Preview not caching to disk

[Toluca_]

I have a video that I'm working on that's about 5 minutes long, 304 MB disk size.  Nothing special, no effects.  When I preview the video by pressing spacebar or zero, the preview consumes all available memory, about 50 gigs then when the play head reaches the end of the green line, instead of writing to cache the preview jumps back to the beginning and starts over.  Only after I stop the preview does disk caching start (watching Resource Monitor).

Is this normal behavior?  I'm still new to After Effects but this does not seem to be right.  Am I missing a setting in AE or could this be a system issue?

Any help is appreciated.

150 GB disk cache enabled in Preferences.

System:

i7 5820K

GTX 970 latest drivers

Windows 7 Ultimate 64

64 Gig DDR4 3000  50 GB allocated for After Effects

C: Raid 0 250 GB SSD for System/Applications

D: Raid 0 1 TB SSD for Projects/footage

G: NVMe 250 GB for disk cache

[Dave_LaRonde]

Purge memory & caches & try it again.

[Toluca_]

I wish I had a nickel for every time I tried that.  It changes nothing.

Forgot to mention that I'm on AE 2018, but I don't believe the version matters.  I haven't tried a file this size before, most have been 10-20 second clips.

Thanks for your reply Dave.

[Leon1974]

Whats your quality setting for preview?

[Toluca_]

On Full the preview goes to about 1/3 the length before using all available memory.

Half is about half way

Third is complete.

I've set the bit depth to 8, 16 and 32 and that changes to result very little.

But my main question is that after reaching the end of the memory cache, should the preview not continue and cache to disk?

There is no caching until I stop the preview and then AE only caches what's in memory.

Thanks for your reply Leon.

[Roei Tzoref · Accepted solution]

But my main question is that after reaching the end of the memory cache, should the preview not continue and cache to disk?

it work different. when it runs out of room to cache to RAM, and you preview some more, the RAM is the caching the new frames over the older ones, and the older ones are stored into disk cache. in Ae you usually cache in parts and view your scene in parts. you can lower your resolution and disable some things to get a longer preview but if you really need to watch the whole thing, you are better off rendering it. there are of course way of optimizing your project so it won't be so resource intensive like pre-rendering some compositions if you can.

[Toluca_]

So, you're telling me that a simple 5 minute video with no effects chokes a high-end piece of software like AE?

If that's the way it is designed then I'll live with it.

Thanks for your reply

[Roei Tzoref]

You can always buy more RAM, but 5 minutes is relatively a very long duration when it comes to Ae which is designed for creating shots, not editing movies and is designed to playback in real-time cached frames. if you don't have effects, are you sure you need Ae? because premiere will give you a decent playback. Ae renders uncompresed Frames and that fills up very quickly. If you want to get a sense of how much an uncompressed full resolution (or other) frame is in size, check your composition settings, near the resolution option. you might be surprised...

you might find this thread useful: Why can't After Effects have realtime playback?

check out the resource help files on memory and storage for more information: Memory and storage in After Effects

[Toluca_]

I read through all the resource help files I could find before posting here.

My intentions is (was) to add some effects to this video.  Nothing major, just some fast blur and maybe some color change.  It seems that will be more trouble than it's worth.

I do this as a hobby, not a profession.

[Roei Tzoref]

if it's only these effects, you have those in premiere so you will get much better performance if you do it there. Ae is for compositing or motion graphics, 2D animation, and some other things too but the main thing is that you should use Ae when you can't do it in an NLE like Premiere.

[thehomme]

Are you working from a cloud drive like Dropbox? I've had similar problems on Windows and copying everything to a local HD fixed it. Using Dropbox with AE on a MacBook works fine.