Trouble-Shoot: AE vs. RED GIANT »VFX Suite« / Stark performance drop

[Anteeru1]

Evening, folks!

I'm a little frustrated right now. I bought Red Giant's »VFX Suite« and only installed the awesome Supercomp plugin, but after the installation After Effects performance already went south immediately, without even applying the newly installed plugin. Even in low-res rendered RAM previews only 7(!) fps play back. After uninstalling Supercomp, everything was normal again, and after a reinstall, it became sluggish again. Somewhere AE and RG fight it out, but where? Looking at the performance monitor, neither CPU nor GPU nor RAM nor anything else go through the roof when After Effects decides to linger.

Someone here have some experience with it - or ideas out of the blue?

Here are my specs (it's an old horse, but it does the trick   😞

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz / 4 cores

Memory: G.Skill / DDR3 / 16 GBytes / UDIMM / 4x 4096 MBytes

Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 760

System: Windows 10 / Adobe After Effects CC 2018

In the *aex I work with PNG sequences (converted from REDRAW), ProRes 4:2:2 (stock clips), a few PSDs.

Regards, Matt

[Peru Bob]

You may need a better processor and video card.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

The minimum GPU required is an Intel HD 5000 integrated graphics chip. Of course, newer and faster discrete GPU components from AMD and Nvidia will yield faster performance.

- For Nvidia, we recommend 9xx series graphics cards or newer; mobile GPUs; or the professional series Quadro cards.

- For AMD, we recommend 200 series graphics cards or newer; mobile GPUs; or the professional series FireGL cards.

VRAM size requirements: For HD resolution output, we recommend that your GPU have at least 2 GB of memory. If you are planning on doing high-resolution project in 4K or more, we recommend a GPU with at least 4 GB of memory.

from here:

Buy Red Giant VFX Supercomp | Create Realistic VFX Composites with this Plugin for After Effects tha...

[Anteeru1]

Hey, Peru Bob,

Thanks for your reply. I would be the first to say that my machine is not heavy duty. But I have my doubts regarding that being the cause of my troubles. Having the plugin merely installed already causes After Effects performance to drop drastically. Right away. I didn't even apply Supercomp.

Also: If that was the problem, wouldn't it somehow show in the performance monitor with either the CPU or GPU or RAM graph maxing out - which none of them do?

[Peru Bob]

Maybe Red Giant support can help? Scroll down and click Support Request:

Red Giant Support

[MaximeGiroux]

I have the exact same issue than you. I'm contacting Red Giant. Let me know if you find something before I do.

Thanks!

[Anteeru1]

Hi, Maxime,

good to know - but of course sorry for you . I haven't had the time to file a support request at Red Giant, yet. I plan to install CC 2019 to see whether it's dealing better with the RG plugin. I'll let you know - and maybe this could be valuable information for them, too.

Regards, Matt

[MaximeGiroux]

I tried with both CC 2019 (16.1.2) and CC 2018 (15.1.2.69) and it does the same thing I'll wait for Red Giant feedback. I work for a shop and I have a dedicated HP Z840 to test this issue.

Thanks!

[carlose67671833]

I have the same problem. The "VFX Supercomp" plugin causes After Effects to consume all the RAM in a few minutes, even without using the plugin. I use After Effects CC 2019.

My PC:

Intel Core i7-6800K 3.40 GHz

RAM: 32 GB DDR4 3600 MHz

GPU x 2: nVidia GTX 1080 Ti

Storage: 6 TB SSD

Thank you.

Charles.

[efrats66587528]

Was this resolved in the latest update?

[jacobm83791892]

Yes it is!

[jacobm83791892]

Thank you for writing. We found out about this performance hit a couple of weeks ago, and now have a fix in place. Please grab the latest version from https://www.redgiant.com/support/installers/. This should take care of the issue. If you are still seeing any problems, please let us know!

[jarse]

So for me, AE works fine, but supercomp seems to be wrecking havoc with dynamic link to Premiere Pro. Premiere has all kinds of problems when linking to AE with supercomp in it. Freezes, can't link to AE files and can't do much scrubbing on timeline. Take away the supercomp layer and Premiere is just fine.

[emefka]

THAT is exactly MY problem too. Dynamic Linking get lost everytime I reopen the project in Pr. And then i cannot relink them because the dynamic link could not open the AE-File.

This is highly frustrating and i need to uninstall Supercomp to work properly again.

Anyone with a solution for dynamic linking of multiple different ae files in one PR-project?

[sabergfx]

@jacobm83791892 

The problem still exists in the latest version of supercomp:

• VFX Suite 1.5.2
• After Effects 18.2.1.8
• Windows 10 Version 21H1 Build 19043.1110

I have analyzed the crash dump generated by After Effects and SupercompHelper.aex seems to be the problem. Here is a preview of the Crash Dump:

Loading Dump File [CrashDumps\AfterFX.exe.1376.dmp]
User Mini Dump File: Only registers, stack and portions of memory are available
Executable search path is: 
Windows 10 Version 19043 MP (12 procs) Free x64
Product: WinNt, suite: SingleUserTS

This dump file has an exception of interest stored in it.
The stored exception information can be accessed via .ecxr.
(560.57c4): Access violation - code c0000005 (first/second chance not available)
For analysis of this file, run <link alt="!analyze -v" cmd="!analyze -v"><u>!analyze -v</u></link>
&lt;Unloaded_SupercompHelper.aex&gt;+0xde709:
00007fff`2c7fe709 ??              ???
0:096&gt; !analyze -v
*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Exception Analysis                                   *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Unable to load image SupercompHelper.aex, Win32 error 0n2
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for SupercompHelper.aex

SupercompHelper+0xde709:
00007fff`2c7fe709 ??              ???
Resetting default scope

EXCEPTION_RECORD:  <link alt=".exr -1" cmd=".exr -1"><u>(.exr -1)</u></link>
ExceptionAddress: 00007fff2c7fe709 (SupercompHelper+0x00000000000de709)
   ExceptionCode: c0000005 (Access violation)
  ExceptionFlags: 00000000
NumberParameters: 2
   Parameter[0]: 0000000000000008
   Parameter[1]: 00007fff2c7fe709
Attempt to execute non-executable address 00007fff2c7fe709

PROCESS_NAME:  AfterFX.exe
EXECUTE_ADDRESS: 7fff2c7fe709
FAILED_INSTRUCTION_ADDRESS: 
SupercompHelper.aex!Unloaded+de709
00007fff`2c7fe709 ??              ???

ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc0000005 - The instruction at 0x%p referenced memory at 0x%p. The memory could not be %s.

EXCEPTION_CODE_STR:  c0000005
EXCEPTION_PARAMETER1:  0000000000000008
EXCEPTION_PARAMETER2:  00007fff2c7fe709

STACK_TEXT:  
00000000`a047fa10 00000000`00000000     : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`000001f4 : SupercompHelper+0xde709

SYMBOL_NAME:  SupercompHelper.aex!Unloaded+de709
MODULE_NAME: <link alt="lmvm SupercompHelper" cmd="lmvm SupercompHelper"><u>SupercompHelper</u></link>
IMAGE_NAME:  SupercompHelper.aex
STACK_COMMAND:  ~96s ; .ecxr ; kb
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  BAD_INSTRUCTION_PTR_c0000005_SupercompHelper.aex!Unloaded
OS_VERSION:  10.0.19041.1
BUILDLAB_STR:  vb_release
OSPLATFORM_TYPE:  x64
OSNAME:  Windows 10

[Phil22945239h3pr]

This is still a concern in current versions of AE and the latest version of VFX Suite with the latest version of Windows. 

How to reproduce: After Effects is opened at least, an active project doesn't need to be opened.  Install Red Giant VFX Suite to the default location selected in the installer.

I'd recommend others to report this to Red Giant support, and if you do, feel free to refer to my case #270907 on their Zendesk.

Here's the error I saw in Windows Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application.  Just Filter the Current Log to only show Error

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Application Error
Date:          3/22/2022 2:30:05 PM
Event ID:      1000
Task Category: (100)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      
Description:
Faulting application name: AfterFX.exe, version: 22.1.1.74, time stamp: 0x61ab31a4
Faulting module name: SupercompHelper.aex_unloaded, version: 1.5.2.0, time stamp: 0x5f6142df
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000000de709
Faulting process id: 0x54b0
Faulting application start time: 0x01d83942821d5065
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2022\Support Files\AfterFX.exe
Faulting module path: SupercompHelper.aex
Report Id: 8a6f06ec-79f8-412b-a4c2-bb242f216f2a
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Application Error" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>100</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2022-03-22T21:30:05.1680397Z" />
    <EventRecordID>58969</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer></Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>AfterFX.exe</Data>
    <Data>22.1.1.74</Data>
    <Data>61ab31a4</Data>
    <Data>SupercompHelper.aex_unloaded</Data>
    <Data>1.5.2.0</Data>
    <Data>5f6142df</Data>
    <Data>c0000005</Data>
    <Data>00000000000de709</Data>
    <Data>54b0</Data>
    <Data>01d83942821d5065</Data>
    <Data>C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2022\Support Files\AfterFX.exe</Data>
    <Data>SupercompHelper.aex</Data>
    <Data>8a6f06ec-79f8-412b-a4c2-bb242f216f2a</Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

[ekreidler]

Supercomp makes me scream. It is so damn slow.