RAM Preview not real time on MacBook Pro M1 Max

Good to see others having this issue. MP4 and Mov imports do not play or are extremely sluggish, even after the ram preview green bar ostensibly indicates the full timeline is ready to be preivewed. So far I experience is more with mp4s than movs. But both are having this issue even when it is only footage in the timeline with no effects or additional layers.

This occurs both on 22.2.1 and Beta 22
on M1 Max 64 GB.

Also in Beta, even if the footage is playing back normally (again—footage only, no effects or additional layers) scrubbing across the timeline halts and freezes.


EDIT: Indeed, after seeing David's comment regarding color space, adjusting the colorspace of the project to match the the footage did help on this specific project.

Same problem. Painful slow preview and render on a MacBook Pro M1 Max 2022. Unbelievable.

Just to be clear from the initial post. I can open up a project in AE 2021 and it runs great, if I open that exact same project in AE 2022 the RAM preview is sluggish to the point I can't use the software.

John, I'll try the Beta version and let you know if the preview works.

So, I came here looking for an answer to this exact problem, and it seems that the steps listed to correct the issue do NOT actually work, at least in my case.

I have followed all suggested setting work-arounds with regards to color space matching or turning off color management entirely, and nothing works. The choppy RAM preview persists. This is beyond frustrating, but almost not surprising anymore. Now forced to look into alternatives.

Having the same issue. Natively created animations are pre-rendering at a snails pace and it's infuriating. Both in latest and beta. Sucks that I do this for a living and all of this impacts my business. I wish I had adobe money so I could just chill on a beach somewhere instead.

Hi John,

Thanks for your questions. I've responded in more detail in the community forum thread on the same topic at https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-beta-discussions/after-effects-beta-now-on-apple-silicon/m-p/12835653/page/5#M1941

but the quick answer here is that the issue seems to be caused by a mismatch between the color space of a footage item and the current project working space in project color settings.

I'm happy to provide further information via email, or to continue the conversation on the forum page in case it is helpful to keep the community looped in

Hi David,

Thank you for all that additional background information. We've tried playback of various footage ( including H.264, ProRes, and ProRes 4444 ) on several M1 machines ( M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max ) and we are unable to reproduce the slowdown you're experiencing when running under Rosetta.

Some additional things to try that may shed light on what is occurring. When running under Rosetta:
- Do you experience this slowdown with playback that doesn't involve footage?
- Both of the formats you've mentioned are hardware decoded by default. Does disabling hardware decode in preferences > Import have any effect?
- Is the footage located on a local disk, external hard drive, or network drive?
- Are you using an external monitor? If so, is there any different when using the laptop screen only?
- Is playback of the same clips also slow in Premiere when running under Rosetta?

If none of the above factors make a difference, could we reach out to you via email for further investigation?

Thanks again for the information and for any other you can provide,
- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Further data to report for Adobe engineers: Completely erasing the computer to factory settings and re installing only the OS, Creative Cloud, and After Effects does not solve the issue. Brand new M1 Pro Max macbook pro with 64GB RAM.  Came with Monterey preinstalled so cannot be downgraded to Big Sur.  Latest version of after effects installed (22.2.1).  No third party plugins installed.  Description of issue:  In a project (8 bpc) with only one piece of footage (29.97, 1920x1080, H.264 and ProRes show same results): if I create a comp that contains only that piece of footage with no effects and press the spacebar, preview operates at 3 to 4 fps until all frames in the work area are cached, and only then can play back at real time.  If I open the same project on a 2017 macbook pro running mojave and after effects 21, the comp immediately previews at real time, even if no frames have previously been cached.  If I open the same project and comp in the latest After Effects (22.2.1) on a 2020 intel iMac 27" running Big Sur, the comp also previews in real time even if no frames are cached.  But on the M1 Max macbook pro under Monterey and Rosetta, the comp cannot preview in real time without first caching all frames.  Turning off multi frame rendering does not help. Turning off Cache Frames While Idle does not help. I installed the Beta version of After Effects, and it is able to preview this same comp in real time if I run in Apple Silicon mode, but if I run the Beta in Rosetta, I get the same result as the release version of after effects: 3 to 4 fps previews until all frames are cached.  I cannot run in apple silicon mode because I do need to install some third party plugins that are not supported on apple silicon yet (e.g., industry standards like Red Giant Trapcode), but in order to verify that the slow previews are not caused by any third party plugins or software, I fully erased the mac, reinstalled the OS (Monterey 12.3), installed only Creative Cloud and After Effects with no other plugins or software installed, and I still see the same poor performance under Rosetta.  I have seen a number of other users report the same issue when I search online across various adobe forums, while yet other users report excellent performance under rosetta.  Perhaps computers that shipped with Big Sur and were later upgraded to Monterey work fine while computers that shipped with Monterey do not.  Or perhaps some hardware batches are not compatible with After Effects under Rosetta while others are.  In any case, many users are reporting on the adobe community forums that After Effects is unusably slow on the latest M1 Pro and M1 Pro Max computers. I very much hope that Adobe can solve this very soon, since many users are spending a significant amount on Adobe software only to find that it cannot be used on current M1 computers. Searches reveal that this issue seems to have been reported for months across multiple operating system versions and after effects versions, but no fix has yet been provided by Adobe.

I am seeing the problematic behavior even with just a single layer of footage with no effects, 8 bpc, whether or not I am running in GPU accelerated mode. I tried opening the project in AE21 but it was no better. I deleted the AE22 preferences folder manually and it seemed like the preview performance in AE22 had possibly gotten a little better, but by a few minutes later the performance was just as bad as before. 3 fps previews in the timeline until all frames in the work area are cached. OS version is 12.2.1. The same project and composition in AE21 or AE22 preview in real time on an intel iMac under Big Sur.

I am having the same issue with the same spec'ed M1 Pro Max computer with AE 22.2.1. Unusably slow RAM previews even at quarter resolution in a short HD comp. The Beta seems better, but many critical plugins are not yet supported under the silicon-native beta, so this is not a solution for me. Is there anything we can do to make AE 22 usable on the M1 Pro Max under Rosetta?