Apple M2 Max 96GB - After Effects using up HUGE amounts of RAM for the simplest tasks.

Report · Nov 09, 2023

I am operating off a Macbook Pro M2 Max 96GB, 2TB that is ridiculously slow in After Effects. The RAM will be totally maxed out after a few minutes when performing even the simplest of tasks with just a few layers. This has been an incredibly frustrating thing to deal with and I am in need of some real answers from Adobe. I make a living from these programs and there should be no reason that with this powerful of a machine AE cant handle simple functions. I am primarily a 2D and do not use any arrays of plugins, or 3D features.

I have been working in After Effects for nearly 10 years now on machines that were well under these current specs and I have never once had trouble like this. This is a real issue and it seems that I'm not the only one either. Attached are screenshots showing the AE RAM usage.

Any support will be very much appreciated.

Report · Mar 14, 2024

@jenkmeister

To be honest I only started noticing a year ago when switching from the Intel Apple machines to the Silicon regardless of the AE version. In terms of the screenshot, I can do that but will say that I have done that countless times at this point and no customer service rep has ever been able to tune the settings to the point where it fixes the problem. To sum it up, I have tried everything at this point and all roads lead back to it being a much bigger issue that has to do with AE and the new line of machines.

That being said, the next time it happens I can send you a screenshot for your records.

Thank you for the continued effort here. Truly hope we can find a fix for this soon.

Report · Mar 14, 2024

@jenkmeister

It just happened again - Here is that screenshot. For reference, I am not working on anything intense.

Report · Mar 14, 2024

Thanks @miker31661459 - next time you're able, can you Enable Logging (Help -> Enable Logging), and then go about your work until you hit this issue again. At that point, grab the log (Help -> Reveal Log Files, look for After Effects Log.txt) and post the file somewhere I can download. There is definitely something hanging in the code that should be clearing memory during your workflow and I'm hoping the log will help the team understand what that is. Thank you!

Report · Mar 15, 2024

@jenkmeister Sounds good. I will be on a new booking for the next few weeks and won't be using my personal machine for that. I will circle back when I jump back on this one and hopefully get some logs out to you once the issue happens again.

Keep me posted if theres any updates in the meantime

Report · Mar 18, 2024

Hello, I am having the same issue. I keep getting the "not enough RAM" notification for simple tasks that my old computer could handle. I bought a new 2023 Macbook Pro M2 Max with 32 GB of RAM for work in July 2023, I imidiately ran into this problem with AE but was hoping it was due to the new M2 chip's compabilities with Adobe and that it would get fixed (as it is definitely a priority for a lot of users). I has been 7 months now and am worried will this issue ever be fixed. I am also using After Effects for work , it is my main program. Will Adobe and Apple colaborate and help there customers with this? This is a HUGE problem, and these are official programs and a brand new Macbook bought for work.

Report · Feb 21, 2024

Any luck with the beta? I still haven't pulled the trigger on a new macbook yet, until this problem is sorted out. Thanks.

Report · Mar 14, 2024

@Burdbrain

Seems like its an active and high-priority issue for a lot of people that they are working hard to solve. That being said, I still don't regret pulling the trigger on the new machine as I needed a serious upgrade in a lot of other areas. The issue happens intermittently and there's no telling what triggers it and who knows, it may not even happen for you. I wouldn't let the AE problem stall your decision making but at the same time, fully understand the hesitation. All I can say is aside from this annoying AE problem that has more so become a small pest these days, the new machines are incredible in every other aspect.

Hope that helps!

Report · Mar 14, 2024

Thanks, I read on another post that if you allocate free memory (for other programs) in the AE memory settings, use a number in blocks of 4. So either 4GB or 8GB etc for other programs to use. Apparently this helps with the memory issues, as Apple seems to like those numbers? Weird, but it might be worth a try to see if it helps.

Report · Mar 18, 2024

Hello, I am having the same issue. I keep getting the "not enough RAM" notification for simple tasks that my old computer could handle. I bought a new 2023 Macbook Pro M2 Max with 32 GB of RAM for work in July 2023, I imidiately ran into this problem with AE but was hoping it was due to the new M2 chip's compabilities with Adobe and that it would get fixed (as it is definitely a priority for a lot of users). I has been 7 months now and am worried will this issue ever be fixed. I am also using After Effects for work , it is my main program. Will Adobe and Apple colaborate and help there customers with this? This is a HUGE problem, and these are official programs and a brand new Macbook bought for work.

Report · Mar 18, 2024

@Josh29964728d97f Can you try the After Effects Beta 24.4 build and see if that helps your situation?

Report · May 08, 2024

hey, im using after effects 24.5 and still got the same issue as they do would be happy for help

Report · May 10, 2024

@jenkmeister would be happy for help

Report · May 13, 2024

I had to install a few weeks ago AEversion 24.3 and right away I noticed the yellow line in the bottom, RAM message and it stops working. So Iobviously switched back to AE 23. It's really unacceptable this kind of market's negligence, my conclusion is that After Effects recent new versions can not be trusted.

Report · May 13, 2024

@jenkmeister @vivkum It truly seems crazy that people are still experiencing this issue. I have thankfully been using a corporate machine for the last 3 months but to hear that its still a problem really gives me anxiety for my next booking when I will have to use my personal machine. Is there ANY hope that this problem will be fixed not only for me but for the thousands of others that are using the product... this is clearly a very real issue that is affecting a lot of people and their daily workflows. If its any help or clarity - For the last 3 months I have been using a corporate machine running an M2 chip and 64 GB of memory and have not encountered the issue in AE once. Thats much lower specs than my personal machine running an M3 Max at 128GB....

Report · May 13, 2024

Hey @miker31661459 We've implemented a couple of significant memory management changes in the last few months. The first one starting Beta 24.2x67, and the most recent one starting Beta 24.5x17. If you haven't already, we encourage you to try out the latest Beta on your M3 whenever you get a chance.

It's interesting that you're not encountering any issues on M2-64GB but only on M3-128GB. It's possible that the issue is project specific. It would greatly help us if you could confirm whether the same project exhibits issues on M3-128GB but not on M2-64GB. Thanks!

Report · Aug 29, 2024

@vivkum @jenkmeister

I am running into this issue again. As I mentioned above I was on a corp machine for the last few months but now sure enough back on my personal machine I immediately run into the ram issue again. THIS IS INSANE!

Can someone hop on a call and help me sort this problem out once and for all?

Report · Oct 01, 2024

Came here looking for answers to this same problem I just encountered this week, but sounds like it has been going on for atleast a year. A few months ago I bought a new iMac with 16GB unified memory RAM. I have been working in After Effects for 10 years and have never had this issue on the old Intel based machines. I cannot perform the simplest task in After Effects without the yellow warning screen popping up. I have allotted 13GB to AE, the maximum allowed, and select a disk cache folder on an external drive with 900GB free memory. I brought my mac to Genius Bar today to see if I should have bought a 24GB RAM (the highest you can get on an iMac). They said 16GB should be more than enough for simple AE projects.

I have a few questions

Has After Effects been fixed yet? I am using version 24.6.2

Why are the new M3 MacBooks able to have 128GB but an iMac only has 24GB max.

The Genius Bar guy showed me the Activity Monitor running a hundred things in the background, but all I have open is After Effects, which takes a whopping 95GB!!! What is the maximum memory the new iMac can run, and which things can i delete from the background (example Creative Cloud Library, core service, etc)

Thanks for any help

Report · Oct 02, 2024

AE currently can and will use all the memory you allot to it. That way it can keep rendered frames in memory for faster playback. We are looking at ways to minimize the RAM usage but that's not ready yet.

As to your issue, I would suggest trying the 25.1 Beta release and see if that resolves your memory issues. There is a particular fix in 25.1 (that will also go out with 25.0 non-Beta when that releases in the future) that addresses a memory tracking related bug. We've heard from users who have tried out the beta that it has resolved their memory issues in most cases.

Report · Oct 02, 2024

Thank you, that seems to be working! Its weird because AE v24 uses a whopping 95GB when opened. but the Beta AE v25 only uses 15GB, so I am able to work without crashing. THANK YOU!