Should I upgrade to After Effects CS4?

October 28, 2009 4:51 PM

I am running After Effects version 7.0.1 on my Intel iMac 2.8GHz with 4GB of RAM running Snow Leopard (10.6). It is slow. Slow to render, slow to play, slow everything. Most likely because it's using Rosetta to translate. I'm considering updating to After Effects CS4 but I have several questions. Is After Effects CS4 64-bit? Given my machine, will I be able to utilize OpenGL? My iMac is version 7,1. Will I see a noticeable speed bump? Will I become an effects guru? Thanks.
posted by captainscared to computers & internet (8 comments total)

CS4 does require Rosetta. Adobe just doesn't seem too interested in the Mac platform, anymore. If you're considering upgrading, you might consider migrating to the Final Cut Pro suite.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:00 PM on October 28

FCP isn't 64-bit either. Adobe's not putting 64- bit support into CS4.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 5:35 PM on October 28

I hate to say it but it sounds like the problem is your machine. You can maybe get by with the RAM, but if it's a single core processor... you're probably not going to get great performance no matter what.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:36 PM on October 28

OK, I was being a little terse there. Adobe actually has a FAQ about Snow Leopard support in CS4, and 64-bit support in general, and it's not bad. You should give it a read.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 5:39 PM on October 28

Sorry, I'm getting mixed information on CS4 requiring Rosetta.

Also, will I be aple to utilize OpenGl and will that speed things up at all?

Thanks.
posted by captainscared at 6:14 PM on October 28

got it: After Effects requires Rosetta to be installed. Rosetta is an optional install on the Snow Leopard disk. After Rosetta is installed, you may have to restart your Mac a few times in order to remove the missing component flag that prevents After Effects from launching successfully.
posted by captainscared at 6:29 PM on October 28

Adobe has announced that the next version (CS5) of both After Effects and Premiere will be 64-bit only apps on both platforms. So that should give a big performance boost when working with very large files, providing one has the requisite amount of memory (>4 GB, or >3.2 GB on Windows systems). Since you're using After Effects 7, which is using Rosetta to do the translation from PowerPC code to Intel, it's no wonder that you're getting a bit of lag time when doing certain tasks.

I'm sure that After Effects CS4 would give you a bit of a speed boost when compared with AE 7. If you don't mind waiting another 6 months or so, you might want to hold off for CS5 and its hot 64-bitness. Adobe typically goes through an 18-month revision cycle with its Creative Suite products, so since CS4 came out in October/November of 2008, it's realistic to assume that CS5 will come out in the second quarter of next year. Of course, no one from Adobe will admit that in public, but that's the general consensus out there.

Adobe digital video guru Dennis Radeke also does some explaining about the upcoming move to 64 bits here.

So, if you can put up with waiting, it could be a good thing. AE CS4 might be great right now, but I don't have that much experience with it (like: almost nothing, although I do own it; I'm still getting my feet wet with Flash, for heaven's sakes). :-)
posted by kentk at 7:20 PM on October 28 [1 favorite has favorites]

You could download the free 30 day trial version of the CS4 app and give it a test drive.
posted by spilon at 8:03 PM on October 28 [1 favorite has favorites]