System 4 After Effects & Maya

[knightsilver]

I'm getting closer to building my new system.
Please give me your thoughts.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (Conroe 2.4GHz 4Mcache @ 1066 FSB)
Quadro 560 ( replaced w/ Quadro 4500, as funds are available)
2Gb's of RAM (Add more, as funds are availble)
(2) Seagate SATA 3Gb/s Hd's (one 4 OS/2nd 4 Dedicated Video)

The system will be used for AE and Maya. I have never touched AE.
The last time I touched video was FCP(Final Cut Pro) some years ago.
I have a consumer DV cam for video.
When I read Adobe's requirements for AE it said, I needed a dedicated harddrive for video. So, How do I dedicate the 2nd harddrive for video?

I'm almost finished with my "Intro to Maya,SE" Cd's. Any thoughts on my 2nd Ditial Tutors CD's??

Thanks guys, Shane c.

[laxman]

You don't need a dedicated drive, what they mean is that it's best if you have two separate drives because it can have the program and the save the file to one, and use the second as a 'scratch' drive. A scratch drive is more of a folder really, all it does is put the temp files there. So if you are saving to one drive and using the second as temp, it goes a lot faster instead of doing both one after another on the same drive.

When you install AE it will ask you to set up the scratch folder, if not you can change the location from the preferences. It does the same for PS I think, haven't installed either in a while though.

[knightsilver]

Thanks dude!
As far as the system specs go, do they sound good?
thanks,
shane c.

[laxman]

dude, i've got a p4 3.0 ghz, quadro fx 5700 256mb, 1gb of pc-400 ram and a single hard drive. My specs are more than enough to create a decent sized scene, just takes a little longer for the renders. You're stats are more than enough to produce some really complicated stuff in the millions of polys range. All that really matters is that you get a Nvidia video card, the other specs don't really matter since you just have to get the industry standards at the time. Of course you're specs are significantly higher than the average so you'll be fine.

[Wassmer]

@knightsilver
Wow, cool specs
I'll soon buy a new system too...

@laxman
Why is it important to get a Nvidia video card ? Why not ATI or something
like this? Does Maya or AE need Nvidia?

[DjVoyager]

Why is it important to get a Nvidia video card ? Why not ATI or something
like this? Does Maya or AE need Nvidia?

This question has been asked dozens of times on the forums, please refer to these threads by searching the keywords "ATI", "Nvidia", or "Graphics card".

Hope that helps.

[Wassmer]

Yep that helped
thx a lot

Sorry...
Should have search for that first.