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Participant
May 28, 2026
Question

After Effects seems somewhat slow, but hardware utilization is not high

  • May 28, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 15 views

Hello

I have a Ryzen 9 3900X, 32GB of RAM and an RTX3060 with 12GB. 

When using motion tracking in After Effects, the whole process seems rather slow. (In tutorial videos I see online it’s always a lot faster.)

So I was asking myself if my hardware is sufficient.

However if I look at the Task Manager while After Effects is working, I see a CPU utilization of only 7-10%, GPU utilization somewhere between 0 and 30%, almost no load on the storage device and a RAM utilization that starts low but eventually reaches 32GB (but only after maybe 15 mins of tracking) - but once it reached 32GB it doesn’t appear to slow down After Effects.

So my question is: Given that my current hardware doesn’t seem to be utilized very much while After Effects is “Tracking” - does it really make sense to upgrade the hardware or would I only end up having hardware that is even less utilized?

Thank you!

    1 reply

    John T Smith
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 28, 2026

    Are you using the Studio driver with your video card, are the default gaming driver?

     

    nVidia Driver Downloads https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

    -for all Adobe programs use the STUDIO driver, not the GAMING driver
    -To achieve the highest level of reliability, Studio Drivers undergo extensive
    -testing against multi-app creator workflows and multiple revisions of the top
    -creative applications from Adobe to Autodesk and beyond