HOW TO USE AE7 WITH INTEL MACS
by Graham Jones
on
Nov 10, 2006 at 6:20:18 am
Hi all,
Though officially unsupported, I had no problems running After Effects 6.5 on my Mac Pro (Quad 2.66, 3GB RAM)-- as a matter of fact, it is virtually identical in performance to the Dual G5/2.5 I use at work (4.5GB RAM), which is better than I would have expected for a machine running in an emulation environment.
So... After this success I thought I would try upgrading to AE7 -- and experienced the same memory errors and crashes when exporting that other users have noted. I've heard that GridIron Nucleo fixes the problem, but did not feel like dropping $150 on it if I could find a workaround.
Various notes:
- Mac Pro 2 x Dual-core Xeon 2.66, MacOS 10.4.8
- Final Cut Studio 5.1 on same machine
- 3GB RAM, all Apple - 2x512 on one riser, 2x1GB on the other
- Did NOT use Migration Assistant (no one who uses pro apps should)
- trashed prefs and workspaces, repaired permissions
- tried lowering AE's memory settings to 50%
- all of this didn't work, until...
Finally SUCCESS:
- Closed all other Rosetta apps and processes, lowered the memory settings WAY down (max memory to 30%, Max RAM Cache to 15%) -- and this thing renders like smoke! On the latest render, I accidentally left the preview window open (which slows down renders) -- yet because of the ultra-low memory settings, it rendered more than TWICE as fast as the G5 or Mac Pro in AE 6.5! If I get a chance, I will try rendering the same file in AE 7 on the Dual G5, to see if the AE7 upgrade also increases the G5's render speed. To make sure I'm being scientific, I'm also re-rendering the comp with no preview window open.
My theory: I've heard Rosetta apps together can run into problems if they collectively want more than 1.5GB of RAM... They hit some kind of memory limit, though the system won't tell you anything.
This project's render times:
AE 6.5, Dual G5 2.5/4.5GB RAM: 53 min, 34 sec.
AE 6.5, Mac Pro Quad 2.66/3GB RAM: 54 min, 44 sec.
AE 7.0, Mac Pro Quad 2.66/3GB RAM: 24 min, 21 sec. (with comp window open)
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!!-- UPDATED with G5/AE7 by Graham Jones on Nov 10, 2006 at 4:34:02 pm
Hi,
I don't think more RAM over about 3GB would make much difference, as it seems Rosetta hits a memory ceiling at around 1.5GB.
NEWS FLASH:
I just finished rendering the same comp on my Dual G5/2.5 at work, now with AE 7.0. My Mac Pro renders it 40% faster, despite having less memory, and the memory settings severely limited! Here is the full set of banchmarks:
AE 6.5, Dual G5 2.5/4.5GB RAM: 53 min, 34 sec.
AE 6.5, Mac Pro Quad 2.66/3GB RAM: 54 min, 44 sec.
AE 7.0, Dual G5 2.5GHz/4.5GB RAM: 39 min, 36 sec. (AE memory set at 100%)
AE 7.0, Mac Pro Quad 2.66/3GB RAM: 24 min, 21 sec. (AE memory set at 30%)
Yippee!
Just remember: THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE THAT IT WILL WORK FOR YOU. It is an UNSUPPORTED solution.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!!-- UPDATED with G5/AE7 by Greg Jones on Nov 10, 2006 at 7:03:41 pm
Thanks for the info Graham. I'm going to give it a try. I was having a hell of a time rendering out a 1280x720 59.94 comp. It would get about 1 minute in and give me a image buffer error. I ended up having to take the project into the G5 room and it rendered out fine. I'm actually taking your advice and re-rendering it out with your specs. I'll let you know what happens.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!!-- UPDATED with G5/AE7 by Graham Jones on Nov 10, 2006 at 7:29:13 pm
Hi Greg,
If my theories are correct, you may want to set your percentage even lower... the key is to not break the 1.5GB barrier, and allow for a little headroom. For me, 50% of 3GB (1.5) did NOT work, but 30% of 3GB (0.9GB) DID work... so for your 4GB, you may want to try starting with 25%.
Of course my theory may be off, so you may want to experiment a little, and please make sure to post back with your results.
Also, don't forget to open Activity Monitor and quit any non-Intel processes you don't need.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!!-- UPDATED with G5/AE7 by Greg Jones on Nov 10, 2006 at 8:18:14 pm
So far using the settings that you mentioned earlier my render is moving around 40% faster than it was before. It's also gotten a lot farther than it did before. Before it would get around 20% into the render and it would crash. The render is now 50% done and so far so good.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by Graham Jones on Nov 10, 2006 at 9:38:10 pm
Hi Greg,
how did it go?
And has anyone else tried this? I'd be curious to know your results. If we pool our resources, I think it's pretty likely we'll get AE7 working 100% on Intel -- just don't tell Adobe!
Incidentally, if this doesn't do it for you, I gather from some web research that most reasons for AE7 not working on Intel stem around memory issues, except for a couple of Quicktime conflicts I have seen (Popwire WMV components and some Avid components may need to be removed from /Library/Quicktime).
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by Greg Jones on Nov 10, 2006 at 10:03:01 pm
Worked like a charm. I checked my activity monitor and it was using a lot more of my processors than before. I think you solved the problem. It rendered without a hitch. I'll try to get the word out about this so everyone can benefit. Again thanks for solving the problem.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by Steve Forde on Nov 10, 2006 at 11:59:45 pm
I hadn't heard that our software (GridIron Nucleo) would solve the problem, but based on your results I now understand why.
The key here is Rosetta is a RAM pig. It uses a silly amount of RAM just to do the most trivial of functions (it is doing all its code conversions and endian swapping in memory from PPC to Intel). Our product, and your method restricts the amount of RAM that AE is allowed to use, thereby dramatically reducing the RAM footprint that Rosetta needs to do operations.
Obviously Rosetta was not designed for huge memory applications like AE, so it runs into trouble when huge chunks of memory are allocated and essentially shuts down (therefore starving AE of more memory it thinks it should get - causing the buffer errors).
All this being said, I would imagine that your method should work for most eveyone that is encountering these errors. Many users may not be utilizing RAM heavily in the first place, and therefore not hit the issue at all, but anyone doing HD, 16 or 32 bit etc etc should find this a lifesaver.
Ironically Nucleo only solved this problem as a side effect of not trying to take too much RAM from the foreground instance of AE (Nucleo uses background instances), so we really ratchet down how much RAM each can access. (and therefore essentially follow your model)
Since the product is designed to optimize render performance (not provide stability on Mac Pro's) I would recommend your method to everyone with an Intel Mac. Now if you want to run your CPU's at 100%, thereby further reducing render time while still keeping your RAM cache maxed out for longer previews.....thats a Nucleo story....;)
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by Graham Jones on Nov 11, 2006 at 12:37:00 am
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your detailed and informative comments. It's great to understand a little better why my theory is proving successful, and that people have further options available with Nucleo. I actually would have bought it first, but cash is tight, so was driven to find a free solution. I hope you sell a lot of copies now that people know that there are sound reasons that it helps the issue.
Hey, I think it would be a great idea for you to solicit a test group of some kind, to quantify and test to what extent Nucleo can help, and also what are the ideal memory settings for the best performance. In your experience, is Nucleo working in all areas with AE7 on Intel Macs? I know you wouldn't want to say "we are the official solution" when even Adobe is shying away from supporting the boatloads of people who want to make this work. However, unofficial solutions are great to have!
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by creative bloc on Nov 12, 2006 at 5:28:48 pm
So here is a question. All examples so far have been based off machines with 3 GB of ram. Since AE has a 3GB limit do those of us that have more ram (5GB) use our total ram amount or 3GB to calculate the percentage that equals 1.5GB?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by Graham Jones on Nov 12, 2006 at 6:33:28 pm
Hi,
Great question; I am going more on observations than hard facts. Would you mind please testing and getting back to us?
It could be more than an interesting coincidence that 1.5GB is half of 3GB. Maybe Rosetta protects only half of the available memory. Or, maybe 1.5GB is the limit no matter how much memory you have.
Just keep in mind that when I tell AE it can use exactly 1.5GB, it still crashes--- this apparently does not allow enough headroom. You might want to try setting it at 2GB as a starting point. Make sure you have a high res comp with a few filters going, adjustment layer(s), maybe a nested comp or two. If it works, try raising by 500MB at a time. If it doesn't, try lowering by 500MB at a time.
I look forward to your results.
If anyone has any hard facts on this apparent Rosetta memory limit, can you please enlighten us?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by blockhead on Nov 13, 2006 at 8:36:26 pm
So I've got a macbookpro with 2gb ram. looking for suggestions as to the easy way around this general adobe problem. should i use ae6.5, ae7, restrict the memory, use rosetta? curious if there's any benchmarks out there but i'd rather get a personable response.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by Graham Jones on Nov 13, 2006 at 9:46:44 pm
Hi,
keeping in mind that it is an unsupported configuration no matter what you do, I have found that AE 7 is at least 50% faster on my Mac Pro than AE 6.5 was. As long as you follow the instructions here, you should be able to get it to work with no problems.
However, this is NOT a guarantee. You may want to wait to see if someone with a similar computer to yours pipes in their results. So far everyone I have seen posting has been using 3GB of RAM or more, and most have Mac Pros.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by PSimpso on Nov 14, 2006 at 3:12:12 am
I'm looking into buying a new computer primarily for AE 7. Is all of this enough to recommend buying a Mac Pro instead of a Quad G5? Speaking of which, all of the G5/Mac Pro comparisons so far have only been with Dual G5s, I'd be curious to know how the Quad G5 stacks up to the Mac Pro.
If I were to buy a Mac Pro for AE 7; is 3GB of ram a good amount?
Will a blackmagic decklink card still work for previewing the work?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by Graham Jones on Nov 14, 2006 at 4:04:34 am
Hi,
You may find this article interesting: http://www.barefeats.com/quad06.html -- it compares a test comp and finds the Quad G5/2.5 to be 8% slower at After Effects than a Mac Pro 3.0 -- considering that AE on an Intel Mac will gain speed next year when AE becomes Intel-native, the exact same Quad G5 will lag much farther behind the exact same Mac Pro.
Plus, the Mac Pro is chip-upgradable with standard Intel chips... not that it will be cheap (nor Apple-supported), it is said that 4-core Xeon chips should be able to swap out the existing 2-core chips in a Mac Pro... So while the Quad G5/2.5 will remain a Quad G5/2.5, you may find your Mac Pro is an 8-core machine in a year or two.
My personal experience is that I have more crashes and problems with AE on a G5 than I do on my Mac Pro. However, I use my Mac Pro more for Final Cut Pro than AE, and only just recently upgraded to AE 7, so I can not say that I have tested the full gamut of AE's features.
Running AE on a Mac Pro is NOT supported by Adobe, so you do so at your own risk. My opinion is that the Mac Pro is a better deal if you plan to keep it for more than a year, where the Quad G5 is Adobe-supported, and will give near equal performance (and possibly but not definitively better stability) for the next year or so.
Your deciding factor may be if you want to run other pro apps on the same machine... If Final Cut Studio or Shake are on the same machine, you will get much better mileage out of the Mac Pro. If you need to run non-Universal apps, you may want the G5.
As for the memory, 3GB is plenty for now if you mainly will be running AE, as Rosetta will not let you use all of it for AE.
I would check with Blackmagic about their support of AE on Intel Macs... they have a great support department. You can also post on the Blackmagic forum here at the COW.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by mrsclean on Nov 14, 2006 at 12:00:23 pm
2.66 Dual Core Intel
5 gigs of RAM.
AE 7
I cranked the max memory usage down to 1.5 gigs, and my problems went away as well.
I don't think that the 'half way' theory is true, however. I have been obsessively watching my Activity Monitor for the past two weeks (am I the only one who has become a AM junkie?), I have been noticing mine craps out at 1.9ish gigs. I am going to try to lock it down to 1.8 gigs to see if that is stable enough to use.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by Graham Jones on Nov 15, 2006 at 1:15:57 am
Hi,
Thanks for posting. It's a little complicated... if you're hitting the memory ceiling, it will get a LOT slower, and possibly crash. However, if you set your memory settings TOO low, it will also get slower.
The key is to incrementally test until you find the settings that work best for you... ideally with Activity Monitor open and watching to see how different tasks affect the CPU activity and RAM usage.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- Please post your results here by russ on Nov 15, 2006 at 11:47:12 pm
I don't really know the mechanics of texture maps and memory. How will this reduction in AE's memory use effect large texture maps? Is there some kind of computation to work out the largest maps possible in a given comp?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by MoebiusLoop on Mar 28, 2007 at 12:27:01 am
Like everyone else in this thread, I seem to get close but the crashing issues persist.
While testing, I would watch the activity monitor to see how much memory AE was using during each render.
The machine is a Mac Pro Quad 3.0, 8.0 GB RAM.
I have tried multiple memory settings, adjusting the Max Memory Usage, the Max Ram Cache, Disk Space Cache and the secret menu item with the amount of frames before a purge. These settings would only affect the speed of the preview or render, but would not have any bearing on when AE would crash.
Using either RAM previews, or renders, as soon as the virtual memory used hit around 3.6 GB, it would crash every time. I could either get around 2 RAM previews before I'd hit that limit, or 6-8 full renders. I would restart the app, and watch as the virtual memory would approach this number and everytime, either a frame buffer error, or a full application crash.
Is there a limit to the amount of virtual memory can use before it becomes unstable?
What kind of memory usage are people seeing before AE crashes?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by splice me in on Nov 16, 2006 at 1:43:09 am
that is a really good insight. i will definitely try that today.
specs @ work:
macpro quad 3.0
4.0 GB RAM
nVidia fx 4500 card
Kona 3 capture card
Xserve RAID (1.0TB) with firbre channel card.
As you see, I definitely need to make my machine more efficient.
i only have one more question: I have Xcode 3.0 and when i enable openGL in AE7, the preview runs like molasses. Especially when i use my 3D plugin, (3D invigorator). do you have a solution for this as well?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Nov 16, 2006 at 6:12:57 am
Hi,
Sorry, don't know about the texture maps... I think trial and error will have to do. It's a good sign that the Rosetta memory limit seems proportional to the total RAM--- adding more memory is again a good recommendation.
As for OpenGL, some users have reported issues with it... Can you afford to keep it off? I know... would be a shame with your killer graphics card. I don't have any experience with Invigorator... perhaps Zaxwerks's support department might be able to help.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by kashaan on Nov 16, 2006 at 10:13:08 am
I've also found that turning off the feature that extends your desktop to an external VIDEO monitor (on a Blackmagic Decklink HD card) helps real-time preview enormously.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Nov 20, 2006 at 4:41:38 pm
Hi,
Thanks for your post... I suggest you make use of the excellent After Effects searchable online help, and also reading the manual wouldn't hurt. Try "memory" for a search term. After Effects is a pro program, and you will get a LOT more out of it if you learn the basics the right way, and make use of the right resources when you encounter a problem.
That said:
Under After Effects>Preferences>Memory & Cache... you see the
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Rissdog on Nov 25, 2006 at 1:53:56 am
Hello
I followed all your instructions and lowered my memory allocation. Yet am still getting frequent crashes when try to create a simple Kaleidiscope effect using CC Kaleidi w/Illustraor art.
I am running AE 7 W/ A MacBook Pro w/ 1gig mem.
One thing I dont understand is, what are " Rosetta apps" and how do I disable them?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Nov 25, 2006 at 1:51:41 pm
Hi Andrew,
thanks for your post. "Rosetta" is the tool that Intel Macs use to run non-Intel native programs, like AE. It's incredibly versatile, but there is always a cost to running an emulation environment. If you open the Activity Monitor application (inside Applications>Utilities), you will see some processes that are listed as "Intel" and some as "PowerPC." Rosetta runs all of the apps and processes that are not "Intel," and they all share a limited amount of your memory--- it seems to be about 40-45% of your total RAM, but there may be other factors.
I think that 1GB is probably too low to do anything but the most basic work in AE 7 on an Intel Mac. Doing a Kaleidoscope on Illustrator vectors is not "simple" when it comes to how much memory it needs.
The best way to test this is to use Activity Monitor to quit any processes that are not Intel (Select each "PowerPC" process and use the "Force Quit" button). Then go to AE and lower your memory settings to something like 10%. Also make sure you have done all of the other things I mentioned at the top of this thread. If it still crashes, you likely need more memory.
It may be enlightening to keep Activity Monitor running while you are working with AE, to get an idea on what sucks more memory, and what is happening when it crashes.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Nov 29, 2006 at 4:29:01 am
Hi,
Thanks for your post. I'm a little confused... what are the render times if you set the secret pref to 1? I gather from your finished renders that you don't experience crashes with your memory set to 30 or 40%? And have you tried lower memory settings like 10% or 20%? Are you watching Activity Monitor to see what's going on while you render?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by fabrobula on Dec 11, 2006 at 3:45:25 pm
i have a dual3 macpro with 3gb ram - ae7 craps out on every render - i've tweaked the memory settings to no avail - looking at activity monitor, other rosetta aps and auto-processes running are: snapz pro, msoft word, msoft au daemon, msoft database daemon - have you heard of any conflicts with those?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Dec 11, 2006 at 5:39:53 pm
Hi,
make sure you also follow the advice at the top of the thread regarding looking for offending Quicktime components, workspaces, permissions, corrupted prefs, etc. Then I would do a test where you force quit all PowerPC processes, set your AE memory settings to 15%, and see if you still get the crashes.
At that point, I would check to see what filters you are using... in AE 6.5 I had nothing but crashes with the Ripple filter, for example. It might be one particular filter (or combination) that is causing crashes.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by fabrobula on Dec 11, 2006 at 6:53:33 pm
i tried it without any of my plug-ins, got the same problem. but then I installed the 7.0.1 update, (keeping my memory just below 50% usage), and magically, I've done 3 renders smoothly without it freezing! I hope I didn't just jinx myself. thanks
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Mike_P on Dec 12, 2006 at 10:49:09 pm
THANK-YOU THANK-YOU THANK-YOU.
I've been pulling my hair out for the past month since "upgrading" to a MacPro.
So for your solution seems to have eliminated my memory related crashes.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by abondanzieri on Dec 30, 2006 at 11:44:11 pm
hey, what happened ? what is the success ? does any body have render without a problem on xeon 3ghz ? when leopard comes out ? when after effects cs3 comes out ? how long am i going to wait with this slow 3ghz 6gig ram macpro ..
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by djackson on Jan 8, 2007 at 10:56:10 pm
I'm going to try to render out my scene which uses a lot of CC force motion blur. At the moment my renders crash every single time. I have a brand spanking new MacPro Intel 2 x 3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon with 4GB RAM. I had always been able to render complex scenes on my PC which is a Dual Xeon 3Ghz w/ 2GB RAM.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by djackson on Jan 9, 2007 at 4:22:46 am
Hmmmm.... :( no luck, I'm still getting booted out of AE when rendering. I did all the things mentioned in the beginning. I guess I'll wait till AE8 comes out.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Jan 17, 2007 at 4:21:39 pm
Hi,
Have you read the resources thoroughly? It's not a guaranteed solution, and there may still be some factors (like a certain filter that may cause crashes on Intel Macs despite the workarounds). However, I am happily using a Quad 2.66 Mac Pro with 3GB RAM for production use of AE 7. So far, my Intel-native apps are crashing far more than AE. I wouldn't characterize it as slow... it is faster than the Dual G5/2.5 with 4.5 GB RAM that I use at my main client's suite.
I would suggest you read all of the resources mentioned here very thoroughly, and take the time to do some testing. And if you're really dissatisfied with your Mac Pro 3.0 I'd gladly take it off your hands... ;-)
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Jan 17, 2007 at 4:25:44 pm
Hi,
Sorry, I meant that past post for "abondanzieri", not "djackson", but I realize it may not be clear depending on your thread view prefeerences who that was addressed to.
For djackson... have you tried rendering with certain filters on or off, and checking the other things like Quicktime components and workspaces?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by djackson on Jan 19, 2007 at 8:03:54 pm
Yeah, it's certain effects that cause AE to crash, mostly CC effects. But that's okay, I have AE7 for my PC and my new Intel Mac, so what I can't do on the Mac I can do on the PC, though it's slower, my new Intel is lightning. I'll still be awating the AE8 for sure, however. :)
CC Effects Crashes by S871NR053 on Mar 6, 2007 at 6:34:37 pm
Thanks Graham for all of your tips, lowering the memory and cache has worked liked a charm for rendering; however I'm still having crash problems with RAM previews when using certain effects (mainly cc effects like was mentioned earlier), I can't just switch to a different machine to do the work I need with these effects so I was wondering if anyone has figured out how to get them to run smoothly?
Re: CC Effects Crashes by G.Marshall on Mar 6, 2007 at 8:34:08 pm
Hi Jen,
I had to remove the Cycore FX plug-in folder and the OpenGL3D plug-in as well for it to render. It still crashes on occasion, even with the plug-ins removed, but nowhere as near as bad with the plug-ins running. Unfortunately the Cycore plug-ins just don't seem to work properly. I just got a response from Cycore. Here's what they wrote:
"It seems this problem affects all CFM plugins on Macintel and currently there's nothing that we know of that we can do to fix this. The problem is related to Rosetta (apple's PPC emulator) and we believe that only Apple and Adobe can find out why it happens and find a possible fix for it. We're ready to do whatever we can to help out.
We're about to release an updated version (mach-O) of Cycore FX HD that doesn't have this problem, however I believe that you are going to use the Cycore FX standard version that ships with AE7 so this won't help you out. Is that the case?
Nils"
So Cycore FX HD is about to come out, but this won't help you immediately. Their web address is:
http://www.cycorefx.com/
My memory setting seems to work at 50% and 50%. I have 9 GB of RAM in a Quad Xeon.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by altdan on Jan 19, 2007 at 8:55:22 am
Ah Wish I could get this far! AE 7 is crashing when I start it up - at the final point of start up. (getting that quit unexpectedly window) I'm on a 2 x 3 GHz Dual-Core Intel machine with 3 GB of ram (DDR2 FB-DIMM). I must admit that our IT guy used the Migration Assistant when I upgraded from my pre intel Dual G5. But I have since trashed prefs, run permission repairs and reinstalled (a few times). Could it be anything to do with the way my RAM is installed? Also, forgive my ignorance, but not sure exactly what Rosetta apps and precesses are - and where do you lower memory settings. Though, as I can't get the app opened at this stage that may only come later...
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Jan 19, 2007 at 3:51:27 pm
Hi,
If you used Migration Assistant, I recommend something you probably won't want to hear--- format the entire drive, then re-install the system from the system disks, and your apps from their original DVDs.
I tried the migration assistant, and learned the hard way -- really, it should be intuitive, but especially for pro apps there are a lot of little tiny files written all over the place, which relate to a particular hardware's architecture. A Migration Assistant works for a consumer with modest needs, when the CPU type is the same. However, if you are moving from one type of hardware to another... I would not recommend it. Nor would Apple--- they were the ones who told me not to do it and why. I'm not sure why they don't make this more explicit in their documentation.
Your memory settings will not affect the app launching. Once you get the app launched successfully, I suggest you try AE's excellent online help for how to adjust the memory settings.
Hope this helps... Please post back with your results.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by altdan on Jan 19, 2007 at 4:23:21 pm
Woah!
That's tough love... I'd never heard of migration assistant till our IT guy mentioned it and proceeded to use it - clearly a bad idea. This will take a few deep breaths and some zen meditation before starting as there is a load of pain in what I have on the machine, FCP, ProTools (plus a busload of plug-ins), Photoshop, Freehand etc etc. rigorous authorizations abound - will be many hours of carefully managing serial no's , uninstalls, etc. Still if that's what it'll take I'll have to do it.
I take it there's absolutely nothing else I can try first? :)
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by abondanzieri on Jan 19, 2007 at 8:26:46 pm
heheh graham i wont give you my macpro ..
but i am still having trouble with it. i found my self rendering long scenes and heavy effects as targa sequence because it doesnt keep much frames on the memory.. actually i am now doing a music video with some real footage and mostly animation.. when it comes to 3d layers and cameras + motion blur + lots of particular stuff it gets really stuck.. but still when rendering as targa sequence sometimes it crashes.. i am definetly sure that i dont have any chance of rendering it as quicktime-animation..
so this is the situation.. also the plugins really have something to do with it..
i just rendered 350 frames in 50 minutes which really shouldnt take that much time.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Jan 20, 2007 at 3:04:11 am
Hi abondanzieri,
ha ha, too bad, I could have used another Mac Pro!
A great piano player can play an old piano and still sound great... he quickly learns which keys are the bad ones and figures out a way to adapt and play the same song with different keys.
I'd take notes on which filters are causing the issues (posting here wouldn't hurt). Even on a G5 I wouldn't touch the Ripple filter with a 10 foot pole, for example. My bet is that you can work your way around the bad ones until AE 8 gets here.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Feb 5, 2007 at 5:05:15 pm
Hi,
Thanks for your detailed response. I suspect you have a little more flexibility with the RAM because of having 4GB installed. It seems 3GB and less really cramp the headroom on Rosetta apps, but 4GB and above give more flexibility. I'm not sure it's proportional... there may be more at work behind the scenes.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by G.Marshall on Feb 22, 2007 at 5:31:39 pm
I can't get AE7 to run well at all on my Mac Pro which has 9 GB of and a NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500. After lowering the memory settings it still crashes like crazy on RAM previews and renders. Did the same thing on the MacBook Pro as well. On the Mac Pro, even a simply Fast Blur will cause it to hang up. This is a brand new Mac Pro Quad Core 3 Ghz.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Feb 23, 2007 at 3:35:15 pm
Hi,
have you followed the thread and tried everything? Workspaces? Prefs? Permissions? Offending Quicktime components?
Keep in mind that at best this is a workaround and unsupported solution. You obviously spent a lot on this system... I hope you did not try to set up a production system based on an unsupported software configuration...? You can't curse a system that is not supposed to run at all on your system. Try that with Avid...
AE 8, on the other hand, which is designed from the ground up to be compatible with Intel Macs and PPC, will be out soon. Until then, you may need to get a Gridiron plugin for previews and/or do your renders on a PPC system.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by moldyboot on Mar 2, 2007 at 8:08:36 pm
i've been testing out opengl problems and work arounds with ae7 on a macpro today (i was actually searching around to see what other people have been doing about opengl when i stumbled in here). but based on what i've found, g marshall can probably fix the fast blur crashes (and any other crashes related to opengl accelerated effects) by either switching to previews adaptive resolution (ae software rendering) or (and i'm still testing this) put the fast blur (or other opengl hardware accelerated effect) on an adjustment layer.
it seems a shame not to be able to use a kick-ass gfx card in ae. so if this adjustment layer trick holds up it may be a matter of creatively structuring your comp and nested comps to utilize hardware acceleration (at least on a macpro)
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Toddy the Aussie on Mar 7, 2007 at 6:55:09 am
Amazing - I was feeling homicidal and very alone until I stumbled on this thread!
I can't believe everyone's writing about exactly the same issues I've been having!
Is there any potential relationship with these issues and the ATI x1900 card [ i discovered when I looked for a latest driver download that the latest one is still only for PowerMac G5 - is this right?! ].
Forgive my tech ignorance if this theory is TOTALLY unrelated...
Re: AE7 & MacBookPro by Obiten on Mar 15, 2007 at 4:31:29 pm
really great thread thank to you all and to Graham.
talking about optimization on my macbook pro, 2G ram,
what do you think about all other intel process, like dashboard,
do we need to kill them too ?
I had so mysterious crashed (the last one burst my HD & mother board...)
that I can wait to test it again... I was on point on selling this computer & didn't want to hear about MAC...
You gave me back FAITH....
Hugz !
Re: AE7 & MacBookPro by Graham Jones on Mar 15, 2007 at 4:44:55 pm
Hi,
Thanks for your post and comments. it's all about memory... Rosetta gobbles an indordinate amount of it, and you don't always know how much it's taking. Universal apps use memory too, but they are slimmer and it is more obvious how much memory they are using.
So... just because you kill all the PowerPC processes, doesn't mean you can have 25 Intel apps open and not run into issues. However, I wouldn't worry about small stuff like Dashboard, as long as you've killed the PowerPC processes and don't have too many other things open.
Re: AE7 & MacBookPro by Jack Tunnicliffe on Mar 19, 2007 at 2:54:19 am
I have been running AE 7 on a Macbook Pro for over a year, albeit slow, but without many issues. I recently ordered the 2.33 Ghz Core 2 Duo macbook pro for a little more performance, 3 gigs of ram, etc, but AE 7 won't launch. It crashes when the app is opening. Does anyone have any suggestions. Photoshop, Illustrator, etc, all run fine under Rosetta but AE 7, even freshly reinstalled still crashes.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Jack Tunnicliffe on Mar 19, 2007 at 3:54:35 pm
I have been running AE 7 on a Macbook Pro for over a year, albeit slow, but without many issues. I recently ordered the 2.33 Ghz Core 2 Duo macbook pro for a little more performance, 3 gigs of ram, etc, but AE 7 won't launch. It crashes when the app is opening. Does anyone have any suggestions. Photoshop, Illustrator, etc, all run fine under Rosetta but AE 7, even freshly reinstalled still crashes.
Interestingly enough AE 6.5 still works but I see 7 crashes when it is creating the user interface. Maybe graphics related but I know this computer uses the same graphics card as the earlier Intel.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Graham Jones on Mar 19, 2007 at 4:35:16 pm
Hi,
just curious... did it ever work? If it worked even once, it could be a corrupted workspace issue. You may want to try deleting all AE prefs (including AE 6.5 ones), and also clearing all cache files (use something like Tiger Cache Cleaner), and then trying again.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Jack Tunnicliffe on Mar 20, 2007 at 2:06:56 am
Graham:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. That worked. I ran Macjanitor to clear caches and trashed prefs and sure enough it launched this time. What a relief. I thought I was going to have to return the computer. AE is my most used application, so I could ill afford to be without it. This is very good news for me and thanks so much for your help.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Jack Tunnicliffe on Mar 20, 2007 at 5:53:01 am
Okay, I finally got AE 7 working but now it crashes when any QT content is imported, dragged and dropped. Its fine with still images but QT files crash it immediately. Any more thoughts on what I could try?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by Jack Tunnicliffe on Mar 20, 2007 at 10:53:18 pm
Okay, discovered the final solution. Microcosm, a 3rd party codec I use from Digital Anarchy was the culprit. Once removed from the Quicktime folder AE runs beautifully.
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by MoebiusLoop on Mar 28, 2007 at 12:45:33 am
Hello, new to the forum and replied to the wrong post.
Like everyone else in this thread, I seem to get close but the crashing issues persist.
While testing, I would watch the activity monitor to see how much memory AE was using during each render.
The machine is a Mac Pro Quad 3.0, 8.0 GB RAM. OS 10.4.8 AE 7.0.1 QT 7.1.3
I have tried multiple memory settings, adjusting the Max Memory Usage, the Max Ram Cache, Disk Space Cache and the secret menu item with the amount of frames before a purge. These settings would only affect the speed of the preview or render, but would not have any bearing on when AE would crash.
Using either RAM previews, or renders, as soon as the virtual memory used hit around 3.6 GB, it would crash every time. I could either get around 2 RAM previews before I'd hit that limit, or 6-8 full renders. I would restart the app, and watch as the virtual memory would approach this number and everytime, either a frame buffer error, or a full application crash.
Is there a limit to the amount of virtual memory can use before it becomes unstable?
What kind of memory usage are people seeing before AE crashes?
Re: AE7 & Mac Pro-- SUCCESS!!! by G.Marshall on Mar 28, 2007 at 4:27:38 am
Are you using any Cycore Effects (CC) plug-ins? I removed my CC plug-in as they are not compatible with AE7. You might want to try removing your OpenGL 3D plug-in as well. AE7 would hang up and crash like crazy on my Mac Pro and on my MacBook Pro until I removed the plug-ins. The memory should be lowered as well, but in my case, it wasn't until the plug-ins were removed that the program started to run without it crashing every time I RAM previewed.
Re: HOW TO USE AE7 WITH INTEL MACS by Jim Sanders on May 9, 2007 at 10:22:41 pm
Mr. Jones, it is now May 9th, 2007 and I have just began working on my new MAC PRO dual-core intel xeon 3Ghz with 8 gigs of ram and running AE7. I have installed GridIron Nucleo and the system still crashes when I try to render 1/3rd of a 1920 x1080 (only a 7 sec. work area only).
Can you tell me if there has been any progress made since the last responce back in mar of 07?
Being new to the mac can you tell me which types of programs are running rosetta apps and you also mention closing other processes.
AE is the only program I have running? The only other programs that I see that are running (when I do a force quit) is QT, System Profiler and Finder.
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.
Jim
Re: HOW TO USE AE7 WITH INTEL MACS by dinamaria on May 9, 2007 at 11:52:40 pm
This tip is a LIFESAVER! Thanks.
Question: if my issue is crashing while rendering, is it the MAXIMUN MEMORY USAGE pref or the MAXIMUM RAM CACHE SIZE pref the more important one to tweak? Also, how is it possible to set the Max Memory Usage above 100% and why would you be able to do it?
Re: HOW TO USE AE7 WITH INTEL MACS by Graham Jones on May 10, 2007 at 12:23:48 am
Hi Jim,
If you have followed all of the advice here (make sure you look at all of the thread and try everything mentioned) and you are still having crashes, it might be an offending plugin--- try rendering with effects off, then try rendering enabling one effect at a time. Otherwise, you may have to try the AE 8 beta. Luckily, the full release version is coming soon and this thread will be moot.
As for quitting the other PPC processes, you need to open Activity Monitor (located in your Applications/Utilities folder) and use that to quit any PowerPC processes listed there.
I thought that was covered somewhere else in this thread...?
Re: HOW TO USE AE7 WITH INTEL MACS by Jim Sanders on May 10, 2007 at 11:40:13 am
Mr.Jones thank you very much for your advice. The thread was very long and spanded a lot of time. I thank you for hitting some of the points that may have been covered in the thread.
I look forward to AE8.
Re: HOW TO USE AE7 WITH INTEL MACS by artisanaltelevision on Jun 7, 2007 at 8:24:04 pm
Just wanted to thank everyone for their diligence here. I was having mysterious crashing over the weekend on my AfterEffects 7.0 on an Intel Xeon Dual Core 2.66GHz machine. I was tearing my hair out until I found this thread.
Just to add some actual data to the conversation, I was getting "AfterEffects unexpectedly ended" messages with the option to relaunch the app while rendering particularly complex compositions (there were several hundred layers of hand-made particles).
Using the advice offered here, I reduced the AfterEffects memory allocation to 70% of my 2GB of RAM, which came out to 1.4 GB, which was just below the 1.5GB threshold discussed above. I also reduced the cache size to 30%. That worked beautifully for a couple of days, then I got another "could not generate a 720 x 486 buffer" message, which was another messge I'd been getting over the weekend prior to reducing the memory allocation.
So I further reduced the memory to 65% (1.3GB) and the Cache to 25% (which wound up being 512MB). And then the same composition rendered without incident.
Re: HOW TO USE AE7 WITH INTEL MACS by Nick Berrisford on Jun 29, 2007 at 6:02:58 pm
I just wanted to thank Graham Jones (and others) for their suggestions and input.
While the suggestions haven't solved my issue and I still get failed renders and the occasional crash, the frequency of them has dropped. Part of my problem is I am tied to using a collection of projects and comps that require certain memory intensive plugins and the problematic CC filters.
For those in that same boat, I have a suggestion that has helped me at least get something rendered and finished even if it isn't the ideal and efficient workflow.
What I have resprted to doing with some of the memory intesive plugins in certain layers - and the CC ones - is prerender these layers when I have them looking the way I like them. I then replace those layers with a full quality QuickTime version in order to render the final full comp. It doesn't work 100% of the time, but more often than not I avopid failed renders and eventually I get my stuff rendered. Which wasn't happeneing for a while.
Thanks again.
Here's looking at the full version of CS3 coming out and all the third parties releasing UB versions soon!
BTW, does anyone know if CS3 will again ship with the CC filters? I noticed the Beta version available for download doesn't.
Re: HOW TO USE AE7 WITH INTEL MACS by Graham Jones on Jun 29, 2007 at 6:19:21 pm
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the comments. Pre-rendering, as you suggest, is a good habit in many situations--- not just when the app is crashing. You can often transform a 1 hour render into a 15-20 minute render by keeping an eye on the most challenging layers and filters, and nesting and pre-rendering elements that won't change much.
For myself, I can't wait for CS3--- though I have no idea how I'm going to pay for all the CS3 apps, Final Cut Studio 2, Leopard, and the Intel-native MS Office. Yikes! It will cost more than my Mac Pro. Oh well, at least my apps' performance will be a lot faster then.
IMAGE BUFFER ERROR by Miranda Yousef on Aug 28, 2007 at 3:07:29 pm
Hi all,
I'm at my wit's end--I've been trying to render my
comp for almost 3 weeks now and I can't get it to
work!! I'm coming up on a deadline very soon and I
really need help.
The Project:
I'm creating an opening title animation sequence for a
35mm film. I used LARGE Photoshop files (ca. 7200 x
5500 or thereabouts), imported as layers into AE so I
could animate the layers. The end result needs to be
at 2048 x 1556, so I set up a new comp at those
dimensions and fit each pre-comped segment (there are
4) into the smaller comp to maintain resolution
(sometimes I zoom in on things, etc.).
The System:
Power Mac G5 Quad (PowerPC), running AE 7.0
Professional on OS X (10.4.10). When I first started
I had 512 MB of RAM, quickly realized I needed more,
and upgraded to a current total of 4.5 GB. (Yesterday
I ordered even more so as to max out my RAM--I can go
up to 16 GB on this computer--but then found out that
maybe AE won't recognize beyond a certain amount of
RAM anyway. Is that true?)
The Problem:
I need to export a series of DPX files at 2048 x 1556.
After I installed my new RAM, I broke up the export
into 4 segments. 3 of the 4 have been able to export
without a problem and are complete. The fourth simply
refuses to export even a single frame. Keeps giving
me the image buffer error.
I probably should also mention that at the same time
as I installed the new RAM, I hooked my computer up to
a so-called "battery backup" which failed in the
middle of the night. Up to that point, the export had
been going fine. I don't know if the sudden power
loss to the computer screwed anything up.
The Tragic Attempts:
I tried resizing my original PSD's, but when I
connected them to the AE comp everything went
crazy--layer positions were off, child-parent
relationships seemed to create problems, etc. I don't
know if there's a way to maintain RELATIVE positions
instead of ABSOLUTE ones when you resize the source
doc, but I didn't feel up to tweaking everything all
over again.
I looked at the following website about this error, and re-assigning RAM usage etc.
(http://generalspecialist.com/2006/11/avoiding-after-effects-error-could-not.asp)
...Did not work for me. (I am unable to split up my PSD images because I use all the layers.)
...but I don't have an Intel processor, and it hasn't
solved my problems.
I trashed my prefs and restarted. No luck. I tried
exporting 2 single frames. It wouldn't even do one.
Somewhere in here my error message started to appear
with a sheep's bleat. This seems fitting in an
existential, God-is-laughing-at-me kind of sense.
Sorry for the long e-mail, but I really need to figure
this out. I have to deliver this right after Labor
Day, and I have limited time to work on this.
Please help!!!
Thanks,
- Miranda
Power Mac G5 Quad/PowerPC
4.5 GB RAM
AE 7.0 Pro
Re: IMAGE BUFFER ERROR by Jack Tunnicliffe on Aug 28, 2007 at 3:54:09 pm
Miranda... These image sizes aren't terribly large. I work with much bigger file sizes all the time. There's an intro I update for a show every year where there are a hundred layers in a Photoshop file that is 3500x3500 pixels at 300dpi. What is the colour space for your Photoshop? Is it RGB. Maybe it's CMYK. Not sure this would cause a memory error, but something is really wrong. Looks like you've tried all the memory and cache tips. Do you have disk cache enabled. Make it an outb
