Vista vs XP

Mike McCarthy · November 30th, 2007, 02:09 PM

I have used the basic version in the past, but CS3 rendered that obsolete with the "Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously" option, which also allows AE to address more than 4GB of RAM. This only comes into play when RENDERING, and is simply accomplished by farming out the render job to a separate instance on a different CPU, similar to the way that frame renders can be farmed out to other systems on the network when rendering.

Nucleo PRO does more than that, but I have never used it. If you use AE all the time for complex work on a fast multi-core system, Nucleo Pro will probably allow you to work faster.

Stephen Armour · November 30th, 2007, 02:17 PM

Did find some very interesting info in the AE manual (who would have guessed?):

"After Effects on the Mac OS X operating system can use up to 3.5 GB of RAM. After Effects on 32-bit Windows operating systems can use up to 3 GB of RAM; however, to use more than 2 GB in After Effects, you must configure Windows appropriately. (See the Microsoft website for details.) After Effects on 64-bit Windows operating systems can use up to 4 GB of RAM with no special configuration.

Note: These numbers are for each After Effects process. The background processes used to render multiple frames simultaneously can each use the amount of RAM mentioned above. (See Render multiple frames simultaneously.)"

If the above is true, it seems theoretically you could access much more than 8 GB. So, add another quad (V8 config) and 16 GB and supposedly you could render those all in the background? If that is true, we'd be gaining in some situations to use Paul's idea. Maybe there really is something there? I know Gridiron admitted that AE CS3 can basically do what they are doing with Nucleo Pro, but they offer other benefits as well.

Paul, you might be on to some good info from that post you saw. Let us know when you get your system!

Stephen Armour · November 30th, 2007, 02:21 PM

(note: after actually checking it out, I've been this route before and it crashed our workstation! don't try it unless you add another boot line you can fall back to...) Sorrrrrrrryyyyyyyyy......

http://generalspecialist.com/2006/05...m-in-after.asp

Mike McCarthy · November 30th, 2007, 02:39 PM

I use the /3G boot switch on a number of systems, and it works fine for us. Matrox AXIO install turns it on by default. It CAN really screw up your system if you have software that is incompatible with it. 64bit is a way better option if it is possible for you. But with that, all of your hardware has to be compatible. No go for Matrox, Xena, etc.

Peter Ferling · December 1st, 2007, 09:22 PM

Has anyone tried running XP within bootcamp on leopard? Apple claims that XP will run natively, with full access to all hardware and processes (including usage of some leopard features). I have not upgraded yet, and I still have a dual G5 (non-intel box). I'm contemplating a move to a quad macpro and run both OS' on it, (which takes care of my need for non-mac software).

Anyway, it would be interesting to see if XP runs better in a mac... hmmm.

Mike McCarthy · December 2nd, 2007, 01:15 PM

I have a MacPro running 10.4 and the Beta of Bootcamp. I have not upgraded to 10.5, which includes the release version of Bootcamp. It does give XP direct Access to the machine. With a little creativity, you could proabably remove OSX and make it XP only, that is how independent the XP install is. The old Bootcamp beta is set to expire at the end of the year, now that the final version was released in 10.5, but that is not supposed to affect current installs, just no updates anymore.

Paul Cook · December 3rd, 2007, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephen Armour

Paul, you might be on to some good info from that post you saw. Let us know when you get your system!

Thanks Stephen, Im eager to test it out but my new system STILL ISNT HERE :-(

Apparently the system builder is having problems getting the Areca 1220 raid card up and running. So hopefully only a few more days...

Paul Cook · December 6th, 2007, 06:43 AM

OK Ive not had much time to test as Ive been insanely busy but I just rendered out an old 30 second TVC i did to compare.

On my old Dual AMD 4400 with 2 gig ram running XP 32bit and AE 7 it took a full 14 minutes to render.

On my new Quad Intel QX 9650 with 8 gig ram XP 64bit and AE CS3 with only the render multiple frames switched on (ie no Nucleo Pro2) it thundered home at only 2 minutes 45 seconds!!!

I was watching the task manager and all 4 cores were maxed and the memory usage shot up from 1.8gb to 7.2gb. So even without Nucleo pro 2 the basic nucleo technology CS3 has in built certainly does make use of more cores and loads of ram which only 64bit allows you to use.

Of course Nucleo Pro 2 offers some amazing workflow advantages so Im definitely still going to throw that into the mix. But for anyone who's been thinking about 8gb ram and x64 O/S at this stage I can only say its a dream come true.

Stephen Armour · December 6th, 2007, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Cook

OK Ive not had much time to test as Ive been insanely busy but I just rendered out an old 30 second TVC i did to compare.

On my old Dual AMD 4400 with 2 gig ram running XP 32bit and AE 7 it took a full 14 minutes to render.

On my new Quad Intel QX 9650 with 8 gig ram XP 64bit and AE CS3 with only the render multiple frames switched on (ie no Nucleo Pro2) it thundered home at only 2 minutes 45 seconds!!!

I was watching the task manager and all 4 cores were maxed and the memory usage shot up from 1.8gb to 7.2gb. So even without Nucleo pro 2 the basic nucleo technology CS3 has in built certainly does make use of more cores and loads of ram which only 64bit allows you to use.

Of course Nucleo Pro 2 offers some amazing workflow advantages so Im definitely still going to throw that into the mix. But for anyone who's been thinking about 8gb ram and x64 O/S at this stage I can only say its a dream come true.

Wow, that's the most encouraging news I've heard all day! Keep us posted and maybe there's hope afterall...

Stephen Armour · December 6th, 2007, 12:51 PM

Paul, I'm really interested in how it performs with the rest of the Adobe CS3 package. Especially Premiere Pro CS3. When you do some big stuff (HD), give us a plug on how it does, especially CF'ed and BIG.

Maybe we'll switch to x64 after all...(but there's still something tickling my brain about why we didn't a few months back...)

Stephen Armour · December 11th, 2007, 08:04 PM

Any news to add to what you said before? We're building a new ws and I'm thinking getting x64 to try it as well.

Any pro's or con's to add to your previous news? Are you sorry you got x64? Any conflicts with your software?

Dave Campbell · December 11th, 2007, 08:18 PM

Lets see, I have dumped all my vista systems and went back to XP.

Now, for the heck of it, I spent the last 2 days loading up a system with
Xp X64. Last time I tried this, I had lots of issues. I was very surprised that this time I have not. Just trying to figure out it I can get the vista sidebar
on it. Works fine on XP, but may not on X64.

So, if I fire it up, will let folks know how it goes, but so far pretty impressed.
Something to be said when a product gets to SP2, if not SP3 coming.

Dave

Stephen Armour · December 12th, 2007, 06:52 AM

I like the sound of that Dave! We went ahead and ordered x64 just for the heck of it too, to load on a new workstation we will be building. We sure hope they've got some of the pieces in place now, so we don't spend days trying to stomp on bugs!

Since these are mostly CS3 machines, we're hoping to gain the additional memory access for AE stuff and......fingers crossed........Premiere Pro CS3. That would save us a bunch of time with CF, as right now, we have to use the "save, unload PP3, reload, open project again, try to render without an error" workaround with HD stuff, due to the 32bit mem restrictions of XP and PP3's greediness for that space.

If we only gain that one thing, additional mem space, we'd go to x64 on all our machines. Then, some nice day, maybe Adobe will port these apps to a 64bit OS and we'll start all over again.

Hernan Vilchez · December 12th, 2007, 11:41 AM

Very interested in knowing the performance of Photoshop and Premiere CS3 in XP64 too...

Dave Campbell · December 15th, 2007, 05:30 PM

Well, I just updated my system to xp x64 with 8 gig of memory
with my quad core, dual processor system. I have been kinda able to get
a m2t export to work that just crashed under vista and XP.
It now is able to use a lot more memory and renders faster.
And, all 8 processors are being used 70-90%.

No more vista, YEA!!

Dave

November 30th, 2007, 02:09 PM	#16
Mike McCarthy Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Northern California Posts: 517	I have used the basic version in the past, but CS3 rendered that obsolete with the "Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously" option, which also allows AE to address more than 4GB of RAM. This only comes into play when RENDERING, and is simply accomplished by farming out the render job to a separate instance on a different CPU, similar to the way that frame renders can be farmed out to other systems on the network when rendering. Nucleo PRO does more than that, but I have never used it. If you use AE all the time for complex work on a fast multi-core system, Nucleo Pro will probably allow you to work faster. __________________ For more information on these topics, check out my tech website at www.hd4pc.com

November 30th, 2007, 02:17 PM	#17
Stephen Armour Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Natal, RN, Brasil Posts: 900	Did find some very interesting info in the AE manual (who would have guessed?): "After Effects on the Mac OS X operating system can use up to 3.5 GB of RAM. After Effects on 32-bit Windows operating systems can use up to 3 GB of RAM; however, to use more than 2 GB in After Effects, you must configure Windows appropriately. (See the Microsoft website for details.) After Effects on 64-bit Windows operating systems can use up to 4 GB of RAM with no special configuration. Note: These numbers are for each After Effects process. The background processes used to render multiple frames simultaneously can each use the amount of RAM mentioned above. (See Render multiple frames simultaneously.)" If the above is true, it seems theoretically you could access much more than 8 GB. So, add another quad (V8 config) and 16 GB and supposedly you could render those all in the background? If that is true, we'd be gaining in some situations to use Paul's idea. Maybe there really is something there? I know Gridiron admitted that AE CS3 can basically do what they are doing with Nucleo Pro, but they offer other benefits as well. Paul, you might be on to some good info from that post you saw. Let us know when you get your system! __________________ http://lightinaction.org "All in the view of the LION"

November 30th, 2007, 02:21 PM	#18
Stephen Armour Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Natal, RN, Brasil Posts: 900	More good news? (note: after actually checking it out, I've been this route before and it crashed our workstation! don't try it unless you add another boot line you can fall back to...) Sorrrrrrrryyyyyyyyy...... http://generalspecialist.com/2006/05...m-in-after.asp __________________ http://lightinaction.org "All in the view of the LION" Last edited by Stephen Armour; November 30th, 2007 at 02:28 PM. Reason: spoke too soon

November 30th, 2007, 02:39 PM	#19
Mike McCarthy Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Northern California Posts: 517	I use the /3G boot switch on a number of systems, and it works fine for us. Matrox AXIO install turns it on by default. It CAN really screw up your system if you have software that is incompatible with it. 64bit is a way better option if it is possible for you. But with that, all of your hardware has to be compatible. No go for Matrox, Xena, etc. __________________ For more information on these topics, check out my tech website at www.hd4pc.com

December 1st, 2007, 09:22 PM	#20
Peter Ferling Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Wyomissing, PA Posts: 1,141 Images: 57	Has anyone tried running XP within bootcamp on leopard? Apple claims that XP will run natively, with full access to all hardware and processes (including usage of some leopard features). I have not upgraded yet, and I still have a dual G5 (non-intel box). I'm contemplating a move to a quad macpro and run both OS' on it, (which takes care of my need for non-mac software). Anyway, it would be interesting to see if XP runs better in a mac... hmmm. __________________ Pete Ferling http://ferling.net It's never a mistake if you learn something new from it. -------------------------------------------

December 2nd, 2007, 01:15 PM	#21
Mike McCarthy Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Northern California Posts: 517	I have a MacPro running 10.4 and the Beta of Bootcamp. I have not upgraded to 10.5, which includes the release version of Bootcamp. It does give XP direct Access to the machine. With a little creativity, you could proabably remove OSX and make it XP only, that is how independent the XP install is. The old Bootcamp beta is set to expire at the end of the year, now that the final version was released in 10.5, but that is not supposed to affect current installs, just no updates anymore. __________________ For more information on these topics, check out my tech website at www.hd4pc.com

December 6th, 2007, 06:43 AM	#23
Paul Cook Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 174	OK Ive not had much time to test as Ive been insanely busy but I just rendered out an old 30 second TVC i did to compare. On my old Dual AMD 4400 with 2 gig ram running XP 32bit and AE 7 it took a full 14 minutes to render. On my new Quad Intel QX 9650 with 8 gig ram XP 64bit and AE CS3 with only the render multiple frames switched on (ie no Nucleo Pro2) it thundered home at only 2 minutes 45 seconds!!! I was watching the task manager and all 4 cores were maxed and the memory usage shot up from 1.8gb to 7.2gb. So even without Nucleo pro 2 the basic nucleo technology CS3 has in built certainly does make use of more cores and loads of ram which only 64bit allows you to use. Of course Nucleo Pro 2 offers some amazing workflow advantages so Im definitely still going to throw that into the mix. But for anyone who's been thinking about 8gb ram and x64 O/S at this stage I can only say its a dream come true.

December 6th, 2007, 12:51 PM	#25
Stephen Armour Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Natal, RN, Brasil Posts: 900	Paul, I'm really interested in how it performs with the rest of the Adobe CS3 package. Especially Premiere Pro CS3. When you do some big stuff (HD), give us a plug on how it does, especially CF'ed and BIG. Maybe we'll switch to x64 after all...(but there's still something tickling my brain about why we didn't a few months back...) __________________ http://lightinaction.org "All in the view of the LION"

December 11th, 2007, 08:04 PM	#26
Stephen Armour Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Natal, RN, Brasil Posts: 900	Paul, any more problems with the x64? Any news to add to what you said before? We're building a new ws and I'm thinking getting x64 to try it as well. Any pro's or con's to add to your previous news? Are you sorry you got x64? Any conflicts with your software? __________________ http://lightinaction.org "All in the view of the LION"

December 11th, 2007, 08:18 PM	#27
Dave Campbell Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 568	Lets see, I have dumped all my vista systems and went back to XP. Now, for the heck of it, I spent the last 2 days loading up a system with Xp X64. Last time I tried this, I had lots of issues. I was very surprised that this time I have not. Just trying to figure out it I can get the vista sidebar on it. Works fine on XP, but may not on X64. So, if I fire it up, will let folks know how it goes, but so far pretty impressed. Something to be said when a product gets to SP2, if not SP3 coming. Dave

December 12th, 2007, 06:52 AM	#28
Stephen Armour Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Natal, RN, Brasil Posts: 900	I like the sound of that Dave! We went ahead and ordered x64 just for the heck of it too, to load on a new workstation we will be building. We sure hope they've got some of the pieces in place now, so we don't spend days trying to stomp on bugs! Since these are mostly CS3 machines, we're hoping to gain the additional memory access for AE stuff and......fingers crossed........Premiere Pro CS3. That would save us a bunch of time with CF, as right now, we have to use the "save, unload PP3, reload, open project again, try to render without an error" workaround with HD stuff, due to the 32bit mem restrictions of XP and PP3's greediness for that space. If we only gain that one thing, additional mem space, we'd go to x64 on all our machines. Then, some nice day, maybe Adobe will port these apps to a 64bit OS and we'll start all over again. __________________ http://lightinaction.org "All in the view of the LION"

December 12th, 2007, 11:41 AM	#29
Hernan Vilchez Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Munich, Germany Posts: 135	Very interested in knowing the performance of Photoshop and Premiere CS3 in XP64 too... __________________ Hernan Vilchez kabopro.com myspace.com/kabopro

December 15th, 2007, 05:30 PM	#30
Dave Campbell Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 568	Well, I just updated my system to xp x64 with 8 gig of memory with my quad core, dual processor system. I have been kinda able to get a m2t export to work that just crashed under vista and XP. It now is able to use a lot more memory and renders faster. And, all 8 processors are being used 70-90%. No more vista, YEA!! Dave