Particles jump around in Ram Preview

Hi, I'm using Particle World to create a sort of spinning star galaxy effect. But for some reason, after working with it for a while, I've started getting this issue where the particles just sort of jump around. Here's a link to the video so that I don't have to try to describe it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsELsQ-GM1M&feature=youtu.be .
Toward the end of the video, you can see me scrubbing through the timeline, and you can see that it's not just a screen refresh issue. The particles are actually moving to different places in the comp. About 26 seconds in, you can see what I mean.
Now, when I render it out, there are no problems, but obviously it's tough to work on it when you aren't sure exactly what it looks like. I've had this happen in other projects with the particle producer nested to a null that controls the movement. I don't know if that's related or not. Any ideas??
Thanks,
Lee

Turn off the disk cache in the prefs. AE is simply showing you invalid frames for whatever reason.
Mylenium

Similar Messages

CTI jumps frames during RAM Preview

I find myself having to build a graphic opener with music for the first time in AE. Needing to time elements to the music, I've discovered something that probably has been happening since I've owned AE, but I've never paid attention to til now. When previewing, my CTI moves forward by jumping several frames at a time, instead of playing smoothly. This makes timing to the music beat all but impossible, at least for me. Is this a normal thing for AE?
Here is a sample of what I'm talking about...
http://www.creativeillusions.biz/AE_CTI/

Yes, OpenGL is enabled, as well as hardware acceleration. Here are my system specs...
Asus P6X58D Premium
Core i7 950
24GB RAM
nVidia Quadro 4000 - driver version 267.24
Windows 7 Premium 64bit
System Drive - WD Caviar Black 500GB SATA
2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) - WD Velociraptor 10K drive(600GB)
Media Drive - 1GB RAID5 (4 - WD Caviar Black 500GB drive)
Matrox MX02 Mini
CS5 Production Premium
I should mention that I have Nucleo Pro 3 running, but this happens as well with previews being handled by NP3, and with it disabled. The current driver from nVIDIA is 270.61. I guess I can try it out, but I don't like getting too far ahead of what Adobe has cleared.

Particle Playground in RAM preview

Using AE CS3 I've built a sequence involving the explosion effect of Particle Playground. I adjusted the Velocity Dispersion parameter to get a good expansion rate for the particles, using RAM preview at 50 percent resolutiion as a test bed. To my surprise, when I rendered the project, the particles flew at many time the rate seen in RAM preview. Any ideas as to why this happened or how to get the RAM preview to faithfully reflect the real render?

> Trapcode Particular is the third party plugin I use more than any other - it is quite simply the most useful plugin I've ever bought for AE,
b and worth every cent.
if you have the dime, everything will be fine...
just a note for the guys from the dev-team who probably may stumble over this thread: i'm not paying for Ae using it on a "experimental basis".
There are two presumptions: you are not capable of properly coding or lets say, having your software-development under control, or you are simply NOT WILLED to take a look into your code to see what else can be managed because you're so distracted by having this app work in somewhat future of Apples somewhat architecture?
i'm in serious anger with Ae every day using it. i don't think i need a higher degree in mathematics just to be able to control a pretty self-explanatory software. if software lacks in usability thus lacking in performance, why someone should spend any future dime on it?
I believe it has all to do with bureaucracy and fund, just to enhance a software systematically from version to version, not pushing the features at once whilst having them already in the top drawer since ages.
it's pure business. it has nothing to do with customer satisfaction nor with customer experience.
though, this forums and all it's peoples input from all aspects did had an impact on development. without it, we still would stuck in the middle 90ies.
Thanks for sharing.
personally i got tired of all this technical drawbacks. it caused me a lot of damage to my health, non billable hours and suffering in my
profession as a digital artist which i've started with pure passion.
I will quit my job and start doing something that makes really sense to me and my fellow men rather than hanging around for days/nights in front of a screen filled with problems.
I release myself from this forum. i wish you all good luck for the future and keep pounding.
cheers,
Thomas

Triggers in Slide show widget jumps around in preview/published mode

I am using the slide show widget.
Have made triggers with different states.
In design mode they are perfectly aligned but in preview and after publishing, they jump around.
design mode
after publishing and in preview mode

What's the URL for the page? (You could publish to a free trial site on Adobe Business Catalyst and provide the URL...)

RAM PREVIEW CERTAIN AREA???

A couple months ago I Was watching AE tutorials On YouTube, and came across one where the instructor demonstrated how to RAM Preview certain areas of the timeline, and at the time I did not need that information. Now I do and I cant find the video, nor do I remember how do it, please somebody help me!

Simple: you limit the Work Area.
Put your timeline cursor where you want the preview to start. Hit the b (for Begin) key. Notice how the Work Area marker jumps to that point.
Put your timeline cursor where you want the preview to stop. Hit the n (for eNd) key. The marker for the end of the Work Area jumps to that point.
Now preview.
You can move the Work Area markers around by the click-drag technique, too. Don't forget to put them back when you're done.

Unable to create image buffer after RAM preview

Running into an odd and frustrating error. Built a comp using the new Ray-traced 3D renderer and now I'm regretting being an early adopter big time with all the problems I've been encountering with it. The latest comes whenever I do a longer RAM preview in an attempt to watch the whole duration of my comp. It will get to about 170 frames or so, at which point I've interrupted by pressing spacebar because I don't need to see all the way to the end of my work area (around 220 frames). It'll play the RAM preview back fine, and even loop it, but as soon as I stop playback, I get this error message: "After Effects warning: Unable to create image buffer." There's only one button: "okay" and as soon as I click it the same error pops up again and it will never go away, forcing me to close AE from the task manager. I've taken to saving before every RAM preview like I used to do with Flash before previewing my buggy swfs for fear I'll lose all my work after previewing. Any ideas about what might be causing this?
Some more details about my comp:
1920x1080 @ 29.97
Ray-traced 3D
About 70 3D layers (I'm guessing this is my downfall - new renderer not designed for this many layers?)
Running Windows 7 Professional
i7 2600K
32GB RAM
2x GTX 570 video cards running latest driver (301.42, CUDA 4.2.1)
508GB free on my 2TB internal drive where the project and cache lives
From my GPU info window in case it's useful:
Fast Draft:
Available
Texture Memory:
600.00 MB
Ray-tracing:
GPU
OpenGL
Vendor:
NVIDIA Corporation
Device:
GeForce GTX 570/PCIe/SSE2
Version:
3.0.0
Total Memory:
1.20 GB
Shader Model:
4.0 or later
CUDA
Driver Version:
4.2
Devices:
2 (GeForce GTX 570, GeForce GTX 570)
Current Usable Memory:
1.04 GB (at application launch)
Maximum Usable Memory:
1.25 GB

Yeah, some buffer is very likely not flushing when you interrupt the preview and then there is no more memory on the graphics hardware. Consider setting the work area and your preview options to use only the work area. if it finishes the preview "correctly", it may not suffer the issue. Beyond that - raytracing doesn't/ shouldn't care about the number of items. The math is such, that it makes no difference whether you render a million polygons or just one. Of course there are still limitations due to the GPU dependency, but I doubt you ever truly exhaust the cards' geometry buffers. Compared to pixel data that is a small amount...
Mylenium

AE CS4 - why such poor RAM preview on my FAST machine?

Hi all, I just installed After Effects CS4 - I have a smokin fast mchine: quadcore Zeon 3.20 GHz, hyperthreading turned on, nvidia quadrofx 3800 with current driver, 12 GB DDR3 RAM, windows 7 64bit ... can you PLEASE help me troubleshoot a problem: even on the simplest compositions, a moving picture or a moving piece of type, the RAM preview stutters along, the current time indicator hops along at a choppy pace, images in the frame dont look like they're moving smoothly, and all i get is about 6 seconds of RAM preview ... seems to me that I used to get better performance on a MUCH MUCH slower machine under windows XP ... i have looked around the forums and seem the advice on multiprocessor options and the like, but nothing I do seems to help ... do any of you have any advice for me to improve my performance??? if you have any questions about my setup or preferences, let me know, I will be on this until I get what I expect out of my (otherwise incredibly fast) machine

Hi Todd, thanks again for your reply ... FYI, I bought the FX3800 for Avid editing, for which it is the qualified video card, and supports distributed processing in the Avid along with my DX HD hardware BOB - I had hoped it would work well with After Effects, too, but I do understand the Adobe is very transparent about the fact that, as long as your card has OpenGL support, probably best to sink your $$$ into more RAM or faster CPU .. but to stay on topic, I am just very stunned that I am not getting better playback with my system ... I have the most recent Nvidia drivers ... I have 2 NEC 2490WUXi2 each connected through DVI-D to my video card, each runnign at its native 1920x1200 res, 59 hertz ... the programs I have installed are Adobe CS4 Production Premium, Win7 64bit, MS Office 2007 Enterprise, latest version of Quick Time, Media Player version 11, and NERO 9 ... you dont think that one of these video player apps (like media player or QT) are messing with my screen performance do you? what about Nero 9, have you heard any compatibility or display problems associated with this app? would unistalling any of these programs be a troubleshooting technique that you'd attempt?
Finally, when you say "an issue with a bottleneck of drawing to the screen" what do you mean exactly? 'cause this kinds sounds like a goood description of what I am seeing ... what might be the cause of such a bottleneck, I am willing to try anything ...
Thanks, sir, for your reply!
Derek Reid
Trader Multimedia Inc.
www.tradermm.com
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:46:43 -0600
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: AE CS4 - why such poor RAM preview on my FAST machine?
Just one thing to cut down a frequent misconception:
Your nice graphics card doesn't do much for After Effects performance.In fact, trying to use OpenGL for rendering (including rendering of previews) can cause problems.
I recommend turning OpenGL rendering off for all but interactions. I.e., choose the http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WSAF696587-2D81-42e2-B248-4C5C2B7D3614a.html and turn off http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a4f2dff7-79e8a.htm l. OpenGL is not compatible with Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing.
I'm not saying that OpenGL is your problem. Rather, because you mentioned your nice graphics card, I just had to stress that you need to forget about that with regard to After Effects. It's not really relevant.
It may be that the jerkiness is an issue with a bottleneck of drawing to the screen. (I don't know, but it's possible.)
Your hard disk being too slow wouldn't be an issue with RAM previews, since the frames are all cached in RAM.
>

My magic mouse is now jumping around every time I pick it up / put it down. It started in the last few days. Any ideas?

Hi all -
I looked around the forums and couldn't find an existing solution...
This afternoon, I started using my Magic Mouse again, after about a week without turning it on. The mouse now jumps around erratically and sends spurious click commands - menus pop up all over the place, links are clicked, apps opened, etc. Usually it takes the form of the mouse jumping 1-8" to the left, and it seems proportional to the impact - if I put it down normally, it jumps about 4" to the left. If I put it down a little harder then normal, it usually jumps to the upper left corner.
This ONLY seems to happen when I pick up the mouse to reposition it on the mouse pad. If I slide it smoothly along the pad, then there don't seem to be any issues.
It has been in my backpack, and was turned on (I realized this afternoon when I took it out), so I wondered if it might have been the batteries. I checked them, and they're fine. It also had trouble connecting, though, and I had to cycle both the mouse and BlueTooth on the MBP.
I also saw several posts here that said it might be the optics, so I tried blowing those out, but they look crystal clear.
Just to be safe, I also updated the Wacom tablet drivers to the latest, no luck.
MBP (July 2011) 15" i7, upgraded to 8 G RAM
Lion 10.7.4
Magic Mouse
Wacom Intuos 5 tablet
no external monitors
It's possible this started when I installed the Wacom drivers, since it 'feels' kinda like using a tablet in absolute mode, rather than mouse mode - but with the mouse hardware. I have not tried swapping out the mouse for another one, nor tried this mouse with another Mac. I can try those in the next few days when I get an opportunity, but figured I'd ask in the meantime.
I'm suspicious of either the Wacom tablet (but I can't imagine there would be a problem, as SO many people would have experienced it already).
I'm also suspicious that maybe something has been jiggled loose inside the mouse, but have no idea how to tell.
Can anyone save me a trip to the (distant) genius bar?
Thanks!
Aaron

hey try a smc reset
EDIT (smc reset
Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.)
if that doesnt help look at replacing the batteries in your magic mouse and try it then
if the issue still presists take it into a apple store and they can test it there to see whats up

Multiprocessing works for RAM preview, extremely slow and aeselflink crashes when in Render Queue

Hello all,
System specs:
Hackintosh
OSX 10.9
3.5Ghz (overclocked to 4.2Ghz) Core i7
Geforce GTX 580 classified 3GB Cuda GPU
AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB Display GPU
32 GB of RAM
System SSD
5 drive internal RAID
After Effects CC 12.2.1.5
Cuda drivers up to date
I'm having a problem with the render queue and multiprocessing. I have a moderate sequence with several effects and 3D layers. When I'm working in the composition, everything goes great. I can RAM preview and all my CPU cores will kick up to 100% and render the composition in no time all; with full resolution with no skipped frames. It works fantastically.
Then when I go to render the exact same composition with the same multiprocessing settings, AE will hang at the "initializing background processes" for at least 5-10 minutes, during which the CPU will ramp up to 100% but no frames will be rendered. AE still remains responsive, as I can hit the stop or pause buttons and the queue will be cancled. But then the aeselflink processes (up to 8 of them depending on my settings, I've tried several) will still continue at 100% cpu load even with AE not set to render anything. I will have to go into the activity monitor and force quit each process. If I leave it for 5-10 minutes, it will finally stop initalizing and start the render, but the CPU will still run at 100% but the frames will crawl slowly forward at about 1 frame per minute, with an estimated 28 hours to render frames that were rendering in under a minute during RAM preview.
I have tried both reducing the number of cores AE will use, adjusting the allocated RAM, and disabling multiprocessing alltogether. When I disable multiprocessing, the render slows to a complete crawl, and it will render around 1 frame every 5-10 seconds. Again, this is on a composition that rendered in less than a minute on full resolution with RAM preview.
The only way to get this composition to render is to export it to Media Encoder, which will render it (without multicore processing, unfortunately) in about 8 minutes, still not the blazing fast RAM preview but at least it finishes it in under 3.5 hours (the amount of time that the multiprocessing disabled render in AE will take).
Here's the multiprocessing settings that have been very stable and carried me through other projects. Disk Cache is not enabled. The only other thing that is disabled is the "Disable Layer Cache" under the Secret menu as the plugins I'm using (Plexus 2 in this case) doesn't like to update when the camera moves so this option has been disabled to force it to reset each frame.
Does anyone know what is going on?
Also, please don't tell me that I should not use multiprocessing or instruct me on basic steps as to increase preformance on my machine. I have been tweaking my memory and multiprocessing settings for a long time now, and it is completely stable in everything but this setup. So please no answers saying "just don't use multiprocessing". It was made for a reason, it's effective, and it's needed. And please don't say that it's the hackintosh, either, as it's the most stable and powerful computer I've ever used. Sorry for the disclaimers, I just want to have constructive help.
Thank you in advance for your ideas!

Hi Rick, not sure if you saw the part where I said please don't reply with turning off Multiprocessing, and I did not say that it works and is effective in all areas. However, if you actally take the time to read my post, you will definately notice that RAM preview with multiprocessing takes under a minute to render a scene. Multiprocessing disabled and rendered in AE takes 3.5 hours. In Media Encoder it takes around 8 minutes. Clearly it IS working and IS effective for my case and my rig. Any vendettas against MP does not help my situation at all.

There's got to be a better way to do this (RAM preview frustration)

I loaded a 1:20 second Full HD clip into after effects. I need to edit the video based on certain sounds in the video and see if I'm matching them up correctly by previewing it with sound.
The problem is i'm getting frustrated due to After effects not behaving like Premiere. First who thought it was a good idea not to incorporate sound into after effects? Second, I have an i7 sandy bridge processor, and 16 gbs of ram, yet it still takes time to render the ram preview (with no effects on it yet).
So ram preview is my only option for sound, but the problem is every time I hit ram preview it starts the video all the way from the beginning. This is frustrating as I want to start at a specific point. Imagine having a longer video where the editing needs to take place at the end.
There are people out there doing a lot more complicated professional projects, what do you guys do to get around this?
Why can't after effects do some basic things like premiere like render fast with sound? Is it due to Mercury engine and 64 bits?
This is one of the best products on the market, surely there is a better way to do this right?

but the problem is every time I hit ram preview it starts the video all the way from the beginning.
Window --> Preview, enable the "From current time" option
yet it still takes time to render the ram preview (with no effects on it yet).
There is no magic button. If it is compressed, naturally it needs to be decompressed and decoded first. This can consume resources even on fast machines. Furthermore, drive speed matters a lot in such cases. This might actualyl multiply, if you use multiprocessing, so for this kind of simple setup it's usually better to not use it. If your harddrives are fragmented or simply generally slow, frames cannot be loaded as fast and neither will AE be able to use the disk cache. Ergo, convert the footage and move it to the fastest drive in your system.
what do you guys do to get around this?
We preview at reduced compo resolution to extend RAM previews and place markers while the RAM preview plays using the * key on the numpad.
Mylenium

After Effects Ram Preview Drops Frames , Using Strangely Too Much Ram

System Specs :
     CPU : Core i7 4770k
     Memory : 16 GB DDRIII
     Graphic Card : GTX 770 4GB RAM
     Storage : 256 GB SSD + 2 TB HDD
     OS : Windows 7 SP1
     Using After Effects CC 12.2.1.5
NOTE : NOT ANY ADDITIONAL HARDWARE IS ATTACHED TO MY PC . NO SOUND RELATED EQUIPMENT NOR CAPTURE CARD NOR ANY THING ELSE
Hi there
As you Already Don't know I'm an After effects Specialist Using it for quite long time . There is an Ancient Problem with CS6 CC versions . I have a short Small size 1080p Video , about 8 MB , I drag it into project panel and then put it into timeline hence it creates a sequence . There are no Effects and nothing added to timeline , just a small simple video . The Strange Problem is when I click "0" for ram preview , The video starts playing and the green bar above timeline starts to fill . When Ram preview Finishes and plays the video from beginning I See there are several frames Between which are not being loaded to Ram ! The video plays RGB color bar instead of main video and when I check the Green bar above Timeline I see that those frames are being dropped and there is no Green bar above them !
I have had this problem several times before but this time it is too important and the problem should be solved . What is obvious is that some frames are not being rendered or are being deleted after render !
Another Strange problem is that when I open Task manager , It shows AE uses around 10 GB ! of RAM when I press "0" for Ram previewing this video !
So there is a Logical explanation here , Somehow when I do ram preview this video it uses extra ordinary too much ram so AE is unable to load the full video (8 MB) into Ram and hence deletes some of frames .
most of my videos have not this problem and use acceptable amount of ram .I've had this issue with some of my videos till now .
Listen carefully : "This has nothing to do with AE preferences or low memory or plugins . because there is nothing wrong with any individual components of may hardware or software . I have far more than enough RAM for a 8MB video . My Memory has no hardware or software problem . I tested them and if there was any problem with memory or other hardware that should have affected other applications . I have the most recent AE version . I have the most Recent windows updates and drivers . I have a Clean virus free system , and as a computer engineer this strange AE problem is rarely caused by viruses , trust me . I have not any hardware instead of ones a normal PC has . I have not any problem with my whole entire system configuration because I have benchmarked my PC with several up to date softwares . I have tested my PC with almost any STRESS TESTING solutions available for really long period of time , 3 days by IDA64 . Not any driver conflict , dll missing , registry problem have been discovered , as I know perfectly how to solve them ."
I asked some of my friend whom are expert in AE . I handed them my videos and Watched ALL OF THEM HAD THE SAME ISSUE ! So the problem isn't related to my Local PC . What i believe is that there is some malfunctioning or miss coded part in AE source code that decides to reserve such a huge strange amount of ram for such a tiny 8MB video . The point is that the AE works fine , no crash or any problem report . So the AE it Self decides to allocate such huge amount of ram and thinks it is correct ! So I think this is a work around that AE developers in adobe are using to bypass a problem or conflict ! by Using more amount of RAM . I think that there might be some miss understanding between the AE and my installed codec . I installed MEGA CODEC PACK on my PC to enable some new codec supports , and so are some of Windows default de/encoders changed to new ones . I think there shouldn't be any problem But there is something wrong between AE and de/encoder modules !
Please any one with any suggestion , I really appreciate your advices .

###UPDATED###
Well thank you guys for your patience ...
as you considered I forgot to mention the codec itself and other stuff ...
The video is in 1080p , 35 sec long , it is a green screen shot , this video is directly downloaded from YouTube and plays perfectly on all tested PCs . here are detailed info :
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                          : Base Media
File size                                 : 8.55 MiB
Duration                                 : 34s 993ms
Overall bit rate mode                : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 2 050 Kbps
VideoFormat                            : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Bit rate                                    : 1 927 Kbps
Width                                      : 1 920 pixels
Height                                     : 1 080 pixels
Frame rate mode                      : Constant
Frame rate                               : 30.000 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                 : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                  : 8 bits
Scan type                                 : Progressive
NOTICE : This video is just for testing the lighting and etc , and so the Sampling and other specs are not considered for broadcast .
I think you hit the point ! Thats K-lite codec pack installed on every machine which the video is tested on ! The point is whats wrong with it ?! I have had never ever any problem with this codec pack !!!
The deadly question : So what are the alternative ways to work with codecs that AE doesn't support ?! because installing codec looks simple and sufficient !

RAM previewing and rendering not working correctly

Hi,
Today I was just about finished editing a video on CS6 and then when I'm about to add the last effect and render it it stuffs up on me:(. What happens is that while RAM previewing at some point during the loading of the preview it will stop loading, It will then proceed to play the ram preview on loop and when I press a button to stop it a small box pops up in the centre of my screen and the ram preview bar to show what has loaded (the one which shows green for parts that are loaded and blue for cached) turns black and sometimes other parts of after effects turn black. This has happened before and I fixed it by uninstalling and reinstalling After Effects about 6 times. I would do that this time though I would like to know the cause of it and any possible fixes as it is quite irritating. Another thing that may be happening is the RAM usage is slowly filling as I render. This has happened before on my laptop and I did not manage to fix it though it was not related to the first issue that time. The last time when it happened on my laptop the RAM usage eventually filled up to 100% and it would no longer render. I am not sure if it is happening this time as it is still currently rendering though I will update the thread if it does. Finally my render is going very slowly, I am not sure if this issue is realted to any of the above or if it is just the effects I am using though. My memory and multiprocessing settings are using 6 cores of 7 with 2 GB of ram allocated to each with multiprocessing on. My ram allocated for other programs is 6GB. To fix these Issues so far I have tried clearing the cache, purging the memory and image cache, restarting my computer and reinstalling after effects. My specs are:
i7 4770k non overclocked
GTX 780
G.Skill Ripjaws Z 2133mhz 32GB
Samsung 840 pro
Seagate Barracuda
MSI Z87-G45
H100i cooler
Any reply is appreciated
Thanks in advance
Sam

How much experience do you have with AE? Ram preview can be lengthened by adjusting the resolution of the composition window, different parts of the project can be previewed using the work area, and preview length and render time are both a function of composition frame size. Complex, memory intensive effects like particle systems will reduce the render time and the length of a ram preview. Without knowing the details of your composition it's hard to say if you are running into a bug, running out of resources, or experiencing normal behavior.

RAM Preview timecode counter ... where did it go?

This issue has been bothering me for a while now, but I've kept forgetting to inquire about it until now and really hope someone knows the answer ...
Up until recent versions of AE, while RAM previews were being generated the frame-by-frame timecode would count off in AE's viewer window as each frame rendered. That was very useful when using RAM previews to review compositions frame-by-frame for various reasons, rather than only to see real-time playback. That feature went away somewhere around CS1 or CS2 and I miss it terribly since it is very useful for identifying specific frames that one couldn't possibly pinpoint during realtime playback.
Was the feature replaced by some new way of accomplishing the same that I just haven't found yet?
people attempting to help have directed me to the Info Panel, which indicates I haven't explained my question clearly enough since the Info Panel doesn't display frame-by-frame timecode as a RAM preview is generated ... only the total number of frames, not an actual timecode count as those frames render.
Thanks for any help and, if any of the Adobe AE team happens to see this, please consider this a request to return that very useful feature to AE.

Thanks, Todd.
I've just submitted this as my second AE feature request ever ... I was actually hoping the feature had just been moved somewhere I hadn't found it yet since I didn't have any luck with my first AE feature request, which I think I've submitted once per version since version 4 ... to do away with the loaded plugin limit that forces plugins into a randomly organized "other" folder when the user has someone's idea of "too many" plugins installed. I've heard various arguments for why it shouldn't matter, but have yet to hear one that genuinely seemed valid, although I do understand how it can be a non-issue for many AE users depending on differences in circumstances, project types, workflow, etc.

RAM Preview issue

Hi,
I'm wondering if anyone has seen this or can provide some direction for further investigation. This is on a new Mac Pro on which I have just installed FCS
In some projects the RAM preview has no effect on playback performance. After generating a RAM preview, the project will play at the same speed (say 2 fps) and as soon as I pause playing, the green progress bar that indicates project is loaded in RAM disappears or becomes fragmented - without modifying the project in any way. When this happens it also becomes nearly impossible to do additional editing as every simple task (as simple as resetting the play range) can result in the spinning beachball. There was a recent thread on RAM preview issues (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12215113&#12215113) but it appears the problem there was due to a long HDV project. The projects I experience this on generally have a lot of particles or replicated elements, but are standard 720 x 486 resolution projects lasting less than 10 sec. System memory usage is relatively small, less than 4 GB.
These issues arise on a recently purchased MacPro (3.33 GHz 6-Core, 16 GB RAM, ATI 5870). The boot disc is an OWC SSD, and user folders, scratch, etc are on separate hard drives. I installed the operating system on the SSD using the installation disc, and have manually installed all my programs from their original discs. (I initially used migration assistant to bring over applications, but that failed with some applications, so I wiped clean and started over). There have also been some past threads on how different hardware configurations can affect performance, but I don't seem to be doing anything abnormal here.
What I have done:
Tested ram using memtestosx
Verified memory usage through activity monitor. The projects I have tested on use up less than 4 GB of system memory
Before each test or comparison I reset preferences.
I do not have this flakey behavior with an older MBP (17" 2.93 GHz Core 2 MBP with NVIDIA 9600) running the same OS (10.6.4) and motion version (4.0.3). Running the same project on the MBP will take longer for the RAM preview to complete, but when it does, the project plays at full frame rate.
The upgrade to a MacPro was mainly for other CPU and RAM intensive applications unrelated to video or graphics, but I expected motion to show a nice performance boost over the MBP on this new machine. Anyhow, any insight or direction for further investigation that I should pursue will be appreciated.
Thanks.

I tried your project (nice, BTW), and yes, 20,000+ particles take some time to render. However, when I did a RAM Preview, I had no problems - after render it played at full speed.
UNTIL...
I selected the emitter. Then playback went to the pre-RAM-Preview speeds. As soon as I turned off overlays or made sure the emitter was not selected, the playback instantly sped back up to full speed. I believe this is because Motion needs to image the constantly changing outline of the emitter. This means it needs to be re-drawn every frame after Motion determines the extent/size of the 20,000 particles on their random journey.
I think this is backed up by the fact that near the end of your project, there are only a few particles to keep track of and the playback appropriately speeds up. Also, CPU usage vastly increases when I turn on the overlays.
Moral of the story? To ensure the quickest possible playback, turn off overlays (⌘/) or ensure that something like a particle emitter is not selected during playback.
Patrick

Page jumps around in indesign

Downloaded the trial version of indesign CS5. OSX 10.6.3, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB, 1067 MHz RAM, 1 TB HD.
Working on a doc and page seems to jump around inexplicably on its own. May be some preference I need to set correctly or some other minor glitch but it is extremely annoying. Possibly Mouse related? Have no idea but need to resolve this issue before purchase.
Thanks in advance.

dgriffin1951 wrote:
Downloaded the trial version of indesign CS5. OSX 10.6.3, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB, 1067 MHz RAM, 1 TB HD.
Working on a doc and page seems to jump around inexplicably on its own. May be some preference I need to set correctly or some other minor glitch but it is extremely annoying. Possibly Mouse related? Have no idea but need to resolve this issue before purchase.
Thanks in advance.
This is likely due to the Live Screen Drawing option in Preferences being set to Immediate - the default - rather than Delayed.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

Particles jump around in Ram Preview

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