M4 Pro Mac Mini After Effects Slow Advanced 3d Rendering

Report · Mar 07, 2025

Just got a Mac Mini M4 Pro (12-Core CPU, 12-Core GPU, 48GB RAM, 512GB SSD), but I’m running into slow 3D rendering performance in advanced 3d. Even simple animations aren’t previewing properly, and renders are taking much longer than expected. The scenes only have 3-4 .obj models and a hdr model.

Strangely, my older machine (Ci7 12th gen, 32GB RAM, 4GB RTX 3050) renders 4x faster. I’m using After Effects and default settings. Running MacOS sequoia 15.3.1 (24D70).

Could this be a hardware limitation or a setting issue? Anyone else experiencing this with M4 chips? Any fixes?

Report · Mar 08, 2025

I’m using After Effects and default settings. Running MacOS sequoia 15.3.1 (24D70).

By @defaultorlpo4pcpnld

I've moved your post from Using the Community to the After Effects forum.

Jane

Report · Mar 10, 2025

Hi there,

Thanks for writing in. What are your export settings? There is no specific setting that affects the rendering time. It is mostly the export settings. Try exporting using Media Encoder and see how much time it takes. Also, test with After Effects running is Safe Mode with third-party plug-ins disabled. That'll help us narrow down the issue.

Thanks,
Nishu