preview only plays a second

[luvshacc]

hi i know this is a relatively common problem with computers with low ram but when i try and preview my video (even if it's just a short unedited clip) the RAM preview with play about a second before replaying. I've tried setting the quality lower etc but it doesn't help so i figure i didn't have enough memory and bought an SSD, i changed the disk cache folder to the SSD and NOTHING CHANGED so i deleted about 50GB worth of files and it's STILL the same! it's unusable please help

[Mylenium]

Without any actual info about your comp settings, footage properties, system info, preview settings and so on nobody can tell you much. You may simply be running in circles due to the footage being a type that cannot be played with hardware acceleration in realtime just as well as your preview settings might simply be off. Too many factors here, so more info is definitely required.

Mylenium

[luvshacc]

sorry! here is all the info (im also aware that my ram is low to be using ae and i'm not very tech savvy but i was hoping the ssd would solve that? apologies if that makes no sense.) i am hoping that i can solve this because it used to work fine on the same device 😞

[Rick Gerard]

You only have 8GB of ram. The minimum recommended is 16. Your previews are going to be short unless you choose one of the following;

• Set the Composition Panel resolution to Auto and the magnification factor to 50% or less
• Choose to skip 1 or 2 frames when you preview

Ram previews should be used to check motion and timing. You usually want Motion Blur off and in some cases, effects turned off. Skipping a frame will still let you preview the timing and the motion and make accurate judgments on any animation. Cell animators call this a Pencil test and they always run them before they do the Ink and Paint and send the cells to be photographed. 

AE is kind of the same thing. Check the motion and timing, then turn on the effects and motion blur and check a few frames (hero frames) to make sure they look the way you want them to look, and render your project. The only real test of any comp that is more than about 5 seconds on your system is going to be viewing a rendered file at 100% and in real-time.