Unavoidable lag in After Effects

After Effects CS6 is experiencing tremendous lag for me on 2 computers. It makes it very difficult and time-consuming to get work done at all.
Both of my computers are iMacs - the first one is the 2010 model with Snow Leopard installed, 4gb of RAM; the second is the latest model (just purchased) with Mavericks installed, 8gb of RAM. For both iMacs, it only takes a very small amount of footage, effects, etc. to get it to start slowing down. I usually work on the newer one for all work-related projects, but if I'm working on something as simple as a 5 minute long .mov with no effects applied to it, I have to keep the RAM preview at quarter quality and still have to wait around 10-15 seconds for it to render a single frame. Then I have to cut down my work time to just an hour or two to prevent my machine from overheating itself.
I often like to use the paint effect to add details to my projects. I've noticed that on my new iMac, applying about 30 paint strokes on a white solid and then waiting for about a minute will cause After Effects to bring up the error message "unable to allocate memory", so I have to shut the program down. None of my other programs do this. I've used everything from Photoshop to Maya to even Minecraft with little to no RAM trouble whatsoever, but After Effects is different. It's as if it has zero tolerance for even the slightest hint of using up memory.

I updated to 11.0.4 as suggested. So far I have not noticed a great change in the render speed, but I'll keep testing it out to see what it can handle.
The paint engine in After Effects being dated is strange to me because it didn't always lag the way it does now. On my same computer about a year ago I made an empty composition (2000x1200) in which I used over 1,000 paint strokes for a single frame for 5 frames, and only on the fifth frame did it START to lag like it does now. It just started "acting up" a few months ago and has never changed back.
16 gbs of RAM may be ideal for using After Effects properly, but even so - a crisp, brand new iMac with 8 gbs should at least work decently. But for me, it works worse than my older computer.

Similar Messages

Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects CS5.5 Lagging Horribly with Dynamic Link

I just bought a brand new computer. It is a beast
Windows 7 64-bit
Intel i7-980 6 cores with HT = 12 CPU cores
Nvidia GTX 570HD 1280mb 328 bit
120gb SSD sata 3
600 gb Velociraptor drive 10000rpm
8gb DDR3 1866MHZ ram
So you would think I would get no lag. But for some reason, when I edit in premier pro or after effects, especially when I use dynamic link with premiere and after effects. It lags realllllly badly. I am talking about 5fps and I have to pause and wait like 20 secs then hit play again to get 5 secs of smoothness and then the laggyness returns. I am not even using heavy footage. It is footage off of a Canon 5D Mark II h.264. I tried messing around with all the settings but I cannot get anywhere. Anyone know what the problem might be? I don't have any other programs running since I just installed these. This lag is really holding me back and I cannot edit properly because of it.

Your memory is ill configured, since you are using it in dual channel mode instead of triple channel mode and 8 MB is about bare minimum. You would be better off if you were to increase memory to 24 GB. Secondly, your disk configuration is the absolute minimum requirement, so adding a couple of disks will help performance as well.
I am not even using heavy footage. It is footage off of a Canon 5D Mark II h.264
Mistake. It is one of the most demanding codecs on the market. Look here: Adobe Forums: System requirements for CS5
You could try the PPBM5 Benchmark to see how well your setup performs.

After Effects Creates Lag in Video

Hi,
I am new to this forum and adobe after effects and im hoping you guys could help me out.
I created a couple of videos but after renduring them they lag unbelievably and in the preview as well. The videos are fine before i edit them im guessing the effects are screwing it up. What should i do? My computer is not very good its a dell latitude d620 laptop 3.25 gigs of ram (idk why its wierd) geoforce 7300 video card 2.16 ghz proccessor. My mom lost my camera so im taking it on a crap 3.2 megapixel camera from like the 80s but it doesnt lag before i edit it
so do i need a new computer? new camera? change some settings?
please help thank you.

To what specifications are you rendering? The videos from the camera are definitely compressed, so naturally, due to their low data rates they will playback reasonably smooth. Of course that can never be the same, if you render out uncompressed from AE. Even much more powerful computers cannot sustain high data rates of uncompressed media - they fill up the memory until a certain point and it runs smoothly, but after that, it gets choppy because large blocks of data need to be constantly unloaded and new ones loaded again. Only compressing your output will change that, so tell us what you require and what version of AE you use and we may be able to advise.
Mylenium

Why does my entire computer freeze while opening or using After Effects or Premiere Pro CS5?

Just built a computer to meet all requirements for Adobe, Autodesk 3ds Max, and UDK, for school.
Specs;
Motherboard - ASRock X79 Extreme 4-M, Socket 2011 - Micro ATX - 4 DDR3 1600/1333/1066/800 - 3 PCI-E 3.0 x 16 - 7.1 CH HD Audio - PCIE GLAN - 3 SATA3 - eSATA3 - 4 SATA2 - 4 USB 3.0 - 10 USB 2.0
Processor - Intel Core i7 Processor - i7-3820 LGA 2011
Processor fan - Intel Thermal Solution RTS2011 AC
RAM - Ballistix by Crucial - 2x 8GB Tactical PC3 - 12800 CL8 1.5 VW/XMP = 16GB RAM
SSD - Crucial M4 SSD 128GB - Comptatibility with 6Gb/s & backward compatible with SATA 3Gb/s
HDD - Seagate Barracuda 1TB - 7200 RPM up to 32mb cache
Power Supply - Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 700W
Graphics Card - EVGA - NVIDIA GeForce GTX480 - DirectX11 - CUDA - OpenCL Support - PhysX Technology - OpenGL 4.1 (so says the box it came in; but if I'm not mistaken I think the command prompt had shown OpenGL 3 or 3.2)
Disc Driver - LG DVD/CD RW... It is an OEM, Windows claims it is updated.
I use an external component - USB Microsoft Wireless Mouse & Keyboard 2000.
I have, as far as software goes...
Windows 7 64-bit SP1
Adobe Creative Suite 5, student version or what have you.
- I do have several plugins installed as well for After Effects only.
Autodesk 3ds Max 2012
-I have several maxscripts as well as a couple plugins for 3ds Max.
UDK 2-2012 & 3-2012
NVIDIA PhysX Lab 1.1
NVIDIA Texture Tools 2
NVIDIA plugin for Photoshop
xNormal
ConTEXT
UnCodeX
Quicktime
AVG Free
Malwarebytes
7-Zip
Java
Sculptris
As for anything else giving me issues I haven't noticed anything besides a previous Graphics Card wasn't supported very well at all with 3ds Max, it would freeze while using the material editor which was fixed with replacing a GTX550 ti with a more compatible GTX480. Thought maybe the upgrade would also solve the fact that almost everytime I go to start up and/or use After Effects or Premiere Pro CS5 my whole system freezes. Whether or not I'm doing anything, it occasionally happened during "Scrubbing" the timeline, but also during the splash load up screen. Would take the time to wait for several minutes but nothing would change. Hard reboot was needed. After countless hours of searching online I stumbled upon what is called an "Unlock" for Premiere Pro/After Effects to allow accelerated GPU and CUDA cores. Simple procedure, seems as if things go faster... When it is working. But still, I encounter freezes on my entire system. It isn't a crash back to Windows or anytihng. Just a complete freeze on the entire system. I have not extensively used other Adobe programs besides Photoshop quite briefly just so I could open menus and force a freeze within 5 minutes and noticed nothing wrong. Which in AE & PP just running through any of the menu windows can quickly cause a sudden freeze.
note* I have alternated shutting off and turning on OpenGL as well as multiprocessing. Doesn't matter, it really doesn't seem to change much of anything.
Alas, I am absolutely sure, after checking and re-checking 80+ hours over the past 2 weeks that yes, everything is updated as far as each individual program, software or hardware will allow me to update them. I have reinstalled Windows as well as each program up to 3 times, and 1 system (restore?) I had Windows dump everything, started from scratch, backed up nothing. To reinstall everything from scratch, while not installed several "Utilities" or software components from stuff like the Motherboard and its XFAST USB/LAN or whatever, thinking maybe it was cluttering up anything.
Please, if anyone has any ideas upon this and could give me advice, whether you notice any other incompatibilities or anything. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
note* I do not have a wired Keyboard or mouse to disable the USB plugin and attempt that route.. at least not yet, its on my list of things to do. Also, I did run Memtest86+ during a boot and it claims that everything there had passed 100%. I am not "overclocking" anything either. I just wanted something I could work smoothly on, that would have decent rendering capabilities. I used to use my girls' laptop which was an HP with 3GB RAM and never experienced crashes or freezes and I could use AE, PPro, 3ds Max with some lag but not any issues. Rendering took forever on it, but I usually avoided that 'cuz it would start heating up pretty fierce. Saved my rendering for school computers where I could. But either way, now I have this expensive piece and it is getting frustrating that I cannot work on it.
note* Also, incase it does help, I have Windows as well as any major components installed onto the C: drive (aka SSD for my system) while all my secondary software, such as Adobe, Autodesk, etc. are all installed directly to my D: drive (or HDD) And everything is set up to go through Windows Firewall as well.

Thanks all. I have just tried a few things, installing them onto the C drive as you all specified as not being one of them. I can understand it, but at the same time i have a classmate who has their software on a seperate drive and it runs smoothe. I'm on my second GPU in 2 weeks, unless I have terrible luck it seems doubtful being that I can run games and a majority of the software no problem. Through further testing around with a corded mouse and keyboard I've noticed the following...
The computer freezes entirely only when I'm performing a "scrubbing" action or using a mouse. Left clicking, scrolling, or moving it around. Otherwise if I do not use the mouse and I make all my actions, such as "scrubbing" in AE via "Page Up & Down" keys, there's no freeze and it preloads the preview no problem.
"Scrubbing" does not load a preview (the green bar doesn't load at all while scrubbing). But, also noticed no matter how smoothe everything is running in 3ds Max as well as PPro, once I start performing a "scrubbing" action with whatever timeline I use, it will definately freeze my whole computer, Windows and all. Hard reboot is neeed.
With having gone through 2 GPU's, done a full memtest via Windows 7 and Memtest86+, there seems to be no issue with my memory or GPU. Like I said, I've run UDK without an issue. Whether the editor or game. The USB doesn't seem like it's the cause, I've used both wireless as well as wired keyboards/mouse. Still freezes, but now only when using a mouse to "Scrub".
Is it possible my motherboard could be incompatible somewhere? I mean, really.. everything is brand new but 2 weeks of troubleshooting.
And I do plan on trying to run my software off the C drive, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something else, like I said, I've seen and used a computer where it all runs off the D drive and it runs perfectly, actually better on his computer than off the C drive at my schools. So if it is an issue would it lie within the fact that I'm using an Nvidia GPU? Considering my classmate is using a AMD/ATI Radeon or something like that.
Again, to those who replied, your shared knowledge is greatly appreciated, thank you.

After Effects CC really slow in response

Hallo and sorry for may bad english!
So,my nightmares with CC continues!
I have serious lag when i do almost everything in AE. Press CTRL+Z i have to wait,press CTRL+A...wait...press P...wait....press the spacebar for move the preview window...wait for the hand...so the problem i think is clear (by the way,camera tools are really really slow!)!
My system specs: GTX680 4GB (latest drivers),Intel DX58SO mobo,12GB of ram DDR3 triple channel (fast enough),I7 980x.
With the same setup in CS6 all works smooth. Fresh install of CC,i have only Encore CS6 on my machine. All is up to date. Win 7 Professional SP1.
Multiprocessing is turned off,GPU acceleration on (i use 3000MB texture memory). I have read of many people that have the same problem on the net. I'm opening new projects,not from CS6.so that is not the problem. No internet connection,no antivirus scanning.
What may cause this problems? I'm on the way to remove AE CC and go back to AECS6 to work smoothly.
Thank you and hope to find a solution really soon,
bests from Italy,
Roberto

Here's what we know about the issue with slowness when clicking to open a menu or when using a keyboard shortcut. (We're still digging, though, so it may turn out that some of this is incomplete or incorrect.)
Because of a change for After Effects CC (12.0) that shows the activated user in the menus, After Effects is checking a file on disk each time that menus are accessed. Because of the way that we implement keyboard shortcuts, this also means that the file is checked each time a keyboard shortcut is used.
On computers where disk access is slow (e.g., because the disk is slow, the bus is slow, or something else is reading from the disk at the same time), this simple check of a file can add a noticeable amount of time---maybe half a second or even a couple of seconds in some cases.
We are in the process of fixing this. It is my hope (but not a promise) that we'll be able to have a good fix in place for the next update, which we're targeting for September.
In the meantime, here's how you should be able to mitigate the problem:
Make sure that your software is installed on the fastest disk that you have, preferably an SSD. If you don't have an SSD, then at least make sure that your software (applications and OS) are not stored on the same drive from which you're reading footage or to which you're writing output files. And certainly don't run applications with high disk access (like WinZip or anti-virus software that intervenes at every disk access, just for a couple of examples) while you are working with After Effects. (BTW, this is all good advice for high performance even without this bug.)
If you make these changes and notice an improvement, let us know. Actually, let us know either way so that we can collect more information.
So, how did this get past us? I think that it's because we tend to test on computers that are set up as I describe above, including tending to use SSDs and having our disk access spread across multiple disks. That said, we do apologize for letting this get out and inconvenience you.

After Effects CC UI slowness

[This message has been branched to a spearate thread, since it was posted on a thread about a UI slowdown on Windows that has been fixed. This message is about a separate issue.]
Hello,
Has this issued been "solved" by Adobe?
I am experiencing issues such as menu lag, interface and ui lag and overall slowness in my panels and AE layout - like the OP is referencing in his initial post. A couple of things to note are that initially upon launching AE and working for approximately 30 - 45 minutes, I notice no problems, after some time, however, these issues start occuring. In addition, undoing actions can become tedious and cause the system to beachball while waiting for a response (the system does not crash, however it takes an abnormal amount of time for the undo to occur). My project is very straightforward, mainly editorial (footage Apple Pro Res 422), with no compositing, or 3D work. The AE file is 12.2MB in size. Project file 18GB.
I am on the latest version of OSX Mavericks and am using Adobe CC, which is also up to date.
This is occuring on both my MacBook Pro retina (early 2012) and my new Mac Pro (2013).
Specs:
MacBook Pro Retina (2012)
MacBook Pro
Retina, Mid 2012
Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Software OS X 10.9.1 (13B42)
768GB SSD
Mac Pro
Late 2013
Processor 2.7 GHz 12-Core Intel Xeon E5
Memory 64 GB 1867 MHz DDR3 ECC
Graphics AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB
Software OS X 10.9.1 (13B4116)
1GB SSD
I cannot seem to fix it, or isolate what is causing it.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Jason Coursey

Hi Szalam,
Thank you for the repsonse. I do realize this is a user-to-user forum, however, sometimes Adobe members from Adobe do respond. I was asking kindly for a response, not demanding one, but I do appreciate you pointing out the user-to-user forum envrionment (reminder).
I am currently using Adobe After Effects CC, version 12.2.0.52.
Everything in my project is ProRes 422. I am using both PSD and Illustrator assets in a well organized folder structure. The PSDs and AI files are 1920x1080. Again, from my past experience with production, this AE project is a straightforward "editiorial" type of project (and what I mean by editorial is minor scale, positional and opacitive changes; a kind of project AE should have relatively few issues with from a performance perspective).
I do not recall this issue prior to the upgrade to Mavericks, however, I have been on CC since release and cannot recall experiencing this issue and certainly not in AE CS6.
I have 589 items in my folder structure inside of AE.
I do need to troubleshoot this issue outside of this project, you are correct. I will do that once I deliver this project tomorrow. I wanted to get this discussion out to find if others are still experiencing this issue, as was also noted a few months back in the following post:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1252710?tstart=0
Thanks,
Jason

What Systems are the Pros Using for Premier, After Effects, and SpeedGrade?

I bought the full Creative Cloud in hopes of making a career for myself in audio/visual editing. The problem is, my system doesn't seem to be able to handle the software, particularly when changing back and forth between the three programs mentioned above. Beyond that, my first project failed to export properly. Moreover, all throughout its development the system lagged badly. And this is after having followed all the preferences recommendations available in the Adobe's tutorials and elsewhere on the Web.
Here's my system:
SYX-P67A-C43: Intel Core i7 2600 (an 8-core unit) at 3.4GHz, with 8 Gigs of RAM (soon to be 16) with a GTX 550 NVidia Card, 1Gig of RAM.
As you can see, this is far in excess of what Adobe claims to be the minimum system requirements. It's obviously NOT.
What systems are the Pros using (like the guys in the tutorials) for Premier, After Effects, and SpeedGrade? Give me the exact machines with all the specs so I can price one up.

...although a little " old" now.....the fundamentals of your machine are still OK to get started IF you : 1. INCREASE your system memory to the full 32 GB....should make a BIG difference in performance.....8 GB is NOT enough, it will HINDER performance. 2. OVERCLOCK your CPU !!!.....many owners of your CPU have been safely running at 4.5 Ghz or HIGHER...some at 4.8 Ghz !!! This OC will make a DRAMATIC improvement as CPU speed is a huge factor in performance. 3. Improve your video card to a new NVidia 970 with 4 GB of video memory. 4. Check and MAKE SURE the power supply in your machine is ADEQUATE to handle everything, esp. if you overclock the CPU....generally 850 to 1,000 watts of a quality make is good. 5. Use a fast storage system...that means a SATA III SSD as your "C" drive, ( boot drive), being a Crucial M550 series,( or, M600 series), OR, a Samsung 850 Pro series SSD, ( more expensive). Other SSDs are NOT recommended, only these two makes are recommended for technical reasons. On this "C" drive, you should have Operating system, Programs, and Windows page file ONLY !! Your "D" drive can be ANOTHER single SSD to be used as a "cache drive" for all the previews, media cache, and cache files that Premier Pro creates PLUS, it can ALSO serve as the "Global Performance cache" used in After Effects. All your media and project files can go on your "E" drive. HERE you would have LIMITED OPTIONS because your motherboard only has TWO SATA III ports, ( which would already be used b the "C" and "D" SSDs). You NOW have only 4 SATA II ports left ......you COULD RAID 0 four 1 TB HDDs off these ports and have a 4TB backup drive connected to one of your TWO USB 3 external ports.....any DVD or Blue-ray can ALSO go on an external port.
However, if you are into spending REAL MONEY !!!.....Go Haswell E and X99 all the way !!...THAT will give you great performance !!

----- After Effects Wish List (Pre 2008 - Read Only) -----

AFTER EFFECTS WISHLIST
What features would you like to see implemented in After Effects? New ideas for plugins? Interface changes? Post 'em here!
Let's keep bug identification to individual posts, as these will probably be addressed more readily. Let's use this thread for specific ideas about ways that AE can be improved and expanded.
These Forums are for users, not Adobe employees, so don't forget to also fill in an
Adobe Feature Request Form.
Here's a few for starters:
b From Silversurfer:
Add dropdowns for precomp contents within a composition timeline (I have put this one in to the Feature Request area a bunch of times way before 7 Pro came out)?
In the Timeline Tabs...how about losing the word "Timeline:" on every single tab in the timeline (at least give us the option to turn it off).
In Multiview (2 & 4 View) Mode in the Composition Window: How about a small semi-transparent "View Label" in the corner of each view displayed (Front / Back / Top / Bottom / Active Camera / etc)...you know - like a 3D program?
Please add more flexibility within the Composition Window Multiview Mode - to be able to grab & stretch a smaller view out to make it larger.
b From Aaron Cobb:
I'd like to see the return of the old motion graphs, for quick reference purposes. The new graphs add a lot of improvements, but they take away 1:1 correlation, the ability to see the graphs alongside all the other timeline markers and keyframes, and easy readability. I'd love to have the best of both worlds.
The ability to set the motion graph background color independent of the interface color would be a big plus.

Please give us the option to go back to the much faster and responsive old interface or fix the current one so it doesn't lag anymore...IMO this should be the highest priority right now along with the hiding issue. Give us options to disable the font smoothing and fancy graphics to its bare minimum (think discreet's flame).
Please put back the option to change the cell height on the Timeline window. It used to be much smaller and as a result I can see less layers fitting in the window in AE7 in comparison to AE6.5. This is a direct example of the interface getting in the way of...working.
Fix the Timeline tabs so they don't rearrange themselves alphabetically when I reopen the project. And another vote to lose the "Timeline" word.
Add more options besides the Ease In/Out/Ease. Cinema4D has a very cool approach to this and there are very useful presets such as "Slow" (object reduces speed in a realistic way, i.e. a ball rolling on the grass and gradually coming to a stop), "Fast" (quick burst of speed in the beginning, i.e. the same ball after being kicked, a bullet, etc.)
Speed, speed, speed. Did I say this should be the top priority? :)

After Effects CS3 - error: could not create 8935 x 9152 image buffer + slow

Hello. I am receiving this error message every time i try render my 3min composition. it gets about 1/5 way through which takes about an hour. i have read the General Specialist troubleshooting guide and it has not helped yet.
i am now rendering with Image Cache: Maximum RAM Cache Size at 10% and purging after every 20 frames (in secret prefs) - even if this works, the 3min render is estimated to finish in 9hrs. Does this sound normal, or acceptable? Is it possible i have a hardware deficiency? or something else lacking.
My PC specs are: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.40GHz; 4GB RAM; Geforce 8800 GTS. Running XP 32bit SP3; After Effects CS3 (fully updated). I have updated my graphics card driver (180.48) and my mainboard chipset driver. My memory settings are as they appear in the http://generalspecialist.com/2006/11/avoiding-after-effects-error-could-not.asp guide, & I've dropped max RAM cache to 10%. My disk cache size is 10000MB and set to an empty 75GB 10000RPM Raptor HDD.
The composition has 30 layers - mainly layers imported from PSDs and then animated with basic transform tools and some distortion effects (wave warp) to create 2D character animation. There are 6 pre-composed layers containing the same kind of PSD layers and animation. I try to render out to an uncompressed .avi in 720x576 with 15fps.
Even before I noticed this rendering problem, After Effects runs painfully slowly. the composition monitor takes ages to refresh, even in the Quarter quality view mode i am forced to work in. and over the course of the day, on 3 occasions - the PC lagged after scrubbing through the timeline, froze, then Blue Screen of Death'ed before rebooting before i could even read the blue screen error.
Please offer some assistance or ideas as to how i can move forward. I have tried to help myself with existing material online, but to no avail.
Thanks,
Nick.

>Does this sound normal, or acceptable?
It sounds normal within the realm of AE, but how acceptable it really is, is another matter entirely. ;-) As suggested, scaling the sources in PS would be one way, another one would be to chop up the large documents into manual tiles and parent them together. Based on how AE works, only tiles visible within the comp frame will be loaded, which should make the whole process more streamlined. That's assuming they are not 3D layers that need to be fully visible at any given point, of course. Even then, rendering to an image sequence is still advisable in case of crashes... Depending on what you actually do, you may also want to find a different way of dealing with your distortion effects. They considerably expand/ dilate image buffers for processing, complicating the matter further.
Mylenium

After Effects RAM Preview not showing first 50 frames or so - Mac OS

So I'm on a 2012 iMac, and when i RAM preview, it plays audio but video does not show until about 50 or 60 frames in, its like a glitch or lag thats started recently, so it makes ram previewing from a certain time a real pain as i then miss the exact part i want and it c matches up with video a second or two later, i can't find any solutions, please help!!

As Andrew says, Adobe and Apple are working on figuring this bug out. See the known issues section of this page: After Effects good to go with Mac OSX v10.10 (Yosemite)
If you let the RAM preview loop at the end of its playback and play through again, it should be smooth and issue-free.

The ideal hardware setup / arrangement for After Effects?

Hello there,
Looking to buy some new hardware and am hoping to find some advice on the ideal hardware config for making After Effects scream. I find this questions is sorely lacking answers on the Internet beyond the basics of 'boot from an SSD' and the like... So I am hoping someone can answer these questions once and for all.
Two things I am after:
1. Fast working performance in AE. So when I move a layer about I am able to see it move smoothly in real-time as I drag it about with my mouse. Right now I get either stuttered movement when moving larger layers about, or the image begins to pixelate/drop res to such a horrible extent that I can not see what I am doing. The problem extends to when I am working with a large project file, with many layers, I get nasty lag when attempting to move about in the timeline, opening comps, etc. Everything starts to move quite slowly once I go past a certain number of layers. What upgrades will speed this element, the day to day working rather than rendering, up the most?
2. Faster rendering. Though this is not as key as point number 1.
I am guessing this performance will he helped by a beefier graphics card and more/faster RAM? I currently have a GTX 660ti 2GB and am upgrading to a GTX980 4GB, so hoping that will improve this.
I also have 64 GB of 1600 speed ram that AE happily consumes so think that base is covered. My CPU is a 3930k that is slightly overclocked. It gets maxed out when multicore rendering is happening but not otherwise. I've heard turning hyperthreading off in the BIOS can actually help AE performance?
I am booting/running AE from an SSD (Samsung 840 Pro), and have set my media cache to another dedicated SSD (Samsung 840 Pro). I run/keep my project files on yet another SSD and have other drives holing media.
My drive config plan is this:
- Boot from one 240GB SSD.
- Project files and current working media on 2x 1TB SSDs in RAID 0 (backed up)
- Further media storage on 2x 3TB HDDs in RAID 0 (backed up)
Now I am wondering if I can simply use the 2TB of SSD goodness as both the location for my AE media cache AND my project files/working media? Or am I better off having three fast and seperate storage locations? 1 for the boot, 2 for the project files and media, 3 for the cache?
Otherwise I am running AE on a Hackintosh 3930k CPU overclocked slightly, 64 GB RAM, Sabertooth X79 mobo, 660ti graphics card.
All comments/advice links much appreciated. Apologies if this has already been addressed elsewhere but I have yet to find a detailed response and only generalized comments such as 'use a fast drive for your media cache.'
What I would really like to know is the BEST drive configuration, the questioned detailed above...And what will increase the speed and quality of my real-time workflow in AE the most. Quickly navigating projects without lag, opening detailed comps with many layers, and moving large images around without lag or pixelation.
Thank you!

for After Effects advice, Eric on the forum here can give you the best info. However, I have seen him say many times that AE is MEMORY INTENSIVE,....the more, the better. You HAVE 64GB...that seems very adequate for most workflows.
The OTHER thing he says is that other than Ray-Tracing, the GPU is HARDLY used at all.....CPU speed and number of cores are a BIG factor in AE performance.....your 3930k overclocked should be adequate....the MORE OC, the BETTER.
Next is the drive system....you have NOT described EXACTLY what you are doing NOW....you mentioned what your PLAN is,but for , right NOW you said : " I run/keep my project files on yet another SSD and have other drives holing media. "
HERE is where you MAY be doing something that may....or may NOT.....be causing slowdowns.   With AE it is RECOMMENDED to use a dedicated drive for the "Global Performance Cache"...the HIGHER the speed of this drive, the BETTER, as AE STORES already "rendered" frames, ( for "previews", of course), on it so it DOESN"T have to RE-RENDER ALL the frames all over again every time you make a change to your work !!! So, in YOUR case : your OS drive is great...Samsung Pro models are the BEST...you have the 840 Pro ,which is only SLIGHTLY behind the 850 Pro in performance. ANOTHER 840,or, 850 Pro would be GREAT as the " Global performance cache drive" AND would also be the place to put ALL previews,Cache files, media cache files for Premier Pro,too. The overall speed and less latency of the SATAIII SSD will surpass the performance of a 2 disk RAID 0....even a 3 disk RAID 0.
Next....the speed at which you SERVE UP the video files can be important in preventing a slowdown.....ESPECIALLY if using large, uncompressed files. Here, you have options.....it is NOT necessary to put your project files on a SEPARATE drive from your media...you just want to make sure that the drive with your media and project files is as fast as the OTHERS in your system ! SO, you COULD use a THIRD SSD as a "working drive" for ACTIVE projects only.....a 1TB SSD perhaps...Crucial M550 is CHEAPER than the Samsung and as good as the 840 pros. As the CAPACITY of SSDs are small...you would MOVE all media and completed project files to HDDs for archiving and storage....the use of RAID with your existing HDDs would NOT be needed for this function.
Another option would be to take FOUR quality 1TB HDDs...( the Seagates are selling for $44 right now), and create a RAID 0 off the motherboard to have a large 4TB capacity AND speed similar to the SSDs!   WARNING !!! the odds of ONE drive failing are BIG....you would immediately lose ALL your data !! HOWEVER....if you back up that RAID 0 RELIGIOUSLY....you would have NO worries. One way to do THAT is to buy a 4TB ENTERPRISE level 7200rpm HDD....Seagate has one with a 128 MB cache that does over 200MB/sec. for just over $300.
Even with all this covered, there are MANY factors which can CHOKE a fast computer....the CODECS you are using have a HUGE bearing on performance. The VERSION of After Effects is important...NEWEST versions have the BEST performance with features like the "global performance cache", etc. The use of "third party plug-ins" can CRIPPLE a machine if these are NOT written to take advantage of "hyperthreading",OR, are "32 bit" and HUMBLE your machine because AE is NOW 64 bit!!
Make sure you have Windows fully updated and the newest drivers for your video card. Then , make sure your Windows POWER SETTINGS are set to MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE when"plugged in"....the DEFAULT Windows settings...even under "high performance" has setttings that will THROTTLE your GPU and CPU if you don't change them.....I found THAT out the hard way!
Finally, make sure , in AE settings, you have set the"memory allocation" correctly...there is a formula regarding how much to assign on a "per CPU core basis". There ALSO is a selection to make for "allowing multiple frames" to be processed...make sure THAT is set correctly.
Good luck !!     I hope this helps!

Good hardware to run After Effects and Logic Pro?

Hello Anyone Who Will Listen!
I am currently using a 15" MacBook Pro running on OS X 10.7.5 (Lion)
--Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7
--750 GB HardDrive
--4 GB RAM (1333 MHz DDR3)
--AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024 MB Graphics
--I also use a WD "My Passprt Studio" 1TB External Hardive. (I store all my Logic Pro, After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator projects on there instead of on the Main MacBook HD which only has 750GB of Memory)
I am a musician and an audio engineer of sorts. I have been producing music on my MacBook Pro using Logic Pro, amongst some other third party Plug-ins that are each just as big as Logic Pro. And for the past year I've been hittin it pretty aggressively as I produced my entire album with my MacBook Pro being the only computer involved in the process. As you probably know that is a hefty workload to put on a computer between recording tracks, mixing and mastering...I'm honestly surprised my MacBook Pro made it through the whole process with only 4GB of RAM. Although it did give me some "System Overload" messages along the way which got to be very annoying interrupting my workflow. And while I was using Logic Pro I could never have another application open at the same time. Even something like Safari could not be opened while I was using Logic Pro.
Now to top it all off I am using other Applications to market my music such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects. I'm using version CS6 for Photoshop and Illustrator and using the new Creative Cloud version for After Effects.
Now that I've explained what I use my computer for I can explain the actual problem haha...Inside Logic Pro there were two indicators, one labeled HD and the other labeled CPU, if one or the other reached its limit the system would overload cause lagging or just a shut down/freeze. And while working in Adobe After Effects the "RAM Preview" almost never plays back in realtime if I get more than a minute into a song that a am making a Kinetic Typography Video for.
So I need a new Computer or external HD or Increased RAM that will make these things no longer happen...I am open to any suggestions or ideas.

This Trashcan is an option, but carries the usual disadvantages of all Apple products:
Huge price
Mediocre specs
Only single CPU
Slow video cards
Only Thunderbolt 1 connection
Limited expansion capabilities.
A PC would offer much better price / performance, but Logic Pro is the limiting factor.

Mountain Lion (Mac OSX v10.8) OK for After Effects

The Mountain Lion (Mac OS v10.8) upgrade seems to be working fine with After Effects CS6.
Be sure to check for drivers for third-party I/O hardware and such, since such drivers often lag the OS release.
Mac OS X Mountain Lion (v10.8) compatibility FAQ list for all Creative Suite applications: http://adobe.ly/QjoLoM

ECBowen wrote:
ExactImage wrote:
lasvideo wrote:
I upgraded to Win 7 instead
Since we run Windows 7 and Macs side by side I'd have to say that 'Upgrade' is a debatable point
Unfortunately that is not the case if your PC's are up to date with the latest hardware. Keep sending those emails to Apple requesting a Mac Pro Refresh. Maybe at some point their focus will change back to Professional clients.
Eric
ADK
Oh, there are..... but that doesn't mean 'Windows 7' is an upgrade as such it has just as many problems as ML, just 'different' ones (not al Adobe related).

Unstable After Effects CC with dynamic link

Hi all,
I just bought a new iMac for editing etc. (Before the iMac I used my MacBook Pro). Everything works just fine but there is one issue with After Effects CC.
When I have Premiere Pro CC open in the background and there is a dynamic link sequence in AE. My iMac is taking a long time to load video previews when scrolling through the timeline. Also the RAM Preview will hang after a couple of seconds for 5-10 seconds and than continues. I also noticed that MB Looks will take a long time to load too.
So is there a conflict between the two applications or is it because of the sharing RAM or graphics card memory? What are the best settings for the Adobe applications for using RAM and graphics?
System specs:
iMac 3,5 GHz i7 (Late 2013)
32 GB RAM
256 GB flash storage
NVIDIA GTX 780M 4 GB
Kind regards,
Teun

With the new 12.2 update installed there is no difference. Still very slow playback from PP footage in AE. It takes a long time to load the preview when scrolling through the timeline in AE. I noticed that when I close PP the lag is gone, or when I switch from AE to PPro and back. But then after a few seconds the lag is back when PP is active in the background.
Any ideas?

After Effects Freezes on Rendering, NEED HELP

Hey everyone. So I'm on the verge of tears because After Effects CS5 is having a huge lag in rendering. I recently installed the whole CS5 Master Collection, and I found there was a slight lag in opening it, updating the preferences, and even closing out of the program. But didn't think anything of it. Often times I've gotten hung up on the beach ball of death.
I went for the first time to render things, which an identical comp in AE CS4 rendered out lightening fast, but in CS5 the same comp took about 5 minutes of sitting on the beach ball before it even started rendering and then another 5 minutes of more beach ball fun to finally finish. I'm on a Mac and my system stats are as follows:
Processor: 2x3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 18 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
OSX 10.5.8
After Effects CS5 10.0.1.19
I thought it was some type of DivX issue, and deleted anything relating to that, but it didn't help. Whatever help anybody could provide as to the culprit would be appreciative. It's got me pretty freaked out...

So it seems like a combination of turning off OpenGL and Multiprocessing seemed to do the trick. Have one or the other on seemed to cause the freeze-ups.
I'd like to ask if this is a problem just isolated to OS X 10.5.8 or not?I've always had Multiprocessing on since CS4, why turn it off now, did having it on to begin with help at all for renders? Now that it's off and OpenGL, will that adversely affect anything i.e. increasing render times etc?
Why have two options available if it's going to lead to problems, and people have to end up turning them off?
For what it's worth, I've included screenshots of my own computer's info and the selections when multi-processing are on in AE CS5.

Unavoidable lag in After Effects

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