MP 7,1 The frustration of using After Effects on the new Mac Pro.

[chfilm]

I knew what I was getting in to and how poorly Adobe's software is optimized.
Still, just wanted to share this chart of my CPU/GPU usage during a regular workday with After Effects doing some light-medium hefty motion graphics. This is on a 16core with 192gb ram and a Vega II. You can see when I started rendering and how poorly the CPU is being taxed even then.
Interestingly, at least the VRAM is being utilized. Also my general ram shows 130 gb occupied, and the software does feel snappier overall than on my old trashcan. But still, this is just a shame on Adobe's end, once again.
This screenshot was taken during a 10 minute export to prores process.

Oh and to round it off, here, a few minutes later when everything is put together in Premiere and rendered out to h264. Why exactly did I get a 16 core again?

 

[Elektrofone]

I really wish a company would make an optimized alternative to After Effects. It's so slow and clunky after all these years, but there really isn't a better alternative.

 

[chfilm]

I really wish a company would make an optimized alternative to After Effects. It's so slow and clunky after all these years, but there really isn't a better alternative.

Yes! They really lack some serious competition, and that’s also the reason why they don’t care to brush it up.
I love after effects and the entire ecosystem around it, but it’s just rotten at the core!

 

[beaker7]

deleted

 

[chfilm]

Premiere‘s resource utilization depends on codecs used. My primary edit station is a dual Xeon with 3 Quadro GPU and exporting an edit heavy on .r3d, all cores and all GPUs are maxed.

Hm Good for you, I work with some h264, prores and graphics in this case.

 

[bsbeamer]

You are aware this is TYPICAL of early adopters, right? MP7,1 is not yet certified for Adobe usage at all. Same for MBP16,1. Usually is a 3-6 month delay for optimization. As mentioned previously, would not expect an announcement until around NAB 2020.

These are the GPUs Adobe has recommended for all video applications at this time. It will be updated by the end of Q2 2020.

MAC METAL

• AMD FirePro D300
• AMD FirePro D500
• AMD FirePro D700
• AMD Radeon R9 M290X
• AMD Radeon R9 M380
• AMD Radeon R9 M390
• AMD Radeon R9 M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro 560
• AMD Radeon Pro 570
• AMD Radeon Pro 575
• AMD Radeon Pro 580
• AMD Radeon Pro M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64
• Intel® HD Graphics 6000
• Intel® Iris™ Graphics 6100
• Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics 6200
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48

 

[Parzival]

Aren't Xeons a really bad fit for h264?

 

[bsbeamer]

Aren't Xeons a really bad fit for h264?

They are not the top choice. More CPU taxing than modern Core i9 and similar. Another reason I wish Apple would release an i9 MacMini with 128GB+ RAM or at least update the iMac with new dGPU options and ability to factory upgrade to 128GB RAM.

 

[chfilm]

You are aware this is TYPICAL of early adopters, right? MP7,1 is not yet certified for Adobe usage at all. Same for MBP16,1. Usually is a 3-6 month delay for optimization. As mentioned previously, would not expect an announcement until around NAB 2020.

These are the GPUs Adobe has recommended for all video applications at this time. It will be updated by the end of Q2 2020.

MAC METAL

• AMD FirePro D300
• AMD FirePro D500
• AMD FirePro D700
• AMD Radeon R9 M290X
• AMD Radeon R9 M380
• AMD Radeon R9 M390
• AMD Radeon R9 M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro 560
• AMD Radeon Pro 570
• AMD Radeon Pro 575
• AMD Radeon Pro 580
• AMD Radeon Pro M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64
• Intel® HD Graphics 6000
• Intel® Iris™ Graphics 6100
• Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics 6200
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48

Do you seriously expect any performance gains from adobe "optimizing" for the Vega II ?
The bigger issue is the lack of CPU utilization in my opinion, and there have been 18 core macs out there since YEARS.

 

[jasonmvp]

You are aware this is TYPICAL of early adopters, right? MP7,1 is not yet certified for Adobe usage at all.

From my fairly extensive experience with Adobe, "certified" doesn't mean anything other than: Adobe tested the software with the specific hardware, and yes, it works. It doesn't mean (even remotely so) that they optimized or changed the software in any way whatsoever to work "better" with said hardware.

AE is just poop. It's the best poop on the market right now, but it's utter poop when it comes to acceleration and whatnot. Adobe has done their best to remove as much GPU work from the app as they possibly can. For: reasons.

 

[sam80]

I really wish a company would make an optimized alternative to After Effects. It's so slow and clunky after all these years, but there really isn't a better alternative.

How about the new Fusion page in Resolve 16? Anyone tried it?
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/fusion

You can see when I started rendering and how poorly the CPU is being taxed even then.

RenderGarden plugin can utilise all cores for AfterEffects rendering. It's a bit clunky to use but a huge difference to render times (I tried it on Trashcan).
https://www.mekajiki.com/rendergarden/

 

[chfilm]

How about the new Fusion page in Resolve 16? Anyone tried it?
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/fusion




RenderGarden plugin can utilise all cores for AfterEffects rendering. It's a bit clunky to use but a huge difference to render times (I tried it on Trashcan).
https://www.mekajiki.com/rendergarden/

hm, yea I tried it a while ago but it seemed complicated... recently have tried BGrendererMAX and it plain out crashed my machine to the point where it shut down by itself...

 

[sam80]

Yeah, RenderGarden was tricky to use, there was some crashes too though not shut down bad. But when it works it really shows the potential, it's way faster. Not sure why Adobe can't build in something similar but stable into the software itself.

 

[defjam]

This is where it's good to know your applications and where their performance limits are. Hopefully you have other applications which benefit from the Mac Pro. It's a nice system but a lot of money if the applications you rely on are not able to take advantage of what it has to offer.

 

[chfilm]

Yeah, RenderGarden was tricky to use, there was some crashes too though not shut down bad. But when it works it really shows the potential, it's way faster. Not sure why Adobe can't build in something similar but stable into the software itself.

About fusion, no I haven’t tried, but I guess it’s similar to nuke in a sense, and absolutely inappropriate for motion graphics but more aimed at VFX work..

 

[chfilm]

Yeah, RenderGarden was tricky to use, there was some crashes too though not shut down bad. But when it works it really shows the potential, it's way faster. Not sure why Adobe can't build in something similar but stable into the software itself.

Well, thanks for bringing my attention back again to it, I just purchased RG and it works like a charme actually. It definitely uses more of the CPUs and renders faster. Do you have personal experience with it?
They say to launch not more than half the number of gardeners of physical cores available. It seems a bit wasted on a 16 core machine though. So frustrating that Adobe doesnt build something like this into after effects themselves under a little bit nicer UI..

I was able to cut my rendertime from this super harmless comp I'm working on from 7:43 minutes down to 3:11min, just by using this script. NOT BAD.

What's very interesting is that actually even the GPU got something to do suddenly..

 

[daveedjackson]

You are aware this is TYPICAL of early adopters, right? MP7,1 is not yet certified for Adobe usage at all. Same for MBP16,1. Usually is a 3-6 month delay for optimization. As mentioned previously, would not expect an announcement until around NAB 2020.

These are the GPUs Adobe has recommended for all video applications at this time. It will be updated by the end of Q2 2020.

MAC METAL

• AMD FirePro D300
• AMD FirePro D500
• AMD FirePro D700
• AMD Radeon R9 M290X
• AMD Radeon R9 M380
• AMD Radeon R9 M390
• AMD Radeon R9 M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro 560
• AMD Radeon Pro 570
• AMD Radeon Pro 575
• AMD Radeon Pro 580
• AMD Radeon Pro M395X
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64
• Intel® HD Graphics 6000
• Intel® Iris™ Graphics 6100
• Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics 6200
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20
• AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48

Hmmm, silly comment really. I had the 12 core 6,1 since release and adobe did bugger all to utilise metal then too, or the cpu/gpu. Yet are still supporting the outdated no longer available Nvidia card support for high Sierra. It’s about time they did something for the Mac community. I pay for the software too. They need to get their acts together. They never supported the d700’s correctly either.

 

[sam80]

Well, thanks for bringing my attention back again to it, I just purchased RG and it works like a charme actually. It definitely uses more of the CPUs and renders faster. Do you have personal experience with it?
They say to launch not more than half the number of gardeners of physical cores available. It seems a bit wasted on a 16 core machine though. So frustrating that Adobe doesnt build something like this into after effects themselves under a little bit nicer UI..

Nice, glad it works for you! I agree with the thought on Adobe implementing this.

I'm no AE expert as I don't usually need to use it - which I'm glad about. Mostly I work Photoshop for stills and in Resolve doing grading.

I used RG when I had a footage heavy AfterEffects project going on, renders incredibly slow, and saw the cores not being utilised. I think I was using more gardeners than half of cores (this was on 10 core 6,1).

 

[chfilm]

Nice, glad it works for you! I agree with the thought on Adobe implementing this.

I'm no AE expert as I don't usually need to use it - which I'm glad about. Mostly I work Photoshop for stills and in Resolve doing grading.

I used RG when I had a footage heavy AfterEffects project going on, renders incredibly slow, and saw the cores not being utilised. I think I was using more gardeners than half of cores (this was on 10 core 6,1).

I found after some testing right now that using 8 gardeners on my 16 core but increasing the numbers of seeds helped, because the comp had very uneven spread loads, like in the middle it was super heavy, while beginning and end were easy. So once the first parts were finished, the idle gardeners could pick up some of the smaller seeds again. Awesome tool!

 

[beaker7]

deleted

 

[daveedjackson]

Metal wasn’t even available in OSX until 3 years after the 6,1 was released.

But even they there was no support for it. And no developments since with it. Only. Very minor.

 

[Blair Paulsen]

After paying for the AdobeCS subscription for a couple of years I dropped it, in part because it became painfully slow on Mac hardware. I don't know if they care about $600/year, but I do...

 

[chfilm]

After paying for the AdobeCS subscription for a couple of years I dropped it, in part because it became painfully slow on Mac hardware. I don't know if they care about $600/year, but I do...

I just had to pay those 600$ and it was really really painful, given the state of their apps, but there's just not an alternative if you work in today's advertisement industry in collab with other people..

 

[Blair Paulsen]

I hear you chfilm. Even after I found myself using the Creative Suite less and less, I felt obligated to keep it on my system to facilitate client workflows. Fortunately it seems like fewer clients are wedded to the CS apps these days, so it's rarely been an issue.
FWIW, if I book a decent sized gig and they're all about PremPro/AE/etc I can always turn it back on...

 

[blackadde]

Bit late now, but I just called Adobe during Black Friday and negotiated the sale (-40%) discount on my ongoing yearly CC sub. Keep your eyes peeled for when they cut the rate for new subscriptions and give em a call.