PC help required

[Seamless Shift]

Ok, I am starting to get some regular business making logo's to play on a seamless loop for clubs to play behind the bar etc.

I make these in after effects with great results despite the length of time it takes to do anything. I have reached a limit now where I am having to chop 3 mins loop up into about 30 parts just to get my machine to process it, this can't go on! I am assuming its because of the weedy performance of my laptop (amd dual core 2.1ghz, 4gb 800mhz RAM and 256mb graphics card on vista)

I think I am going to have to sell my macbook and invest in a pc with a decent graphics card. Can anyone shed any light on what I need to be looking at to get AE really singing? Is processor or graphics more important? Am I better off going for a cheap server or a gaming/CAD pc?

Any help and advice will be greatly recieved. I also want this PC to be able to take to gigs so I have a more stable platform for my NuVJ to work from but I can't see that being any problem performance wise, maybe a weight problem if I am trying to lug a pc up into a lighting booth tho!!

[deepvisual]

all sounds a little odd. are we talking macbook or pc here?

I'd suggest making sure you have space on your HDD, if its full you'll have all sort of problems, then I'd suggest a visit from disk doctor, or maybe even disk utility. could be a directory issue

[Seamless Shift]

I have 112GB free on my hard drive and I get an error coming up saying that AE can't allocate x amount of memory (latest one was 9GB) I am assuming that it refers to RAM. I am fairly new to the software and it's the first time I have had this issue.


I have seen that I can allocate more RAM (only got 2gb allocated at the moment, will change that when I get home)
Is there somewhere in the preferences I should be looking to allocate extra HDD space for rendering?


It's a PC laptop that I have the program running on at the minute as I am considering selling my macbook for a desktop PC as I can get a lot more power for my money. I just don't know where I should spend my money, Processors, RAM or Graphics card, which is most important for most graphics applications? (I understand the higher spec the better in everything but I will only have so much to play with so I need to spend that moneyt effectively)

Was thinking something along the lines of

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/INTEL-QUAD-COR...d=p3286.c0.m14

[MrJustin]

Your spec is fine i dont see why you need a new computer.

perhaps you're stacking masses and masses of layers and effects on top of one another, in which case yes that will take a while to preview, but there's no reason i can think of that hasnt already been mentioned which would prevent you from rendering your file, unless you're not compressing and creating a huge file.

look for online tutorials explaining workflow tips, including prerendering (this will save your ram if you're nesting sequences inside one another.) yes maybe think about allocating 3/4 of your ram, and shut down other unnecessary programs.

im sure someone else will have a few more ideas for you as well.....

[deepvisual]

find the preferences file and bin it.
usually sorts out most problems.

[evomedia]

A 9 gig ram file sounds like your overloading your comp, how many layers does your comp have? how many effects?

Maybe prerender some elements and composite those together if your using tons of effects and layers.

Also this may help

There is a 'Secret' preferences panel in the prefs for After Effects, cs3 and cs4.

Hold the shift key (all the time).... with shift held, open edit>prefs>previews (or any submenu) and you should see an extra menu item appears in the actual Preferences panel entitled “Secret.” Here you can make various changes to slow After Effects down in order to keep rendering very high res or resource heavy footage.

You have the option to disable the Layer Cache and purge data between frames, even set ignore error messages during a render. This will vastly improve your chances of getting that footage out if your getting not enough memory errors.

If your on an older version of AE then increase the disc cache in prefs.

Also check disc space, and do a full defrag. Then make sure you close any unneeded memory hogs like spotify or programs that can be closed, and latestly check for spyware or viruses

[Seamless Shift]

That's the thing, it's a 2:30 comp with one logo and one effect - shatter. All I have done is ste shatter up to give me a 3d logo that I am rotating

YouTube - Comp 5

YouTube - Comp 5

this is the result when I export to movie which is clearly not a high enough res to use on a DVD.

Ignore the shattering at the start and end as well as the glow, starglow and shine effects. I am only trying to pre-render the logo rotating. So bloody annoying, taken bugger all time to get to this stage but a full render isn't happening due to that one layer not wanting to pre-render. Driving me nuts!!

I could perhaps render it in a lower format than the standard pre-render but I am worried about losing the detail.

I shall try all the options you have given me. Hopefully I can get the damn thing to work.

I still think I will be investing in an additional PC regardless of whether I make this work or not. I want something a bit quicker with more storage and a much bigger screen. 17" is a pain in the arse to make clips on!

[Seamless Shift]

Deepvisual.....

What just delete the preferences in the program folder? won't that cause instability in the program itself?

[evomedia]

No he was right, deleting the prefs just causes AE to write a new one upon opening

[asterix]

It sounds to me more like you're trying to export a huge file which on pc at least - you can't do bigger than 2gb.

When you 'add to render que' check your settings, use a codec like pjpeg 90% quicktime mov.