Extremely Slow Preview in After Effects CC 2017

[hafsan4260580]

Hello,

I have an hp z800 machine with the following specs.

1. Processor: Intel Xeon X5660 @ 2.8 GHz ( 2 Processors)

2. Installed Ram: 32 GB

3. 256 GB SSD for Windows and a Separate 120 GB SSD for Disk Cache

4. GPU  Nvidia Quadro 4000 (2GB)

With this configuration I am unable to preview properly in After Effects. Please click on the link below, I have recorded a screen capture of the actual problem:

Dropbox - after effects preview too slow .mp4

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Thank you.

[Joolsd]

You are using a lot of presents all within pre-comps. So I wouldn't be that surprised it is slow. Maybe your expectations are higher than mine, but After Effects isn't that great at processing long timelines with effects on. Is it quicker to preview when you drill down into the comps themselves? Supposedly there are approved Adobe After Effects hardware list you could check this. I tend to render out chunks and bring them into a video editor.

[hafsan4260580]

So you mean that I can't have a good preview no matter what I do. There has to be a solution. Is my RAM not sufficient enough?

[Joolsd]

Not necessarily, you could use 'draft fast' in the preview settings. Obviously, it won't look like the final render, but it is enough to see the speed. Seeing the final render in real time is very demanding with all the motion blur on. Did you try increasing the RAM setting, did it help?

[hafsan4260580]

The amount of RAM reserved for After Effects is 28GB but the problem is that it is not using all Ram allocated to After Effects as you can see in the screen capture.

[Joolsd]

Using all the RAM may not help the speed.

Have you also looked at the preview settings for playback? Window > preview? Options such as quality, frame skip and so on. There's a lot of settings there, which help with the preview. Again it reduces the appearance but helps with speed.

[hafsan4260580]

I changed the settings in the preview  it did help a bit but still not what I was expecting. Shouldn't I be getting a good preview?Is there noway to get a good preview?

[dbDavideBoscolo]

I think you should turn the motion blur off. Turn it on just when you render your animation. It would really help.

Then.. Unfortunately AE cannot really use all those cpu cores you have. Most of the time it uses just a single core, which in your case has a 2.8 ghz clock speed. A single cpu like an Intel i7 7700k, which has 4 cores but runs at 4.5ghz, would be mush faster.

[hafsan4260580]

I do see "preview" but it does not give me any options you mentioned:

here's a screenshot of what I get:

Dropbox - preview.png

[hafsan4260580]

I just searched it online and found out that I needed to pull the window down.

[hafsan4260580]

So buying this Monster machine was a wastage of money? I had seen a lot of videos claiming that this machine was great for animation work including 3DMax, Maya etc. but now I'm getting these heart breaking replies. I am really under a lot of stress.

[Joolsd]

Not a waste of money. AE is a good program in many ways. But it has some work to do on rendering and previewing. I hope it improves soon.

[dbDavideBoscolo]

It's great for 3Dmax Maya and Cinema4d! They should ve able to use all your cores! Not so great foe Ae in my opinion, sorry.

I did the same mistake when I purchased a 3.4hgz 6cores cpu, instead of buying a 4.2ghz 4 core, which it would have been cheaper and faster with Ae.

I hope the software will be more multicore friendly in the future.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Hafsan,

Are you still facing this problem?

4. GPU  Nvidia Quadro 4000 (2GB)

This GPU gave me problems with my own system in Premiere Pro. Can you try installing a different GPU?

Let us know if you still need assistance.

Thanks,
Kevin

[hafsan4260580]

Yes, I  haven't come up with a solution yet. Stuck with horrible editing in After Effects. I'll try another card.

[JAntonioGB]

Hafsan4260580, did you find a solution after all this months?

I have exactly the same problem

My stuff:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 1700 3.7Ghz

RAM: 64gb HyperX Predator 3000Mhz

GPU: GeForce GTX 1070 G1 8Gb

SSD1: Samsung EVO 1Tb (After Effects installation)

SSD2: Samsung EVO 500Gb (cache folder)

HDD: Toshiba X300 4Tb

Sometimes is quite hard to work with those extremely slow previews.

[hafsan4260580]

Unfortunately, NONE

[JAntonioGB]

unlucky us

[felicial38600012 · Accepted solution]

I resolved my playback issue with Adobe After Effects CC 2017 preview.   Payback was really slow (and not in real time) - even though I have a souped up computer with plenty of RAM, hard drive space, and computing power.  I resolved the issue by stepping down the resolution (in a box below the preview section) until it began playing in real time (half).  It does not look as nice, but it shows all of the effects in real time - which is ok with me for a preview. 

A workaround before I figured this out was rending the file to avi.  It played back to the screen properly in real time while rendering the file.  So, as least I could see what I was working with. 

No fiddling around with a bunch of setting.  Just a quick adjustment and the preview works like a preview should.  Maybe your issue is more complicated.  I am a newbie and was frustrated by the lack of a clear concise answer as to what to do for a problem that is common.  So, I'm sharing this in case someone else come here with the same problem and this helps them.

[arthurh48697603]

I'm just leaving my experience here too, if this thread is ever visited again by help. I just upgraded my GPU and added an SSD for cache, and very little difference is noticed in RAM preview. Maybe just a bit. My CPU is maxed, My 32G of RAM is maxed while previewing. Setting preview quality down helps to some degree, but not like one would expect.

My question is why do experienced pros get all the best gear if it doesn't help performance? Or does it.. and in what way?

Thank you

[briandkatz1]

I will also leave my experience here for the same reason as arthurh48697603 .  Preferences. Deleted. That old Adobe catch-all. Yes lost some workspace info and such but less time to restore than slogging thru the other problems.

[Nishaant5FFB]

Ello there, guys I found the solution. Under your preview window there are options such as frame rate, quality, etc. Change your frame rate to Auto and Quality to Half and you're good to go, I hope this will help you all 🙂 . I was facing the same problem so I discovered this thread lol

[defaultw9h9mlpnkwdi]

Once you use other software like Silhouette you will see normal performance for compositing. These are modern software packages that take advantage of modern computers. The reason after effects is unreasonably slow is because its software from the 90s and hasnt really been upgraded to modern standards. I can take the same clip in 4k and get consistent caching and real time playback in Silohuette then load the same clip and Adobe after effects chokes along taking a few seconds to load each frame. In Silohuette I can have quite a few nodes all adding effects and when I do a preview its calculates with the same speed. I dont have to clear the cache and clean media and all this BS work arounds... its 2020 and After Effects is always full of little errors and problems. Adobe should have had an ALL GPU version advanced MEDIA After Effects by now....

[defaultw9h9mlpnkwdi]

you shouldnt have to set your playback to half rez! This is so bad! Other software lets you use FULL RESOLUTION FULL PLAYBACK 4k if you have the ram to hold the footage!  This kind of thing makes me think after efffects is always an amatuer toy not a pro tool.. even though everyone uses it. It stinks!

[defaultj4d050lkeag6]

I was having the same issues, and it got resolved when I checked on the preview box, and realized that next to frame rate, skip was set to 5, instead of 0. It should be 0, to make sure it's not skipping any frames during the playback. That solved it!