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Ozzy Otter
Known Participant
August 10, 2021
Question

UI Lag in After Effects 18.4

  • August 10, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 674 views

Experiencing very annoying lag with the After Effects UI, such as when dragging objects around the screen, moving keyframes, trimming and/or moving layers within the timeline. Simple little things which should not be lagging the interface.

 

1080p comp, the preview resolution is set to 'Third'

System specs: iMac Pro 18 core with Vega 64 16 GB, 128 GB RAM, Big Sur 11.5.1

 

The only way I've found to alleviate this issue is to deselect, 'Show Layer Controls' from the 'View' menu. Once deselected the interface becomes a new beast. Responsive, little to no lag when moving layers or scrubbing the timeline. I cannot understand why something such as rendering bounding boxes would bring the software to it's knees? While not the fastest system in the world this iMac Pro rig is nothing to sneeze at.

 

Is anyone else experiencing this type of UI lag and does disabling 'Show Layer Controls' improve it on your system?

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

nishu_kush
Community Manager
nishu_kushCommunity Manager
Community Manager
August 10, 2021

Hi Ozzy Otter,

 

Sorry for your issue.

Do you get this issue in a new project as well? Could you try disabling "Hardware Accelerated Composition, Layer, and Footage Panels" under After Effects Preferecnes > Display?

Let us know if it brings any change.

 

Thanks,

Nishu

O
Ozzy OtterAuthor
Known Participant
August 10, 2021

Hi Nishu,

 

New project, old project, I see this in every one. I tried disabling 'Hardware Acceleration' previously and seemed to have no effect. Exploring further this seems to present itself more readily once I enable a 3D working environment, though it can also present in more complex 2D projects.

 

Once the layers go 3D, the lag becomes more and more pronounced depending on the number of layers involved. The only thing that seems to restore what i would consider normal UI speed is disabling layer controls. It still seems to be related to rednering the bounding boxes and showing layer controls. Again, we're talking about just working within the timeline and composition windows, not even at full resolution, this isn't concerning preview/playback speeds. I realize playback speeds will suffer due to the intensity of 3D and complex projects. It isn't unworkable, I just expect the interface to be speedier when constructing the project.

 

The iMac and video card perform as expected in other Adobe and video applications. Is it possible this is an After Effects specific GPU or macOS issue peculiar to my workstation config? As you are the first to respond I will assume not many are seeing this issue.

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