Preview is slow and choppy in AE 2017.2

[rossfranks]

Hi there,

I swear AE didn't used to do this, but now my previews on the timeline are really slow and make the audio playback very choppy even with fast preview etc...

I've got the following

Intel Xeon E5-2630 v2 (Six Core HT, 2.6Ghz Turbo 15Mb)

32GB RAM

Nvidia Titan Black

Windows 10 64bit

So basically if I purge my work area then it looks like this...

http://i.imgur.com/SEjsJKd.png

(ie no green line)

straight after I did that screenshot it (for some reason) used RAM (ie the green line appeared slightly after the work area)

http://i.imgur.com/GVkSy7g.png

then when I actually previewed the work area (Shift 0) it added green before and after the work area when in my Preview settings I specifically chose "Work Area" for the range).

http://i.imgur.com/KgoesKI.png

and

http://i.imgur.com/rhg19GI.png

am I going insane or just missing something?

Thanks in advance.

[foughtthelaw]

depending on what's in your work area it may be caching more than just what's there. if you have a still frame that extends outside of it, for instance, it'll cache all identical frames too.

I suggest completely purging your disk cache under Preferences > Media & Disk Usage. Click both "Empty Disk Cache..." and "Clean Database & Cache"

see if that changes anything.

[rossfranks]

Ah ok so if I have a white solid across the whole timeline it could be caching that?

but yeah i regularly also Empty Disk Cache etc

[foughtthelaw]

rossfranks  wrote

Ah ok so if I have a white solid across the whole timeline it could be caching that?

absolutely. if it's the same frame outside the work area as it is inside it would cache that too.

[rossfranks]

Ok so I deleted the solid but now when I Shift 0 I don't get any green line, but the audio is still choppy

[rossfranks]

Ok I had to adjust my monitor to 1360 x 768 before the choppy audio playback fixed itself.

But that's pretty poor since now I have hardly any real estate to work in and kinda defeats the purpose of why I got the monitor.

Is there something I'm missing?

[lidubot]

This fixed it for me. Thank you!

[Szalam]

When you say your preview is slow and choppy, do you mean after it caches and you get the green line or before?

Also, what monitor do you have?

[rossfranks]

And Szalam

it's choppy after I cache (ie Shift 0) and it has a green line.

And my monitor is a Dell P2715Q,  resolution is 3840 x 2160 at 60 Hz,  source is DP (so would that make a difference?)

[Szalam]

rossfranks  wrote

And my monitor is a Dell P2715Q,  resolution is 3840 x 2160 at 60 Hz,  source is DP (so would that make a difference?)

Found the culprit!

Dell (4k) P2715Q monitors have an issue. There is a Multi-Stream Transport (MST) option. Disabling it works to get previews running at a solid speed once they are cached.

[rossfranks]

Hmm is that done in the monitor settings? Because it's already saying it's off?

[Szalam]

I don't know if there's a difference between off and disabled.

It's not a problem I've had since I don't have that monitor; I just know it's a known issue. You could try plugging it into your computer via a different kind of cable to see if that helps.

[rossfranks]

Bummer I had it.

I updated my motherboard's drivers and that seemed to fix everything, then I had to roll back my nvidia driver because it was affecting my HTC Vive VR headset, but that made After Effects load and run verrrrry slow, so I updated the Nvidia driver again and now i'm back to the choppy playback again in After Effects. Grrrrr I wish I didn't roll back the Nvidia driver

I don't know what's going on

[rossfranks]

As a test I resized After Effect's whole window size and then previewed the audio and it played smoothly. Any reason why?

I then made After Effect's fullscreen and the audio was choppy again.

I then hid the timeline and then previewed the audio and it then played smoothly. So it looks like the timeline is the culprit. But I need it to preview the audio's wavelength

[Szalam]

You might try playing with different monitor settings and different versions of your NVIDIA drivers.

If that doesn't help, I would suggest contacting Adobe's support. They can sometimes help with really weird technical issues like this.

If they help, GREAT! Please tell us what they did.

If they aren't able to help, please file a bug report here! It goes directly to the guys who make After Effects (the support folks and the developers aren't as connected to each other as one might hope), include as much information as you can (pretty much everything we've talked about here plus more).

[rossfranks]

Ok thanks Szalam,

so contact support through here... https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/support.html

because the only option I get it as link back to these forums

[Szalam]

Pick "Creative Cloud Membership" as the option you need help with, pick After Effects as the software you need help with, pick Troubleshooting, and then pick the contact options option.

That should give you phone and chat in addition to the forums (depending on what country you live in and what time it is).

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Ross Franks,

Did you ever solve this problem? Let us know if support assisted you and what happened.

Thanks,
Kevin

[jonathanf60902346]

I'm having this problem with the dell UP2716D. I can't playback anything at less than 100% comp size, which when working with 4k stuff, is a real pain obviously.

[Szalam]

jonathanf60902346  wrote

I'm having this problem with the dell UP2716D. I can't playback anything at less than 100% comp size, which when working with 4k stuff, is a real pain obviously.

What happens if you turn off the "Hardware Accelerate...panels" option in your preferences?

[jonathanf60902346]

Good lord...it worked. That did it! Huzzah and Kudos to you sir.

[Szalam]

Hooray! Glad it worked.

I'd recommend filing a bug report because obviously you shouldn't have to do that. Be sure to let them know in the bug report that toggling that option in the preferences improved things.

[jonathanf60902346]

Will do. I've been dealing with this for a few months now. Thanks a bunch!

[Szalam]

I'm glad to help. It would be so frustrating having to deal with that for months!

[StephaneA_AfterEffects]

Hi jonathan,

Are you on mac os or Windows ? What are the specs of your machine ? I'm having this problem too, on Win 10 with a 4k monitor and disabling hardware accelaration doesn't solve the problem. Thanks.