After Effects Multi-Core Benchmarks

Question

I have been doing some testing trying to figure out how fast after effects renders and how to
help it render faster. So far i have been very dissapointed with the results. no matter how
much money we spend buying the fastest systems we can i cant seem to get much of a speed
increase. we have 8 computers with 8 cores each now. but i cant seem to get after effects to
use the extra cores even when i have 20Gb ram and enable multi frames with 2GB per frame. i see
it load all the extra copies in task manager but when i render each time 1 core has "some"
usage and the other 7 are always around 10-15% usage.
so i wanted to try a simple benchmark that everyone could try and post their results.
so i made a ntsc dv composition default at 30 seconds and just render it. NOTHING, just blank
frames of nothing. how fast can afx output data like this? i tried tests with multiple frames
enabled and disabled and output to tiff files (no compression) or the microsoft DV 48khz
preset, both with the default BEST setting.
Now i understand that after effects and premiere have 2 completely different rendering methods
but still it is worth pointing out that premiere will output 30 seconds of blank video or
actual real dv video footage to a DV AVI file in about 3-4 seconds. so why is it the same
machine takes 10 times longer to render from after effects?
I know in premiere i can simple drop in a dv avi file and export to mpeg2 and i can watch all 8
cores almost max out as it renders about 6X faster then realtime.
How can i do something in after effects to see my 8 cores max out?
Please give any tips or tricks to speed up after effects. We must use vista64 as we have a 30TB fibrechannel array.
Dell Laptop M6300 - Core 2 Extreme x9000 @2.8ghz (2 cores)
Adobe CS4 Windows XP 64 bit - 8GB ram
Multiple OFF     Tiff=1:24
                       DV=1:24
Multiple ON      Tiff=1:32
                       DV=1:30
Dell Precision 690 - Dual Quad Core Xeon E5320 @1.86ghz (8 cores)
Adobe CS4 - Windows Vista 64 bit - 4GB ram - Matrox Axio LE
Multiple OFF     Tiff= :47
                       DV= :43
Multiple ON      Tiff= :56
                       DV= :52
Dell Precision T7400 - Dual Quad Core Xeon X5482 @3.2ghz (8 cores)
Adobe CS3 - Windows XP 32 bit - 4GB ram - Matrox Axio LE
Multiple OFF     Tiff= :30
                        DV= :30
Multiple ON      Tiff= :31
                       DV= :30
Dell Precision T7400 - Dual Quad Core Xeon X5482 @3.2ghz (8 cores)
Adobe CS4 - Windows Vista 64 bit - 20GB ram - Matrox Axio LE
Multiple OFF     Tiff= :30
                       DV= :31
Multiple ON      Tiff= :35
                      DV= :35

Answer 1

Well we can toss around reasons for AE not using a processors full potental on a comp, but all I know is that all of the truly multithreaded and multi-processor enable applications I use are much better at using resources to their fullest than AE, or for that mater, most of the programs in the MC.
When I run those programs my system is pushed to the limit- which is why I bought a quad core system in the first place. Mental ray, Fusion, 3D Coat, Zbrush...the list is long of programs that have no problem using all my cores for 90%-100% of opperations.
In the end it just adds up to the fact that Adobe owns a large corner of the market- and since there is no competition, sees no reason NOT to be 5-10 years behind the curve when it comes to resource managment in their software.
Making maters worse is how a lot of the user base is oblivious to the technological changes in processors over the last five years. These people don't know that all but one of their cores sit idle most of the time, and they buy the corp. speak put out by Adobe about "...how complex every thing is- so you don't understand...". Sorry- I may not be a programer or a processor engineer for Intel or AMD, but I know when a program is using resources or not and I know quite a few of the things Adobe has said are "...just too complicated to do..." are really covers for lack luster R and D. Either your programers need to get up to speed, or Adobe needs to actually do the right thing and set more money aside for development. I'm betting it's the later.
Softimage 7.x is fully multithreaded and 64bit (yes all the way through not just with mr). This is a complicated program- and the development team is probably 1/10th the size of that working on PS. So why after all of these years are we still waiting for even a half baked attempt at such things on the Adobe front?
The way AE handles RAM compared to programs like Fusion and the like is pathetic.
Don't get me wrong- I love the program for motion graphics and simple comp work, but again, the resource management with AE feels like I'm back in OS8.
-Gideon