Known Participant

Question

What is it going to take for Adobe to create a product that doesn't lag and/or crash?

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
January 2, 2026
2 replies
242 views

I'm getting extremely frustrated with Adobe products and I'm hoping that I can't be the only one. I have a brand new Mac Studio 4M and I thought that would take care of After Effects crashing and completely glitching, but NOPE, here we are. I'm still experiencing the same problems I did on my 2017, and now I just lost hours of work because it froze before I could save anything. When I am running through it, it slows down and the audo and video lag. EXTREMELY annoying.

I feel like all I am doing is complaining about Adobe, but man--I thought the new comp was the answer here, and it just appears the products cannot perform properly.

ToolfarmJP

Community Expert

Would you check Video Rendering and Effects tab of Project Settings in After Effects? If you switch it to GPU or software, does the result change?

File menu > Project Settings > Video Rendering and Effects

K

kaitlint82815752Author

Known Participant

It's set to GPU when I just opened that menu.

I ended up finishing the project, albeit painful with the lag situation. When I just opened the project now and played it through it seems fine at the moment, but I would venture to guess if I continued to make additional edits I would run into the same problem. Shutting down the software and relaunching it didn't help before.

Are you suggesting I try switcing it to software if I have another project to work on, or should the GPU setting have been the best option regardless?

A

AidanEdits

Inspiring

There are many many things that factor into AE performance. Let me know:

1. Are you working in a 4K comp, FHD, HD or something else?

2. What is your fps?

3. What is your projects color bit depth? (It shows the bit depth at the bottom of the Project panel, or go to Project Settings>Color>Bit Depth)

4. Where are you saving your Disk Cache? (Preferences>Media & Disk Cache)

5. Do you purge your Disk Cache regularly? (Edit>Purge)

6. How much RAM do you have dedicated to AE? (Preferences>Memory & Performance)

7. What type of files are you using? Are they raw footage, stock footage, YouTube rips, etc? mp4, mov, etc?
8. Do you have other programs running while working in AE?

24GB RAM is quite low for AE, and will require a lot of workflow optimization to run a 2m30s project smoothly. If you aren't using effects, and are simply cutting footage over music, have you considered using Premiere to edit your videos instead? 2 minutes may not seem like a lot, but in After Effects I would consider 2:30 a long form project, and in your case it seems more suited for an editing program like Premiere rather than a VFX program like AE.

nishu_kush

Legend

Hi kaitlint82815752,

Really sorry for the poor experience. We're here to help. Do you mind sharing more details?

1. What version of After Effects are you using?

2. Are there any error messages or crash reports?

3. Is it happening with a specific project or all of them?

4. Are you using any third-party plug-ins?

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,
Nishu

K

kaitlint82815752Author

Known Participant

Hey, thanks for responding:

1. The newest version/most recent update

2. I have attached what I received.

3. For the short time I've had this new computer, I have only worked on 2 projects. 1 was less than 30 seconds and started doing the lag thing towards the end; This most recent was only a 2min 19sec project, so it's not like I'm working on full movies. Also to note, there are no effects on any of this. Basic trim of clips and music overlay.

4. No plug-ins (I even double-checked to make sure one wasn't somehow accidentally added or enabled).

And for the record, I had it wrong--my computer is: Mac Mini M4 Pro 24 GB

nishu_kush

Legend

Thanks for getting back. What's the source of the media that you're using in the project? Is it screen recorded or was it shot on a phone? In some cases, the videos are recorded with a variable frame rate, and that can cause performance issues. Please try transcoding your media and test it in a new project to rule if there's an issue with the project file.

Thanks,
Nishu

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