AE 2024 High Memory Usage / Memory Leak

[Nick2049]

Performance of AE 2024 so far seems pretty awful, for example; on a fresh install, clean startup, I have just imported a single 1080p MP4 (h.264), made a single cut to the clip, and hit export.. during the render memory usage hit 97%. Now AE is idle and is the only application I have running, it still has 54GB sat in memory! It also appears to be constantly using 8% CPU even though I'm just sat in the render queue looking at a completed job.

CPU: 7950X

GPU: 4090 (latest studio drivers)

RAM: 64GB DDR5 6000 CL30

CACHE SSD: SN850X 4TB

Windows 11 (latest updates)

AE V 24.1.0

[jenkmeister]

AE will utilize and hold onto all memory that is allocated to it. If you want to reduce the amount of memory available to AE, go to Preferences -> Memory & Performance and adjust the memory available to other applications. 

As to the CPU being used, check the Composition -> Preview -> Cache Frames When Idle option. If it's on, AE will be rendering the current comp in the background.

[Nick2049]

Hi @jenkmeister 

This seems a little odd, the clip is only a few seconds long, it is under 40mb in size and there is nothing else in my comp (no effects, no other layers). Why would this consume 100% of ram allocated to AE?

Also, whilst cache frames is indeed enabled, the entired clip is already cached, rendered and is now idle. So what is it still caching exactly?

Thanks

[jenkmeister]

Can you share the clip (and the project file)? Hard to know exactly without having everything in hand. 

[DECO]

I have the same problem, it seems that AE preallocates all the memory and never releases it.

[mrtdg]

I am experiencing this also. Here is a new project with only solids and text. As I work it goes up until crashing me around 99%. I have 128GB and 24 reserved for other apps.I have attached my system info since people always ask. AE version 2024.5.0 (Build 2)

[mrtdg]

This isn't the issue. I've been using AE for 20 years. I've experieced it before and it was a memory leak.

[Al Manders]

I'm noticing very odd memory behaviour with AE 2024 builds, most noticably in 2024.6.2. Not only is it using all available RAM allocated to it (in this case, 104gb out of 128 gb - 24gb reserved for other applications), but it is also chewing up virtual memory (I'm currently running Windows 11 23H2).

I've tested this by disabling virtual memory in the advanced system preferences of Windows (note to anyone reading - do not mess with these settings if you do not know what you are doing!). AE would halt with an 'Out of Memory - unable to allocate XXX of RAM" message after several minutes of RAM previewing - and these were not complex compositions - a few shapes, some video layers, some text, with motion blur enabled, in a 1080p/25 composition.

Re-enabling the virtual memory resolved the issue, but I just ran into an additional problem whilst using a 3d rendering program in the background whilst using After Effects. Again, AE halted with the 'Out of Memory - unable to allocate XXX of RAM" message, but it's what the 3d app said that was very interesting. It too had halted, but with an additional message saying that 448GB of virtual memory had been consumed (yes, you read that right - I set my virtual memory to 3.5 times my system RAM and placed on a super-fast NVME), and that the application AfterFX.exe was consuming most of the virtual memory.

AE doesn't seem to be purging / mananging its memory correctly. This did not occur on earlier 2023 builds, but when testing on 2023.6.8, I get the same issue. Haven't yet played around with the Secret preferences in AE to see if this makes a difference.

- Why is AE 2024.6.2 using 104gb+ of memory for a simple composition

- Why is AE 2024.62 swapping to virtual memory, and continuing to fill this up without purging system memory first

As well, I've noticed a 20% performance DROP between 2024 and 2023 builds. I'll be detailing this in a future post with a test project.

[jenkmeister]

If you can, install the 25.1 Beta build of AE and see if the problem continues to reproduce. There is a fix in the current Beta builds for out of memory situations. 

[stevea28998773]

This has been a continuous issue for me with the 25.1.0. I can't preview simple things anymore. Sometimes a restart will do the job, but currently trying to run a timeline with text and photos and it simply won't.

Is there any fix for this? It is impacting my workflow big time.

[alyssad40002261]

Same here, it's a huuge annoyance, when im working on simple projects, let alone anything more complicated.