Just slow, suggestions?

[erikj1080]

So I got Red Giant Complete and I was super pumped to try out some of their fun generators and masking effects but I am having a really not so fun time just even previewing the comp that I am building. 

I have 10ish layers and some particle emitters, short video clips and an audio track. 

I'm thinking about getting an eGPU to help but I hear that AE really doesn't even use the GPU much so not sure if that is a good idea or not. 

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9980HK CPU @ 2.40GHz (16 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 32768MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 32496MB RAM

Nvidia GTX 1650 with 4GB

Any suggestions would be great. 

[Mylenium]

Not sure what you expect. Even "10ish" layers can mean you have a construct that involves multiple blending operations that create a scenario where it no longer can render everything in realtime just like even simple particle effects may disable their internal hardware acceleration because of similar reasons. Throwing more hardware at it therefore likely won't resolve anything. You simply can't circumvent these limitations and yes, of course AE has a ton of quirks and poorly optimized stuff based on its old legacy, too. Therefore it's all about working smart, not trying to brute-force things. Providing more specific info on your setup might allow people to offer advice on optimizing settings and project structure, but you should simply get used to the fact that limitations will always exist.

Mylenium

[erikj1080]

Last time I was using AE was 10+ years ago and it was the same thing, now when I try it with a 100x computer it's the same issues that turned me off before, legacy garbage, just like you said. 

[Rick Gerard]

Particles, 3D element generators, automatic background analysis (Composite tools) all take computing time, and all slow things down. 

My design limit for visual effects is a render time of about 5 minutes a frame. Most projects don't approach that, but some do. When the render time starts to go up I start thinking about simplifying. It doesn't matter what system I am working on, when AE starts to slow down I start to simplify.  

When working with complex composites that are slow to render you have to get used to working with low-resolution previews and simplified effects to check the timing, then turn everything on and check the hero (most critical) frames at full resolution. Relying on real-time previews for complex comps is just going to slow you down. As you gain experience you'll know what the end result is going to look like before you render.

This advice will help you more than chasing the ultimate system. I did some mind-boggling work 20 years ago on a computer that was not powerful enough to playback a production quality standard definition video without skipping frames in using the media player.