After Effects 2017 preview lagging in Windows

[ticher2008]

It is not just a Mac issue as I am having the same problem on Windows 10. Seems to plague CC 2017(14.1.0.57) more than 2015.3, even though I have seen it less frequently in 2015.3.

Plagues several machines in our work environment.

How does playback misbehave?

I am not talking about playback, I'm not that ambitious, I would settle for a single frame.

My comps are simple sequences with vignette shape layers and Hue/Sat adjustment layer. No particles or third party plug-ins. Pretty vanilla comps for After Effects.

I can move the CTI down the timeline and there will no screen redraw for several minutes. Clearing the cache files does not alleviate. If I save the file, sometimes it will redraw soon after, not always.

Insight?

Boot drive is an SSD and cache drive is an SSD.

Dell Inc. Precision T5600

Windows 10 Enterprise (x64)

2.70 gigahertz Intel Xeon E5-2680 (2 installed)

NVIDIA Quadro K5000

64 GB RAM

[Szalam]

What monitor are you using?

[ticher2008]

Dell UP3216Q (DP4k60)

[Szalam]

There have been some issues with Dell 4k monitors (weird, I know).

Is there a Multi-Stream Transport (MST) option in your monitor settings? If so, try disabling it.

Disabling it works to get RAM previews running at a solid speed, so perhaps it'll help your issue too.

[ticher2008]

There is not. I have checked Dell documentation and there is not a MST option on this model.

Also wanted to revise original statement.

I can move the CTI down the timeline and there will be no screen redraw for 30 seconds up to a minute. Sometimes not at all.

[Szalam]

That would frustrate me no end.

Does this happen in every project? Do you have footage in your project(s)?

Do you have any sort of preview hardware connected (AJA, Blackmagic, Kona, etc.)?

[ticher2008]

It does.

I do have HD footage and sequences rendered from C4D.

Will update Windows 10 over the next few days and see if that makes any difference.

No preview hardware connected.

[Szalam]

What format and codec is the footage? And from what kind of camera?

What kind of image sequences are the renders?

Are these files on one of your SSDs or something else?

Do you see this behavior in comps that don't have any footage and are just shape layers/solids?

[ticher2008]

H264, mostly HD with a few 4K clips, short. But slow re-render is universal.

Not certain about the camera. B-roll footage from Pond5.

All b-roll on SSD.

PNG sequences, no alpha. I am in the process of moving sequences to SSD, to see if that makes a difference.

Will try different file formats for sequences.

[Bob Currier]

If you're waiting minutes for a frame of a trivial comp, it sounds to me like you're enduring one of the internal timeouts in AE having to do with communications between AE's various processes.

In my experience, that points to an issue with a firewall setting or anti-virus.

It's easy enough to check: unplug your system from your network if you're paranoid like me, then turn off all firewalls and anti-virus software. Are your previews fast now? If so, turn things on one-by-one until you find what's causing the problem. If not, then it's something else and just ignore me.

[ticher2008]

I am connected to a network, I will give that a try as well. Trying to wrap up some projects, then will delve deeper.

Thanks!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi TimothyC,

Did you ever get this issue resolved? Please let us know the status of your project or if we can assist at all.

Thanks,
Kevin

[felicial38600012]

I resolved my playback issue with the Adobe After Effects CC 2017 preview.   Payback was really slow (and not in real time) - even though I have a souped up computer with plenty of RAM, hard drive space, and computing power.  I resolved the issue by stepping down the resolution (in a box below the preview section) until it began playing in real time (half).  It does not look as nice, but it shows all of the effects in real time - which is ok with me for a preview. 

A workaround before I figured this out was rending the file to avi.  It played back to the screen properly in real time while rendering the file.  So, as least I could see what I was working with. 

No fiddling around with a bunch of setting.  Just a quick adjustment and the preview works like a preview should.  I'm a beginner, so maybe the problem you are experiencing is different.  But, all I could find on the topic were these threads and I was mighty frustrated.  So, I'm sharing this in case it helps someone else.