After Effects slow on M2 Ultra Mac

[nopow]

Last week I replaced my 2017 iMac with an M2 Ultra Mac Studio with 128 GB RAM. It struggles to even play a 4K .mp4 clip in real time. In my comparison tests, it was rendering comps in approximately the same amount of time as my old iMac (2017, 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, with 64 GB RAM). I currently have 16 GB RAM reserved for other applications (112 GB for AE). I have tried with and without Multi-frame Rendering turned on. I have not migrated my files from my old computer, so these are the results right out of the box. I'm using the latest version of AE (23.5.0).

I was expecting previews to be about 5 times faster, but hoping for more. At first I was just terribly disappointed, and thought I made a huge mistake investing 8K in new computer equipment, since After Effects is my livelihood. But now I'm assuming that AE is just not operating right. I have read mixed comments about whether AE is optimized for the M2. Does anyone have any up-to-date information on that? Or maybe know of some trick? Something I'm missing? Thanks in advance.

[Branded Productions]

Any word on if this issue has been adressed in either Ventura 13.6, or in Sonoma 14.0? I'm about a month into this new system and, I'm nervous to upgrade to either one without knowing if I'll be trading one bug for another. Currently running triple monitors and with spaces separate on all displays, my workflow is a mess. I'm in the middle of a 4 month compositing contract and this computer "upgrade" has been.. shall we say, less than optimal.

[jenkmeister]

Latest update I have:

MacOS 14 has a partial fix and should be released soon. It's a slight improvement but not a full fix.
Apply are currently planning to have the full fix in MacOS 14.1.

[Branded Productions]

Excellent news. Any idea what "partial" means exactly?  I'd like to know if I were to update to 14.0 and uncheck the "displays have separate spaces".. what would happen exactly? The 14.0 update is available to me now in software update, however depending on what has been partially fixed, I may just hold out for 14.1.

[jenkmeister]

Not exactly clear from the info we've been given but as soon as I have more info I'll pass it along.

[Branded Productions]

It's me again.. just looking for an update before I upgrade my system. I see that 14.1 is available. Has the issue been corrected?

[jackthegiantslayer]

So we have to update to an untested and unstable new Mac system in order to fix this bug? I only just upgraded to Ventura myself as I never ever use a new Mac system until they have a year to work out the bugs with Adobe. Apple needs to address this in their previous (stable) OS before asking us to beta test.

[pkroll]

Sonoma 14 is out of beta and has been released as of yesterday, but it doesn't contain the fix. Sonoma 14.1 is in beta, and probably doesn't contain the fix yet. It sounds like Apple plans to have the fix ready by the time 14.1 rolls out of beta.

That said, I agree. I don't want to update to an untested OS right away without giving time to sort out the bugs.

I suggest anyone else who feels Apple should address this bug in Ventura leave some feedback for them:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

[Branded Productions]

I voiced my concerns with apple back in Sept. when you posted that link. It looks like the 14.1 RC dropped 3 days ago. Any idea if the fix in there, or are we stuck waiting for yet another future 14.x release?

[chfilm]

Has the issue been fixed in 14.1.1 ? 

[Christian Z]

Yes desperately need to know this

[Branded Productions]

I have made a critical mistake. Trusting that the problem was being incrementally worked on, I upgraded to MacOS 14.2, and After Effects 24.1. Running on an expensive a$$ M2 Ultra Mac Studio, it feels like I'm trying to crank out pixels on a powermac G4. I really wish this nightmare would end already. I invest hard earned money to making sure that I have current, high end equipment. All I ask is that the latest software runs smoothly on that equipment. I'm very near my breaking point on this issue. I did this upgrade in the middle of a project that is being done in 1080 24p. I'm not even asking AE to crank out 4k comps.  Since this series of software "upgrades" things have doubled the amount of render/RAM preview time needed. I miss the days pre-CS6, and pre-subscription, when the software was rigorously tested before being released. This is rough. 25 years I've invested into After Effects, and this is by far the worst it's been.

Apologies for the rant.

[pkroll]

It's really frustrating! Are you able to confirm if the disable "Displays have separate Spaces" trick still works as a workaround with those versions at least? I'm holding off on updating past MacOS 13x on an M2 Ultra over here.

[chfilm]

Is this using the separate spaces hack? I just did the upgrade as well last night after ending my last project but haven't tested it yet.. now you scared me. How is it possible they still haven't fixed this!????

[Branded Productions]

With the previous versions that I was running, I had not been using the separate spaces hack, because I had moved to a mercury transmit solution for displaying all the frames to an external monitor via a blackmagic card. soo.. frames were still stuttery on my main monitor. This is different, now I am struggling to even get a ram preview in the first place. If I have AE and Premiere open at the same time... forget about it. It'll ram preview about 12 frames and then just sit there. It's unusable, and I am up against production deadlines.

[Branded Productions]

Just for the sake of clarity to any adobe personnel that may be reading, it's not just me. It's my whole team. I am just one contractor on this particular project, and I'm not certain of the hardware that everyone is running beyond the fact that we are all running some version of apple silicon. I just know that 4 out of 4 compositors/editors on this particular project are having the worst Adobe CC issues we've ever had. Adobe, Rather than adding new fancy AI features, can reliability be the focus of the next few versions? I'm sure me and my team are not alone on this request.

Again, sorry for ranting. The frustration is peaking.

[Christian Z]

I have set my 4k Monitors to 2560x1440 (low resolution), initially I had these set to the above field 2560 x 1440, this has completely addressed the rendering issues on my M2 Ultra 2023 M2 Mac.. I've lost a little clarity on the screen, but my workflow is more desirable,

[StidhumLLC]

Same here. Spent the last 12 days with Adobe and Apple blaming each other for the issue. So I bought Davinci Studio, same issue, they blamed Apple. 

im convinced its a 4k monitor issue. Im using 2 LG 4k ultra fine 32" ERGO monitors. No change when I unplug one. 

[JHillPhD]

It's definitely an Apple issue because of their integrated M-chips and memory taking the fact there's no actual GPU strong enough to handle multiple monitors regardless of their size. On my 2017 MBP I don't have any issues only with my mac mini m2 pro. This might be the last time I use mac to render anything with video, motion graphics, or 3D.