Performance Issues with Adobe After Effects on i7 Laptop

[leoarthur]

Hello Adobe Community,

I hope you're all doing well. I wanted to reach out for some help regarding performance issues I've been experiencing with Adobe After Effects on my i7 laptop. I've been using After Effects for a few months now, primarily for video editing and motion graphics, but lately, the performance has been quite disappointing.

System Specifications:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-9750H (6 cores, 12 threads, 2.6 GHz base clock, 4.5 GHz boost clock)
• RAM: 16GB DDR4
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 with 4GB VRAM
• Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD
• Operating System: Windows 10 Pro

Issues Encountered:

1. Lag and Stuttering:
• When working on complex compositions or applying multiple effects, the timeline lags significantly. Scrubbing through the timeline becomes nearly impossible without severe stuttering.
2. Slow Rendering Times:
• Rendering even short sequences takes an exorbitant amount of time. A 10-second clip with a few layers and basic effects can take upwards of 20-30 minutes to render.
3. RAM Preview Issues:
• RAM previews are very slow, often taking several seconds to start. Sometimes, it doesn't play smoothly, making it hard to get a real-time preview of my work.
4. High CPU and GPU Usage:
• Task Manager shows that both the CPU and GPU are being utilized heavily during usage, but the performance doesn't reflect it. CPU temperatures often spike, causing thermal throttling.
5. Crashes and Freezes:
• After Effects occasionally crashes or freezes, especially when working with large projects or when multitasking with other Adobe applications like Photoshop and Illustrator.

Steps Taken So Far:

1. Optimized Preferences:
• Adjusted After Effects preferences to allocate more RAM and optimized cache settings. Cleared cache regularly.
2. Updated Software:
• Ensured both Windows and After Effects are updated to the latest versions. Also updated GPU drivers to the latest release from NVIDIA.
3. Performance Enhancements:
• Tried reducing the resolution of previews, purging memory and disk cache frequently, and disabling unnecessary startup programs.
4. Project Management:
• Organized projects more efficiently by pre-composing layers and reducing the complexity of compositions where possible.
5. External Solutions:
• Considered using an external SSD for additional storage and faster read/write speeds but didn't see significant improvements.

Despite all these efforts, the performance issues persist. I’ve read several forums and watched countless tutorial videos, but nothing seems to work effectively.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[John T Smith]

>Also updated GPU drivers to the latest release from NVIDIA.

Studio driver, or the usual Gaming driver that shows at nVidia?

[Conrad_C]

This probably doesn’t address every issue listed, but 16GB RAM probably results in rather short RAM previews. When it reaches the point where there’s no more RAM for caching preview frames, it has to slow down and render, or (I think) try to pull them from the Media Cache which is slower than RAM, either of which could cause less smooth playback. Being able to have longer RAM previews is a big reason I upgraded to 32GB RAM, and even then I often have to quit apps like Photoshop and Illustrator to free more RAM to extend how many frame previews can be cached in RAM. At 32GB I don’t see them crash, but I think the crashes might be about something more than memory.

I would expect problems with 16GB RAM while running After Effects and one or more other major apps such as Photoshop or Illustrator, because for the current versions, 16GB seems to be the minimum for running just one of those three apps. For these types of apps, I will personally never buy another computer with less than 32GB.

Having an NVMe SSD for the OS is great, but how much space is free on it? Is that where the Media Cache is currently assigned?

Although you didn’t see significant improvements with an external SSD, was it only used for project file storage, or did you try assigning the Media Cache to it, especially if it is fast and has more room than the internal SSD?

About clearing caches…that is an OK tactic for dealing with crashes and problems, but I wouldn’t clear them very often during normal use. The reason is that the whole point of video caches is to cache what’s already rendered so that it can skip that step and just play it back. If media caches are cleared frequently when working on the same project, what I would expect is more lags and slower performance because with all the cached renders thrown out all the time, it always has to start over and render all layers/tracks from scratch. (I can see clearing caches when completely moving on from one project to another, meaning you don’t need to play back the old project’s cached previews any more.)