After Effects CS6 running painfully slow

Question

I am working on a composition in Adobe After Effects CS6, and it's running painfully slow. I've tried to mess with some of the settings in the preferences, and lowering the quality of the preview. But I still feel like I'm running terribly slow considering the speed of my computer. Here's what I'm running:
Mac Pro Desktop
  Model Name:          Mac Pro
  Model Identifier:          MacPro5,1
  Processor Name:          Quad-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed:          2.4 GHz
  Number Of Processors:          2
  Total Number Of Cores:          8
  L2 Cache (per core):          256 KB
  L3 Cache (per processor):          12 MB
  Memory:          24 GB
  Processor Interconnect Speed:          5.86 GT/s
Video Card
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800:
  Chipset Model:          NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800
  Type:          GPU
  Bus:          PCIe
  Slot:          Slot-1
  PCIe Lane Width:          x16
  VRAM (Total):          1536 MB
  Vendor:          NVIDIA (0x10de)
  Device ID:          0x05fe
  Revision ID:          0x00a1
  ROM Revision:          3426
  Displays:
SyncMaster:
  Resolution:          1680 x 1050 @ 60 Hz
  Pixel Depth:          32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
  Display Serial Number:          H9LPA06272 
  Main Display:          Yes
  Mirror:          Off
  Online:          Yes
  Rotation:          Supported
SyncMaster:
  Resolution:          1680 x 1050 @ 60 Hz
  Pixel Depth:          32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
  Display Serial Number:          H9LPA06265 
  Mirror:          Off
  Online:          Yes
  Rotation:          Supported
Hard Drive
WDC WD1001FALS-41Y6A0:
  Capacity:          1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
  Model:          WDC WD1001FALS-41Y6A0                  
  Revision:          05.03D06
  Serial Number:               WD-WCATR2482149
  Native Command Queuing:          Yes
  Queue Depth:          32
  Removable Media:          No
  Detachable Drive:          No
  BSD Name:          disk0
  Rotational Rate:          7200
  Medium Type:          Rotational
  Bay Name:          Bay 1
  Partition Map Type:          GPT (GUID Partition Table)
  S.M.A.R.T. status:          Verified
  Volumes:
  Capacity:          209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
  Writable:          Yes
  BSD Name:          disk0s1
MAC OS X:
  Capacity:          677.53 GB (677,531,090,944 bytes)
  Available:          421.16 GB (421,160,968,192 bytes)
  Writable:          Yes
  File System:          Journaled HFS+
  BSD Name:          disk0s2
  Mount Point:          /
Untitled:
  Capacity:          322.33 GB (322,328,068,096 bytes)
  Available:          183.98 GB (183,976,169,472 bytes)
  Writable:          No
  File System:          NTFS
  BSD Name:          disk0s3
  Mount Point:          /Volumes/Untitled
The composition I'm working with does have 1 camera, and about 45 small 3D comps built into it. No lights. And all of the footage and data is on the Mac OSX hard drive. Which has tons of space available as you can see. I've played around with the settings in After Effects. But nothing seems to significantly speed things up. Any ideas??

Answer 1

Hey PJ,
I've been using CS6 since it was released, and while it's got a bunch of great new features, it's basically made Multi Processing unusable unless we're talking about the simplest of comps.   I'm working on my second short using AE as the total animation package, and render times for complicated 3D comps (NOT using ray tracing) have tripled.   MP used to take forever to spool up, but was fast once it got rolling.  Now, disabling MP gives me 3 or 4 times faster rendering, which is still MUCH slower than MP is CS5.5.  SOmething has deflineitly changed for the worse, as i'm using the same machine with the same settings and virtually the same comps.
I acutally just yesterday had two animators quit on my because they couldn't meet their deadlines.
I think After Effects is the hydra of programs.  They kill one feature and two more fill its place.  Unfortuanly we traded functional Multi-processing for falloff lighting and etc...  The puppet tool was it 3 version of after effects before it was stable.  I'm hoping we don't have to wait til CS7 for MP to sort itself out.
I really don't understand the "deal with it" aspect of the posters here.  Surely a functional program that delivers on it's promises is the goal of this forum.  We're not asking it to make us a sandwich.