Optimize Mac OS X for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
What's covered
The performance of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 is affected most by available random-access memory (RAM) and computer processor speed. Other factors can also affect performance, such as the options you select, your workflow, and your operating system and hardware configuration. Optimizing your operating system and hardware configuration also improves performance of other applications. Premiere Pro CS4 supports large image dimensions and file sizes and thus requires increased system performance. Premiere Pro CS4 supports 4K files (files with a maximum frame size of 4096 x 4096 pixels).
Before you perform the steps below, make sure to install the latest version of Premiere Pro or any Premiere Pro updates to the version you are using. Premiere Pro updates often include performance-related fixes or enhancements. Current version information and updates are available on the Adobe website at www.adobe.com.
Operating system software
By customizing your system so it runs efficiently, you can increase the amount of memory available to applications, and ensure that applications will run efficiently. Quitting applications you are not using, or disabling nonessential extensions, will improve the performance of Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro CS4 requires using Mac OS v10.4.11 or later.
Run Apple periodic maintenance scripts to clean logs and temporary files
Mac OS X performs some background maintenance tasks overnight. If your computer is turned off or in sleep mode at night, then the maintenance tasks are not performed. Run a utility, such as Anacron or Maintenance, to manually perform these tasks, or enter the commands using the Terminal. For further information, read article HT2319, "Mac OS X: How to force background maintenance tasks (logs and temporary items)" on the Apple support website at www.apple.com/support.
Fonts
If you install only the fonts you need, then you will improve system performance and the performance of applications that access fonts. Each installed font increases the amount of RAM used by the system, which decreases the amount of RAM available to open applications and increases the amount of time applications take to display font menus. Use a font management utility, such as Extensis Suitcase, to help you manage a large number of fonts. If there is a damaged font on your system and you have WYSIWYG font preview turned on, your computer can slow significantly. If you turn off font preview and your computer performance improves significantly, test for a damaged font.
Hardware
Premiere Pro performance is limited by the hardware you use; the faster the processor or hard disk you use, the faster Premiere Pro can process image information. Other hardware enhancements, such as installing additional RAM, using a multiprocessor system, using multiple hard disks, and optimizing and defragmenting drives, can also improve performance.
Processor speed
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) of the Macintosh limits the speed of Premiere Pro. Since Premiere Pro manipulates large quantities of data and performs many calculations, its speed is greatly dependent on processor speed. The faster the processor(s), the faster Premiere Pro CS4 performs. Premiere Pro requires an Intel-based processor. Premiere Pro can also take advantage of multiprocessor systems (that is, systems that have two or more Intel processors), which are much faster than single-processor systems. All Premiere Pro features are faster on a multiprocessor system, and some features are much faster.
Installed RAM
The amount of memory Premiere Pro requires depends on how you use the program. If memory is insufficient, Premiere Pro uses hard-drive space (virtual memory) to process information. Premiere Pro is fastest when it can process all or most image information in RAM, without having to use the virtual memory.
Hard disks
Since Premiere Pro reads and writes image information while editing an image, the faster the access speed of the drive containing the image or the Premiere Pro scratch disk, the faster Premiere Pro can process image information. To improve Premiere Pro performance, work on files saved on drives with fast access speeds, such as an internal hard drive, rather than those with slow access speeds (a network drive) or removable media (for example, a Zip disk). Removable media often have slower access times and are more easily damaged than internal hard drives.
Using Premiere Pro features effectively
Scratch Disks
Set the scratch disk locations to fastest drives available on the system. Do not overfill the scratch disk drives. Drives over 80% full may show a decrease in Read/Write access times.
Media Cache Database
The Media Cache Database stores the locations of conformed audio files and indexed MPEG files. Cleaning the Media Cache Database will remove entries for media files that have been orphaned or no longer exist on the system. To clean the Media Cache Database:
- Select Premiere Pro > Preferences > Media.
- Click Clean under Media Cache Database in the Media Preferences
Highest Quality, Draft Quality, and Automatic Quality
Set the display quality in the Source or Program Monitor panel menu to a quality setting appropriate to the system hardware and the project media. You can reduce the resolution of the playback monitors to decrease the processing demands on your computer. Reducing the the quality setting may allow your system to play media and effects in real-time that might otherwise require rendering.
- Highest Quality - Displays media in the monitor at full resolution
- Draft Quality - Displays media in the monitor at one-half resolution for Standard Definition clips and at one-quarter resolution for High Definition clips.
- Automatic Quality - Measures playback performance and dynamically adjusts the display quality as needed to play the sequence in real time. When playing complex unrendered sections of a sequence, or using a system with inadequate resources, playback quality will degrade gracefully.
Optimize Rendering
By default, Adobe Premiere Pro renders video using the maximum number of available processors, up to 16. However, some sequences, such as those containing high-resolution source video or still images, require large amounts of memory for the simultaneous rendering of multiple frames. These can force Adobe Premiere Pro to abort rendering and to give a Low Memory Warning alert. In these cases, you can maximize the available memory by changing the rendering optimization preference from Performance to Memory. Change this preference back to Performance when rendering no longer requires memory optimization.
- Select Premiere Pro > Preferences, and select General in the Preferences dialog box.
- From the Optimize Rendering For menu, select Memory.
- Click OK, close Adobe Premiere Pro, and reopen the project for the new preference to take effect.
Resources
The following websites provide troubleshooting tips and further information about Mac OS:
- Apple Support: www.apple.com/support
- Mac OS X Hints www.macosxhints.com
- MacFixIt Troubleshooting Solutions for the Macintosh: www.macfixit.com
- MacFixit forums: www.macfixitforums.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/cfrm
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