How can I prevent AE from playing preview faster than real time?

Hi there! Did setting the preview Frame Rate to Auto and Skip to 0, as suggested above by the expert, help?

If it’s still playing too fast, could you share your AE and OS versions, along with a screen recording showing the Preview and Info panels during playback? That’ll help us compare the playback speed with the comp’s frame rate.

Thanks,
Nishu

Hi! Check the Frame Rate setting for the preview shortcut you use — that's the usual culprit here:

1. Open the Preview panel and choose the shortcut you start previews with (e.g. Spacebar or Numpad-0).

2. Set its Frame Rate to Auto. As Adobe's guide explains, Auto makes the preview frame rate match the composition frame rate — and the default preview behavior is real-time playback. If a fixed higher value is selected there instead, cached previews play back faster than real time.

3. Also keep Skip at 0 for that shortcut.

If you've customised several preview settings, the same panel also lets you restore the default preview settings for all shortcuts.

Details: https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/desktop/view-and-preview/preview-video-and-audio/previewing.html

Let us know if it still runs fast with Frame Rate on Auto!