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cjk66372670
Participant
April 5, 2018
Answered

My video in AE is laggy and choppy

  • April 5, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 25015 views

Whenever I press the space bar and playback my video it turns out all choppy and laggy. I use After Effects CC 2018, on a Mac Book Pro. I know it is not trying to render the effects because from the moment I import it into a composition it's laggy. I edit for fun so I don't know much about my computer and about my settings on AE. I've looked up many videos and forums but none of them showed my problem.

If someone could just help me that'd be awesome.

Thanks.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Kyle Hamrick

    As Dave said, AE is not like an editing application - previews take time to build. Once the preview is built, it should play smoothly, but will be dependent on your Preview settings. It's possible, for example, to intentionally be skipping frames, previewing at lower resolutions, etc.


    Open up your Preview panel and take a look at the settings. You can alter the preview settings per hotkey.

    You can learn more about these settings here: Preview without rendering in After Effects

    It sounds like you might also benefit from learning some of the basics of AE and how it works:
    After Effects Help | After Effects User Guide


    Good luck!

    2 replies

    Participant
    October 17, 2023

    bro it did not worked for me

    Participant
    March 28, 2024

    To fix my playback speed, i  opened after effects, clicked settings > media and disk cache  then u wanna empty disk cache and also clean databases and cache

    Dave_LaRonde
    Inspiring
    April 5, 2018

    Hit zero on the numeric keypad.  Wait a bit.  The preview will come.  This ain't a video editing application like Premiere Pro, and it doesn't work like one, either.

    cjk66372670
    Participant
    April 5, 2018

    It worked but still when I press the spacebar it's laggy.

    Kyle Hamrick
    Community Expert
    Kyle HamrickCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    April 5, 2018

    As Dave said, AE is not like an editing application - previews take time to build. Once the preview is built, it should play smoothly, but will be dependent on your Preview settings. It's possible, for example, to intentionally be skipping frames, previewing at lower resolutions, etc.


    Open up your Preview panel and take a look at the settings. You can alter the preview settings per hotkey.

    You can learn more about these settings here: Preview without rendering in After Effects

    It sounds like you might also benefit from learning some of the basics of AE and how it works:
    After Effects Help | After Effects User Guide


    Good luck!