After effects & ram question

[boyformat]

Hi guys,

I'm just wondering, why my after effects cs4 sees only 3gb of ram, when i have 4gb on my MBP i7. In my windows experience, if that happens, i have a 32bit system, and when i use a 64bit system after effects sees all the memory installed. Does that mean my MBP is runnung on 32bit? Ive googled about how to identify if my MBP is a 32 or 64bit and ive learned that my system is supposed to be 64. any ideas?

Thanks.

[michl]

Yes in a 64-bit OS like Snow Leopard there isn't a 4GB RAM ceiling anymore. However, only those Mac applications which are 64-bit compatible can benefit from the extra RAM - like After Effects CS5.

Unfortunately, many apps are still 32 bits only and so they can use 4GB at most - including After Effects CS4.

As for why 3GB and not 4, read all about it on this Adobe forum:

After Effects on the Mac OS X operating system can use up to 3.5 GB of RAM, although only about 3 GB is actually available to the foreground application, because Mac OS X uses approximately 500 MB to load the user interface libraries...