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Woodhouse
Participant
September 22, 2022
Question

Initializing GPU popup whenever there is an update for OS on Mac

  • September 22, 2022
  • 5 replies
  • 8638 views

What on Earth is with the new "initializing GPU" process that keeps showing up whenever there is even a minor OS installation on my Mac? It sometimes takes ten minutes while the window slowly crawls to 100%, with a "Please stand by for playback." I could see waiting for this if After Effects was suddenly blazingly fast, but it seems to be the same old sluggish After Effects, just with a long wait to begin working. 

 

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5 replies

Inspiring
February 21, 2024

This problem persists. I just upgraded to Sonoma 14.3.1 and AE 24.1. 

Everytime I open AE, I have to wait for it to initialize the GPU 

David Simonton, DVA
Community Manager
Community Manager
September 28, 2022
quote

What on Earth is with the new "initializing GPU" process that keeps showing up whenever there is even a minor OS installation on my Mac? It sometimes takes ten minutes while the window slowly crawls to 100%, with a "Please stand by for playback." I could see waiting for this if After Effects was suddenly blazingly fast, but it seems to be the same old sluggish After Effects, just with a long wait to begin working. 


By @Woodhouse

What's happening in the background is that whenever there's an OS update, or a display driver update, and often when there's an application update for AE/PrPro, we need to compile the kernels for the system's rendering architecture (Metal, Cuda, OpenCL).  This *can* take seconds or minutes depending on the environmental variables, and on the nature of the project you're trying to open.  This need to compile the kernels isn't new, but the progress dialog is new.  We heard from a lot of users who didn't understand why their "first launch" experience was lacking certain rendering or playback functionality, so we put in a dialog to give the users some feedback about what was happening in the background.

This process is supposed to only happen on first launch after an update to the app, drivers, or OS.  It *is* possible to delete these compute caches and trigger the process all over again, but most users don't do that, because they're at 'hidden' locations.  I'd like to better understand what you're doing when you say you "[clear] your cache ahead of new projects."  Also, could you share your system configuration with me?  With internal testing, we often have a difficult time getting the dialog to appear on Mac, because the Metal compute kernels tend to compile very quickly.  Also, if you could tell me a little more about the complexity and size of projects you're opening when you are bothered by this dialog, I'd appreciate it.  I'd like to replicate your experience in house if possible.

Finally, the dialog should be dismissable.  You won't see the progress bar, and any functionality supplied by kernels not-yet-compiled will still be offline until the kernels compile, but you can otherwise interact with the product.  I hope this reply helps clarify what's happening. 

Fasih K.
Inspiring
September 22, 2022

I think it's a new AI system that learns and adopt to the way you work with After effects. Just like MidJourney 😄

nishu_kush
Community Manager
Community Manager
September 22, 2022

Hi Woodhouse,

 

That's not ideal.

When do you get this message? Does it happen on a particular project or any project you work on? Which effects/third-party plug-ins are you using in the project? You can try resetting the preferences. Here's how: https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-discussions/faq-how-to-reset-trash-preferences-in-after-effects/td-p/10634342

Let us know how it goes.

 

Thanks,

Nishu

Participant
September 28, 2022

I get this every time in Premiere and AE when I clear my cache to start a new project. I have always cleared my cache ahead of new projects but with the latsest updates I get it every it everytime, never had it before and threre's been no amnds to the hardware. 

Mylenium
Legend
September 22, 2022

It's simply tons of bugs and the reason why it takes so long is proably that the code tries to access 20000 times before giving up. if for whatever reason it doesn't work relaibly, turning off GPU functions may be advisable. Other than that many peopel simply have gone back to v 22.5 where apaprently things still work.

 

Mylenium