Interface is Slow and Laggy

@SebABF 

"'Use the numerous options After Effects provides to make it more responsive.'  Like what, exactly?"

• Composition Resolution
• Layer Quality
• Skip Frames
• Set Proxy
• Render Time Pane

Also, make sure you're using optimized source footage while working at a Project Color Depth that's appropriate for your output.  For example, use formats that decompress quickly at frame rates and frame sizes that are close to or a good match for your output frame rate and frame size and - very importnatly - don't work at 16 bits-per-channel or 32 bits-per-channel if your rendering or exporting content for YouTube.

Watch any of the video training from School of Motion.  After Effects runs pretty smoothly.

Excellent point, Carlos; however, the Duik options run inside of After Effects.  As far as I'm aware, it shares memory with After Effects.  It's worth keeping an eye on "Memory in use" in the Duik Sanity Tests.  Of course, as with any third-party addon, a quick test is to disable it.  

Rxlab just released an update on 10/29/2022 to improve responsiveness when working with lots of layers in complex Compositions.

Duik is creatins expressions, keyframes and layers, so nothing they need to (or even can) specifically optimize themselves.

@MrMaxBre 

I think Duik has yet to be optimized for Apple Silicon and last I checked not for Multi-frame Rendering either.

This is 100% on point, I think AE became the most bogged down UI of all the creative apps I'm using today.
Just try to select ~30-40 keyframes in different layers and move them left/right you will see <0.5 fps or even less in UI speed. I make character rigs with Duik and sometimes It's really hard to work with bunch of layers and keyframes when the UI isn't responsive..
Masks also work slower than a few years ago, I'm using pretty good 5950x with 128gb of ram and 2070 super (hardware shouldn't be an issue right?)
Not sure if M1 macs have the same issue as Windows but we need this improved fixed ASAP!

"Use the numerous options After Effects provides to make it more responsive". Like what, exactly?

It is most definitely the interface, it's been laggy for years. It's slow as hell to do basic things in it such as moving the timeline indicator or dragging layers, or selecting things. If the dev's can't make it do basic things like that in it's current format, without the users going through various hidden settings to make it work in real time, then the interface needs to be remade or something. There wouldn't be a massive thread here with tons of infuriated users if it wasn't the interface.

I don't know what to tell you, I'd love to see a video from you showing us your AE interface working smoothly, because from what I know... the problem is basically universal, not just due to some particular config.

Hopefully you're able to figure out whatever it is about your hardware/software configuration that's causing lag even when caps lock is enabled.

Good luck.

Without getting too pedantic, I'm sure you grasped the idea that I was trying to get accross here.