FCP After Effects and RAM Issues

Question

Hello,
Recently I have been working on a 1280x720 video project using both FCP 7 and After Effects CS6.  I have an early 2011 MBP running 10.6.8 (I'm not a fan of Lion).  It's a 2.2 GHZ Intel Core i7.  I have been having significant lagging issues with playing back videos in AE and eeven more significant playing them in the timeline of FCP.  It has made editing a royal pain.  Exports also take a long time.
I had 8GB of RAM but last night, expanded to 16GB.  Since then, I have noticed no increase in speed at all.  Not opening programs.  Not opening files, not exporting files, and not playing back in either program.  Maybe I am misunderstood as to what the RAM was supposed to accomplish?
My question is, what can I do to fix this?  Do I need a new Hard Drive?  Was the RAM upgrade a waste of money.  Maybe someone has some suggested settings for Memory and Cache for the two programs?
Thanks in advance for any help
Chris

Answer 1

Chris:
To open an application faster, install a faster hard drive.  If you go with an SSD drive, you should notice a huge improvement in how quickly your applications launch.  If you just upgrade from a 4,800 RPM or 5,400 RPM drive to a 7,200 RPM drive, then you'll see a modest increase in launch time.
To export files faster from AE, you'll want faster processors (assuming you had enough RAM in the first place). AE tells you at the bottom of the application window how much RAM is being used.  While you had 8GB of RAM, you might have seen 42% being used.  Increasing your RAM to 16GB would only reduce that percentage to 21%.  It would not speed up the render.  A faster hard drive can help as well, but not as much as faster processors.  Switching from a USB2 thumb drive to your internal drive would boost render speeds.  Even if you were working at 1920x1080, it's unlikely that you'd need more than 4GB of RAM. If you happend ot be working at really large Composition sizes or have artwork that is really large (like 18MB still images), AE will tell you exaclty how much more RAM you need when it displays an "insuficient memory" dialog box.  If that was happening, then you'd want more RAM.
To "speed up" the playback of video, you need storage media that can maintain the sustained data transfer rate of the file being played.  (Unfortunately, more RAM doesn't help for this.)  1280x720 rendered to the Animation codec at best quality and at 8 bits per channel requires 3.5Mb per frame (not including audio).  At 30 frames per second, you're looking at 105Mb/second.  eSATA was recommended earlier and that's a good option; however, you mentioned that you have a 2011 MacBook Pro.  As such, you probably have a Thundebolt port.  An external Thunderbolt drive should be able to maintain 105Mb/second with overhead to spare.  If you have to use your interal drive, switch from the Animation codec to Apple ProRes 422 or Apple ProRes 422 LT.  You'll see a good reduction in storage space requirements and your internal drive should be able to maintain the data rate required of APR 422 and APR 422 LT.  If you need to have Animation versions of your renders, use Compressor or Adobe Media Encoder to convert the rendered Animation movie to a H264 file and then play that when you need to view the video.  Also, _always_ be mindful of how full your drive is.  The closer the drive gets to being over 85% to 90% of its maximum capacity, the more likely data transfer rates are going to drop (that is, the drive will not perform as fast as it would have otherwise).  If you happen to have upgraded to a hybrid drive or SSD drive, you probably won't have to worry about reaching drive capacity (other than worrying about setting overlfow volumes in AE).  You can throw the fastest processor available and the most RAM available at a high data transfer rate movie, but if the storage media isn't fast enough then the storage media isn't fast enough.
Regardless of your OS (32bit vs. 64bit; 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.6 or 10.8), all of the above factors apply.
I'm curious, do you really hope that I choke?
-Warren