After Effects UI lag

Report · Dec 14, 2023

Hello,

I've struggled with a weird problem for a while now.
After Effects user interface is lagging a lot when working aroung in there. For an example working with keyframes or moving elements around on the preview panel or moving the layers in the timeline... Pretty much everywhere. Even in a project file with only audio file added to the timeline the UI lags... and during preview the audio is having a static effect.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the software. Updated drivers for graphics card, external sound card etc. Tried different settings in Preferences > Preview, Media Cache, Audio hardware, bought a new separate SSD just for Cache files. Nothing has worked so far. Even went through the trouble and did a clean format to the PC, installed the OS, drivers and apps from scratch. Lag still there. Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere all are working fine. The problem only occurs in After Effects. And for months now. Whats going on?

I have the latest AE version.
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with Radeon Graphics
Installed RAM 64 GB
GeForce RTX 3070 8GB, latest NVidia Game Ready drivers
All of the hard drives are SSD.
Win 11
PC less than a year old.

My older computer with lower specs doesn't have this issue, which makes it really confusing.

Have googled my eyes red. This is interrupting the workflow a lot.
Please help! Thank you.

Report · Feb 26, 2024

Hmm. Do you get the same audio crackling from Premiere or Audition (which share a good deal of audio HW support functionality)?

Is the Scarlett set to the same HW settings as you have picked in AE?

I have a Clarett interface and had a bunch of trouble once when I inadvertantly had it set to 44.1khz (In the Focusrite Control app) where I had AE set to 48khz.

Report · Mar 17, 2024

No, its the same.

Premiere doesn't have that problem, but don't know about Audition since I do not use that. I'm using Cubase for audio work. Everything works well there too.

Report · Mar 26, 2024

Also, I noticed that the crackling sound occurs when I hit preview in AE and open another application to watch or listen something there simultaneously (ie Youtube or Spotify). But when I stop the preview in AE the crackling disappears.