be a safe "better" to have a capeable O.S. with the 3GB switch set. my point is just to say that most people really dont have a real reason to go switching the O.S. and changing the switch aside from simply wanting the program to have more RAM than they really need. and in regards to the originator of this post im tyring to make him question whether he really needs it or not. because upgrading your O.S. generally costs both time and money that may not be well spent if its just for the sake of hulking out the machine to no real advantage. and if time and money are not of concern than people can knock themselves out. I just want people to realise exactly what is is they have to gain if anything from making a decision that may affect them financially or otherwise so that they can make an informed decision based on thier own personal needs. If the question had been "how do i get longer RAM previews?" i would have told him to look into setting the switch on a new O.S. but most people asking how to get AE to use more RAM are looing for a performance increase ..unbeknownst to them that its not really going to make things faster or possible for them unless thier projects actually require it.

[joshtownsend]

If the question had been "how do i get longer RAM previews?" i would have told him to look into setting the switch on a new O.S. but most people asking how to get AE to use more RAM are looing for a performance increase ..unbeknownst to them that its not really going to make things faster or possible for them unless thier projects actually require it.

Neil your the man and your posts were very informative but you basically said you 'assumed' he was looking for faster performance. I was just pointing out that there is a valid reason to have the three gig switch. I use Ram previews all the time and if I get a few more seconds of Ram preview, that extra gig is worth it.

Just pointing that out in friendly way because I totally respect you man.

[oneinfiniteloop]

IMO, most people don't know how to build a comp effeciently and they think throwing RAM at the problem is a solution. With CS3, most RAM issues should be a thing of the past since it spawns the extra processes and those act like the speculative previewing that Nucleo Pro offers...something like that.

Ultimately, what is the original poster trying to do with all that "extra" RAM, that should be the question...

[Neil Rowe]

Neil your the man and your posts were very informative but you basically said you 'assumed' he was looking for faster performance. I was just pointing out that there is a valid reason to have the three gig switch. I use Ram previews all the time and if I get a few more seconds of Ram preview, that extra gig is worth it.

Just pointing that out in friendly way because I totally respect you man.

and i respect you as well as completly agree that if you need/want the extra ram preview time then that would be how you would get it (assuming youve alredy allocated as much ram as you can to the process without hindering your rendering ability due to overcommitting RAM). You are also very right to say that i am completely assuming he is looking for a performance increase rather than a longer RAM preview, and if you hadnt mentioned it, i would never have even thought of mentioning it as a benefit of the increased memory allocation for the program.

[KOHR]

Ultimately, what is the original poster trying to do with all that "extra" RAM, that should be the question...


Hmm, I suppose you guys are right, maybe I should be asking the other question instead... How can I speed up my render times in After Effects and possibly even CS3?

Btw, thanks for all your help so far!

[Neil Rowe]

the speed options are. make sure your only running AE when rendering and not any other silly background prgrams, Using faster RAM, faster dedicated HDD, Faster CPU, more cores on the CPU .. basically anything that would speed up your PC n general will speed up your rendering. and then theres network rendering.

[oneinfiniteloop]

A few others that will help dramatically, render nothing but QT's with the Animation codec (the default when you send something to the queue), and I guess on Windows uncompressed AVI's are fine. Trying to render web sized previews, etc jacks the times way up. I can render out a full res Animation QT faster than an MP4 resized to 320x240.

Also, building your comp's effeciently and knowing where and how things should go will help immensely, but that takes time to learn.

[DeadEyesSmiling]

I really hope I'm not just completely crapping all over what Neil said, but....

I'm running CS3, and I just purchased a quad-core and upgraded to 4GB ram. I'm also using Vista. Right now, I'm only working with SD, but will soon be expanding to HD, and want to make sure that all of my performance settings are optimal for when that time comes. What steps do I take? Do I follow the info on the Adobe site for RAM optimization? How do I allocate ram to each processor core? How do I tell AE to pay attention to the allocation and all 4 cores? I'm not really looking for a performance enhancer right now, I just want to know that I have the settings at what is going to take most advantage of what I've already spent money on. Thanks!

-DES

[Neil Rowe]

AE automatically uses all your cores (or at least as many cores as is can with your amount of RAM and current memory settings for the app and amount of RAM needed for frames in the project). either for rendering the same frame, or subsequent frames at the same time. the only setting you can select to change if it uses them for a single frame ata a time, or sequentiakl frames simultaneously (one core per sequential frame .. so youd be rendering 4 frames at once) is in your memory settings in the preferences dialog. theres a little check box for selecting "render sequential frames simultaneously) or whatever it says exactly. if you turn that on you have each core work on its own sequential frame, which speeds things up. with it off, they all work on the same frame. AE will automatically decide if it has enough memory to have more processors do EITHER function, and will tell you right next to that box how many additional proccessors will be used based on your current memory settings. you should pretty much set your memory usage so that the main app uses enouogh, but leaves at least 400MB left over for each additional processor youd like to use. with only 4GB of ram, it may be hard to get the right settings for all 4 processors to be firing pending your project, but Just tweak your settings to see how far you can push it without sacrificing too much RAM from the main app. the help function of AE might explain this better if yuo just serach on multi proccessor, or multi core rendering.

[DeadEyesSmiling]

Awesome, Neil. Thank you very much!

-DES