After Effects CC 2017 RAM preview problem

[jokog75920106]

Hey,

i use After Effects two years. Now I had buy new hardware.

System:

i7 6700k

GTX 1070

16 RAM

Win 10 Pro

I thought it works good, but i can't use the ram preview correctly.

If I would play a clip (30s long) without a effect, so the clip rendered to 1 second an played in a loop.

The same clip with a effect for example twitch, it rendered the same time of 1 second and played also in a loop.

AE can use 14GB of RAM and there is maybe 1 or 2 GB in use.

I swichted the view render from CPU to GPU and reversed. I see no different.

Where is the problem (?), my cache had I clean up. By the way premiere work very goog and without problems.

Thank you!

[Szalam]

Are you sure that your work area is set to the entire length of your composition?

[jokog75920106]

Yes, the work area is set to the full composition.

[Szalam]

Can we see a screenshot of your full preview panel?

Also, what exact version of AE are you using?

[jokog75920106]

Here you can see my panel: http://www.bilder-upload.eu/upload/1845e3-1484946884.png

[Szalam]

My network has blocked that page for malware reasons. Can you please just upload the image via this forum with the "add photo" button?

[jokog75920106]

Here

[Szalam]

Thanks for that. Now can we see your preview panel? (The one with the options for setting up your previews.)

Should look something like this:

[jokog75920106]

There is the preview panel.

It is german, but I have the same option as you

Thanks

[Szalam]

So you are saying that, when you press the spacebar, you only get one second previewed and then it loops? Are you saying it doesn't play the whole part of your timeline that is green? What happens if you press the 0 key on your number pad instead? (That should, by default do a separate set of preview options [viewable in your preview panel by changing the drop-down]. One of the changes should be that cache before playback is checked.)

[jokog75920106]

If I pressed 0, then played the clip the same time as with spacebar.

Usally the green line went 2-3 sec and the clip played 2-3 sec.
In a new project file played the clip one second. In anothe project file with standard text animation played the composition the full time of 20 secound. I can't see pattern.

[Szalam]

Your description sounds like the pattern is how much RAM usage is needed. If you have footage, plugins, etc. with a lot of visual information changing (as shown in your example image), it will take a lot more RAM than one text layer. If you don't need to view your composition at full resolution while you're working (and you probably don't), preview it at half res or quarter resolution.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi JokoG,

Did you solve your preview issue yet? We have not heard back from you. Please let us know if our expert's advice assisted you.

Cheers,

Kevin

[jokog75920106]

Hi,

I didn't solve the preview problem. In the last time I change the RAM-storage for adobe from 14 GB to 8 GB. Now in After Effects goes the preview a little bit longer, but not the full composition.

If I change the resolution to half or lower, than is no different in the preview.

Thanks!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi JokoG,

Dang. That's terrible. Sorry about that. Would you like me to escalate your case?

Thanks,
Kevin

[SkytechAerial]

This issue is also happening to me.  When I try to preview a higher resolution video 4096x2160 it only shows 1 second in continuous loop.

[Dave_LaRonde]

skytechphoto  wrote

This issue is also happening to me.  When I try to preview a higher resolution video 4096x2160 it only shows 1 second in continuous loop.

How much RAM do you have?  I'll bet you're aware that 4096x2160 video contains a whole lot more pixels that 1920x1080 video, which is doubtlessly accounting for the shorter preview durations.

In fact, it's about 4 times as many pixels.

[SkytechAerial]

RAM does seem to be the problem.  I have 8GB in my Win10 64-bit laptop.  I tried previewing on my 16GB Win10 64-bit desktop at home and was successful.  Time to add more RAM to my laptop!

[LostsOfficial]

Hi,

Do you want to close the ram preview?

If so go to prefrences and uncheck the preview option!

[GuidoPagott]

Hi Kevin, Thanks for your replay.

any kind of footage ! Also just a solid layer. For me is unusable. I hope to find a solution. Thx

[Kevin-Monahan]

That stinks. Sorry, man. Can you file a bug here? Thanks!

Kevin

[GuidoPagott]

Hi kevin, just for let you know, I found a solution. It was a firewall issue

It slowed the start, and and the proper functioning.

bye

[BenjaminMarkus]

It's been a while since I've posted on the After Effects forum, most likely because for the last 4 years I haven't really run into any serious issues with the software.  However, about two weeks ago I sold my 2013 MacPro and bought a fast new Windows machine.  But, now I'm running into things I can't explain.  For example, I believe I'm experiencing this exact same, or similar, playback issue/bug. 

This happens, in both After Effects 2017 and earlier versions where the space bar preview, or any other form of normal RAM preview, i.e. button click, or using the 0 key on the numpad, no longer works.  The green bar fills up as it caches the shot into RAM, but then I get just one or two frames of real time playback, maybe more if I'm lucky, but never the entire shot and then it just stops dead.  I can scrub just fine, but I can't preview an entire shot.  I've been using AE for almost 11 years now and never had an issue like this.

First of all, I should mention that I put a Thunderbolt 3 motherboard into this new Windows machine, which allows me to continue using my 27" Apple Cinema Display and connect my Pegasus RAID drives via a Thunderbolt 2 - Thunderbolt 3 adapter.  I've experienced some issues with the RAIDs because they're still mac formatted and I run them via MacDrive, so I'm planning on taking the drives out of the Pegasus enclosure and rebuilding the RAID internally.  So, in the meantime, I've been working off of a local scratch drive, which is a fast internal SSD and just using the Pegasus R6, which is the fastest, as a cache drive.

Now, I realize that this issue could be caused by a conflict with my TB2 Cinema Display and the mac formatted RAID drives on a Windows machine, and maybe it is, because I also use an ancient 22" DVI Apple monitor via an HDMI adapter and I get fine playback in AE if I unplug all the TB2 hardware and just use that monitor.  But, that monitor is way less than ideal for any kind of real work.  It's all burned around the edges and I really just use it as a place to put windows that don't contain an image.  Ideally, I would really like to be able to use my cinema display.  I'm not having play back issues like this in any other software including Maya, Mocha, Nuke or Premiere, so I'm hoping there's a solution that doesn't involve scrapping my monitor.  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I've never posted for support on a Windows machine before so I hope this is the correct information.  Also, I'm running an Nvidia GTX 1080i graphics card.

Thanks

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hey Ben,

Good to hear from you, man. Sorry I didn't respond, I was on vacation. Have you solved this issue yet? Did you try any other monitor setups?

Thanks,

Kevin

[takit2xs]

Adding to this discussion, because I am also experiencing this exact same issue with 2017:

"This happens, in both After Effects 2017 and earlier versions where the space bar preview, or any other form of normal RAM preview, i.e. button click, or using the 0 key on the numpad, no longer works.  The green bar fills up as it caches the shot into RAM, but then I get just one or two frames of real time playback, maybe more if I'm lucky, but never the entire shot and then it just stops dead.  I can scrub just fine, but I can't preview an entire shot.  I've been using AE for almost 11 years now and never had an issue like this."

Only restarting After Effects solves the problem. It's getting to be where AE is very difficult to use.

Working on a PC