AE CS3 RAM Preview issue on OS X


	Cow Forums : Adobe After Effects << PREVIOUS THREAD • VIEW ALL THREADS • PRINT • NEXT THREAD >>

AE CS3 RAM Preview issue on OS X
by Zack Nederlander on Mar 5, 2008 at 8:40:17 am

I know there's been at least one other thread about this, but I thought I'd start a new one about one particular problem I've found with AE CS3 on OS X.

It seems to me that AE is unable use memory, give memory back to the system or free it up properly for RAM Previews.

What I've noticed is this:

I start running AE and I'm able to RAM Preview a large portion of timeline, depending on how much RAM is free. But as I make changes, and RAM Preview further, I am able to preview less and less.

Purging helps to a point, but after a while, it does almost nothing. The odd thing is that sometimes, while it won't RAM Preview a section, I can often just hit spacebar to let it play and cache the frames that way, then RAM Preview what's been cached. So this leads me to think that it's capable of seeing that RAM and using it, but just not for previews.

I've tried keeping an eye on the system's RAM usage via Activity Monitor. And it's funny how after a purge, sometimes, there's still a very large portion of RAM that is Free or Inactive, but never gets used up.

I don't get it. But I know I don't like it. This has become a serious problem for my workflow. I'm not about to include restarting every couple hours into my standard practices. This really needs to be addressed.

I noticed this on both an iMac Core 2 Duo Extreme 2.8GHz with 4GBs RAM and an eight core 3GHz Mac Pro with 8GBs RAM.

How many people have come across this problem?

Respond to this post • Return to posts index

Re: AE CS3 RAM Preview issue on OS X
by Paul Jones on Mar 28, 2008 at 9:54:42 pm

I have a similar problem in which I can't preview very much footage... ever. I have an 8-core 3.2 with 8 gigs of ram, I would think that this computer could do anything, but I have been disappointed. I would like for someone to give me optimum settings for previewing footage.

Respond to this post • Return to posts index

Re: AE CS3 RAM Preview issue on OS X
by Robert Paynter on Mar 31, 2008 at 8:16:49 pm

I am having the same issue along with everyone else who got this machine in my department.

Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB
Memory: 8 GB

I have reduced my RAM cache to 40%, and I think this is helping.

Has anyone found any concrete answers?

Respond to this post • Return to posts index

Re: AE CS3 RAM Preview issue on OS X
by Peter Berthold on May 30, 2008 at 8:43:19 pm

Giving this a bump. I have the similar specs, 2x3Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8GB RAM, Mac OS 10.5.2. I can't get more than an hour into work and I'm down to a 2 frame RAM preview, or the "can't allocate space" for a 900 image comp sadness when I try to render out.

Setting my RAM Cache Size to 40%, enabling a disk Cache, none of this helps much. Also, I'm on Leopard now, and it seems worse than Tiger. Any ideas?

Respond to this post • Return to posts index


	<< PREVIOUS THREAD • VIEW ALL THREADS • PRINT • NEXT THREAD >>