Slow preview on 60 fps

[lwprog]

Hello, everyone on tiktok, youtube, is saying that for a smoother edit, put the composition setting on 60fps. Except that when I put it on 60fps the whole edit becomes slow. How do I fix it? If I need to remove the 60fps, can I make my vid smoother in another way? Thanks.

[ṇubbudbud]

That's the neat part. You don't, you just ask them to write software that works as well as competitors, and they spend 8 years "putting people on the team" withhttps://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-bugs/interface-is-slow-and-laggy/idi-p/13229563/page/13#comments with no evidence or transparency to suggest there are people on the team. I think they max out at like 17-20 software devs so give em a break I say. They're working on 30 year old code from COSA- you's need 50-100 devs if you wanted to make a meaningful change to this hulking beast.

You can try setting the preview resolution lower in the lower left of the preview window, rendering out precomps and muting their source footage. As well, there is a skip panel allowing you to skip frames, to effectively multiply your preview speed. None of tgis, sadly, is a good replacement for actual performant rendering, and this thing doesn't even use GPU to a meaningful degree. They just made like 7 niche effects hardware accelerated so they could claim it used GPU. If you need faster playback, davinci resolve is probably your best bet, but if you're doing motion graphics, blender with geometry nodes has become a beast lately.

[nishu_kush]

What are you editing? Changing the frame rate to 60 fps will work well if you're creating Motion Graphics or animating. If you're working with recorded footage, you need to plan in advance and record your footage at 60 fps to get the best results.

To improve the preview, you can try lowering the preview resolution and clearing the media cache (Edit > Purge > All Memory & Disk Cache)

Hope it helps. Moving this thread from Bugs to Discussions.

Thanks,
Nishu

[Warren Heaton]

@lwprog 

For best results, you want the frame rate of your Composition to match your source footage.

Working at 60 fps instead of 24, 25, or 30 will take longer to cache frames for a Preview.  The keyboard shortcut Shift + Numberpad 0 is set by default to preview every other frame with the Composition Resolution automatically matching the current magnification.  Try this option with the Composition at 50% or 25%.  Using this will render Previews more quickly, but the Preview will not play as smoothly; however, rendering later can be at the full resolution and full frame rate.  You can customize the Preview options in the Preview tab to better match how you work and the performance level of your computer.

A best practice is to edit your video in Premiere Pro first and then after you've locked picture to send the edit (or parts of it) to After Effects for graphics and effects.

You didn't mention your computer specifications.  More RAM, faster processors, and faster storage will result in a faster and smoother experience in After Effects.  For example, if you're currently on an older i5, Ryzen 5, or M1 then upgrading to a current i9, Ryzen 9, or M3 Max offers a good performance boost.


- Warren