AE CC 2018 ridiculously slow

So much under utilised hardware on MacOS.

I don't get it? My systenm is literally doing nothing else, AE could be using 95% CPU but it is not.

Just wanted to chime back in. After obsessing over this for quite a while I decided to do something about. I recently switched up my hardware a bit.

For reference, BEFORE:

Pkg: After Effects CC 2019 (Absolute most recent update)

(2x) Intel 8-Core Xeon E5-2620 V4  (Running in Performance Mode)

64GB ECC RAM

3x 1080Ti (Only one set to be used by AE in NVIDIA Control Panel)

500GB SSD Local Disk

256GB SSD Cache Drive

(2x) 4K Monitors each running on it's own 1080Ti

My workstation AFTER:

Pkg: After Effects CC 2019 (Absolute most recent update)

(2x) Intel 4-Core Xeon E5-2637 V3  (Running in Performance Mode)

64GB ECC RAM

1x 1080Ti (Until this new CC2019 update finishes) (Only one set to be used by AE in NVIDIA Control Panel)

500GB SSD Local Disk

256GB SSD Cache Drive

(1x) 4K Monitor

After swapping out the processors for a higher clock speed I see SIGNIFICANT improvements in terms of the UI and using compositions with 10+ layers.

These processors are a bit on the old side. However, After Effects is now usable. I suggest anyone in this thread, or reading this, if you want to fix the issue, start with your CPU after you've tried everything else. It really helped me. Picked up these processors off of Ebay and hopefully by the time they die I'll be in a better place for a more comprehensive upgrade.

I know this fix is not ideal, but get a processor(s) with a clock speed as fast a you can possibly afford. Right now Adobe and the AE Dev team aren't really focusing on the amount of cores on your chips, if your clock speed is low you're going to be pulling your hair out.

I had this issue. After a few days of painful experimentation, I found a few things which worked; see my other post on this subject here.

Ayooooo so I was having some issues as well, echoing most of this forum. A user on here suggested unplugging screens....this definitely sped up my workflow considerably. I'm running a 2018 Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM, 2.9GHZ Intel Core i7. I usually have it connected to 2010 Acer 1080p monitor (I know, not 4k). However, I am editing 4k footage on this computer for the first time. My timeline has about 50 tracks in it. Nothing crazy, but plenty of masks and some effects. It was SUPER SLOW when doing RAM previews , even at 1/4 quality. Then I unplugged my screen....now I can watch full quality previews, although it's still a bit choppy. Definitely way way better though. Obviously this still isn't a real fix, but it helped me a shiiiit ton. Hope this helps ! I'm on AE 2019.

Adobe please please try to fix this!! I do not want to learn a new program lol

Same problem here, specs:

(2x) Intel 8-Core Xeon E5-2620 V4  (Running in Performance Mode)

64GB ECC RAM

3x 1080Ti (Only one set to be used by AE in NVIDIA Control Panel)

500GB SSD Local Disk

256GB SSD Cache Drive

(2x) 4K Monitors each running on it's own 1080Ti

Is everyone else running on a 4K monitor? I've been testing this out and tinkering and obsessing over it for weeks. More and more I'm coming to the conclusion that the UI redraw issue, specifically for 4k Monitors is still not fully fixed. Coupled with AE seeing better performance on single core speeds. References to the single core speed utilization over number of cores. For the life of me I don't know why Adobe would decide to place their UI on a single core (if indeed that is what has happened) and prioritize clock speeds over core count. Considering work is only going to get higher and higher res in the future. But, I want to stress we have no idea what the AE Dev's have to deal with, are dealing with currently, and I sympathize. I suppose I just want to be heard.

If the hard news is that I need to update my machine with a higher clock speed CPU I'd like to know from the software makers themselves so I'm not wasting money on hardware I never needed. Inversely movingly absurdly slowly just trying to work on simple tasks.

I've tried talking to support but whoever was on the other side of the computer was only able to give boiler plate suggestions (Purge Cache, Reset Preferences, etc.) They apologized profusely and simply said they were sorry. I believe the case number is still open because my issue is still not resolved.

Could a dev chime in? Maybe someone close to the dev team that can give better insight to this? If I have to get a new CPU with a higher core speed, please, just tell me. I want AE to work for me again. It opens, it scrubs a couple layers ok, but as soon as I start to really get to work, I'd say 10+ layers it's just unacceptably sluggish.

Same issue on a built out iMac Pro.

This is absolutely insane. Adobe needs to purge the customer service department of all these reps and get a solid team together.

Kevin needs to be let go, I don't know where he learned how to help customers, but starting out with anything along the lines of "I'm sorry you're upset" or "I apologize for the inconvenience" is SO unacceptable. There is a chapter in the book, Rework, that discusses this method of poor customer service. If you spilled hot coffee on someone while riding the subway, would you say, "I apologize." or "I'm sorry you're upset"? Absolutely not. If you're providing a service that is paramount to someone's work, an interruption to that service is like spilling hot coffee all over them.

An inconvenience is a long line at the grocery store. This is the farthest thing from an inconvenience.

Don't get all excited. This question is NOT answered.

It's just a posting telling you to contact Adobe Support and if you follow that link, it loops you around back to this forum. It's actually pretty funny when you think about it. Sad and funny at the same time.

CC 2019 rendered by AE useless and likely it did the same to you.

There is NO fix as of Dec 1, 2018.

Lol @ darion's "solution". Don't announce something as a solution when you don't actually understand the problem people are having and your "solution" is just the realization that you weren't using your laptop properly. There aren't dozens of people here complaining about AE's pitiful UI because we all have laptops and forgot to set the CPU usage to 100%.

I have been having this problem since after upgrading from 2014 years ago and there is no real solution to it, besides chastising AE's developers for being absolutely terrible at their jobs, and switching to Nuke.

The problem, for me, is caused by the fact that I run AE over 3 monitors. If I switch to 2 the UI becomes more responsive, and if I switch to 1 it runs smoothly. So the only way that AE behaves is if I completely neuter my workstation. I have an extremely beefy machine (Dual 8 core CPUs, 128 gigs ram, 1080ti video card, etc)...and Adobe products are the only ones in my arsenal that lag like hell on it (and I use a lot of high performance animation/editing software). And when I talk about lag I'm not kidding........for example, if I click to expand a layer in my timeline, when I have a dozen or so tracks, I have to wait a full second for the layer to expand. Double that time if I have an audio track with an expanded/visible waveform (I've given up trying to edit audio in AE...it is a pure nightmare). Every other interaction takes roughly the same time as well (almost full seconds between a click and a UI response).

I have updated drivers, I've updated to 2019, I've emailed support (no response of course), I've tried everything listed in this thread...no change. This is just pure incompetence on the part of the AE devs and one of the reasons myself and the others at my company are migrating to Nuke. AE used to be a dream to work in, now it is literal garbage.

New AE releases used to be exciting to anticipate...the new features, the workflows, etc. Now with each release the only thing I check is whether or not the UI actually responds to clicks in a timely manner like every other piece of software in existence. 2018 failed that test and so has 2019. Good riddance, AE.

Wow, I came here after searching for reasons why my £8000 High spec HPZ820  workstation was running After Effects 2018 like it was a zx spectrum from decades ago.

I'm slightly relieved that its not my computer as many others have the same issue, but very frustrated that this is so obvious and Adobe need to listen.  Down tools, stop adding any new features and please just make AE run at a normal speed and stable, please!

It's slow to just click around the timeline, Ram previews even at quarter resolution are appalling and is really slowing me down and costing me time and money!

If anyone needs to render faster get the "Render Garden" plugin.. no joke it uses all available cores and has improved my final render times between 5 - 10 times faster.  I dread to think what rendering in AE2018 alone would be like.

But I really need to speed up actually working in AE, please Adobe listen to this frustrated crowd and just work on improving this and nothing else for now.   Thank you

ok that seems like an interesting way to proceed.

I did something different and installed the 2019 update yesterday.... tested this morning with projects that did not run smoothly (around 10-13 fps) in the 2018 version..... and guess what: The ram preview seems to work again.... i just hope it sticks along now, but everything seems to run super smooth. In 2018 i got some kind of black stripes (artifacts) in the timeline during the ram preview also... they are gone now..... i'll keep u posted if anything changes here, but as for now it seems adobe did something about it in the new release....

FYI: i have 2 BenQ screens running on 4K with a zoom factor of 150% and a third one in portrait mode running on 1080*1920 in windows 10 (if this helps)