After Effects CS5 only 64-bit, it’s about time!

“Out of memory errors” will soon be thing of the past. After Effects will be 64-bit, and 64-bit only!

These days, HD has become the norm and users are more more demanding for power. Currently, After Effects CS4 is 32-bit and is limited to 4GB of RAM. This can drastically slowdown your workflow. It is common to see people with over 4GB of RAM and with multi-cores CPUs. Among most professional softwares, the Adobe Suite are the few that are still 32-bit. Most, if not all 3D softwares are now 64-bit.

Why would you care if After Effects is 64-bit?

First, you get the ability to render bigger comps, high resolution ones with tons of layers. If you currently get out-of-memory and errors, this one is for you.

Second, you’ll be able to have longer ram previews, not only a few seconds on HD footage. You can’t imagine how frustrating it is to do a ram preview and only preview 10 seconds ( And I run 6GB of DD3-1600MHz…high end stuff!! ).

Third, you’ll be able to work more efficiently with floating point color (aka 32-bit color). This takes 4 times the RAM compared to 8-bit color. So working with over-range or HDR imagery will be improved.

Fourth, the green bars you see on the timeline are the visible part of Adobe’s sophisticated RAM caching technology. After Effects will be able to store more intermediate renders in its caching system.

So why only 64-bit? Adobe supported 64-bit for the last 3 version, but now will fully focus on 64-bit, so users can actually user the power of 64-bit. Virtually all of Apple’s Intel-based Mac systems support 64-bit applications, and Windows users should choose a 64-bit version of Windows to take advantage of the hardware capabilities. Plus, RAM has become so cheap that anyone can add some extra gigs to his machine.

Another good new is: Premier Pro will also be 64-bit.

I think it’s about time!

No official words on CS5 release date.