Memory not purging between renders

macOS Big Sur

Version 11.5.2 

MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)

CPU: 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7

Memory: 32 GB 2667 MHz DDR4

Graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 5300M 4 GB

Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

< 90GB storage spare

After Effects CC Version 22.2.1 (Build 3)

C4D Lite (25.117) (Build Build 25_0.CL363640.28201)

Hi, I've done some troubleshooting already. I believe this is an issue with the Memory/RAM, not Disk Cache.

I'm exporting a composition, I've got a laptop in C4D Lite and I'm just exporting a 15 second animation. The first ~2 seconds render fine, then it chugs to a stop. I've done some investigating and watching the activity monitor, the Memory/RAM slowly fills up (I have 32GB), once it hits ~32GB, the frames rendered per second goes from about 1 frame every 5 seconds, to 1 frame every 30-60 seconds.

I've tried restarting After Effects, purging cache etc. to empty the memory and continuing the render from wher I left off, which gets the frames rendered per second back down to ~1 frame every 5 seconds, so I believe it's an issue with the memory.

A solution I came up with was to split the composition into multiple 2 second chunks, and queue up each 2 second chunk. My memory was hitting full capacity about every 60 frames (30fps), so I figured that the 1st render item would finish, After Effects would save the file and be able to purge the existing Memory to make room for the next item in the queue.

This doesn't work, and even when I completely stop the queue, everything chugs along incredibly slowly with the RAM full until I restart After Effects. Surely this isn't meant to work like this? I'm faced with leaving this render exporting over days rather than a matter of hours, unless I sit next to the computer and restart After Effects every time the memory fills up.

Is there a way to make After Effects manually purge memory in between render queue items, or have I missed something?

Thanks.