Rendering in After Effects is taking ages!

[JyotDiliip]

Rendering Issue in After Effects (2024 & 2025) – Extremely Slow Performance

I have been using After Effects 2024 for a long time, and rendering a 1-minute video used to be much faster. Recently, I updated to After Effects 2025 (v25), and ever since then, rendering has become extremely slow—taking around an hour for a 1-minute video.

Steps Taken:

• I rolled back to After Effects 2024 (v24), but the issue persists.
• The project is not complex—it contains only basic color corrections and looks adjustments, with no 3D effects or heavy transitions.

System Specifications:

• Model: Predator Helios 300
• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz
• RAM: 16GB
• System Type: 64-bit
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060

Issue Summary:

• Before updating to After Effects 2025, rendering was much faster.
• After updating, the rendering time increased drastically.
• Rolling back to v24 did not solve the problem.
• My project is lightweight, so it shouldn't take this long.
  
  

Would appreciate any help in troubleshooting this issue!

[nishu_kush]

Thanks for reaching out, Dilip.

Have you tested with a different project and media? Do you get the same results? Are there any third-party plug-ins installed? Do you get the same results when exporting using After Effects render queue?

Let us know, we're here to help.

Thanks,
Nishu

[EyeCreate2024]

I am having the same issue. What would take a few seconds is now taking 30+ minutes for a 15 second video. Nothing has changed other than updates on AfterEffects and Media Encoder recently. My process has remained the same (clearing cache, etc.). I'm running on a W11 PC.

[EyeCreate2024]

I thought I'd make an update to my post. I installed previous versions of both After Effects and Media Encoder with the same issue still present. As of right now, it has taken an hour and a half so far, with another hour and half to go according to media encoder FOR 15 SECONDS OF VIDEO. I have a video that I will be working on for a client tomorrow that will be anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour. I'm scared to find out how long that one is going to take to render. This is unacceptable.

[nishu_kush]

I understand the inconvenience. What are the details of the media (frame rate, frame size, format/codec) and which effects are used? If possible, could you share your project file with the media so that I can test it on my end? Feel free to share via DM if you do not want to share it publicly.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,
Nishu

[JHillPhD]

If you pre-render your comp before exporting it will be a lot faster. If you have an external SSD used for your cache and previews with enough allocated space, that can also speed up your render times. Also make sure that you have the hardware acceleration ticked on and enable preview from disk cache settings ticked on as well.

[ToolfarmJP]

Have you used the lastest version of the graphic card driver?

[Warren Heaton]

@JyotDiliip 

While working in After Effects, what render time are you seeing for each Layer in the Composition Profiler? 

[Yael32827509zzpz]

im currently dealing with this too, i thought itd be fixed with the latest update but no