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Adobe After Effects: High CPU and RAM usage (Fixed)

We cannot deny that Adobe After Effects is one of the best programs currently available to add effects and perform a large number of additional visual effects to any kind of video. It is evident that this class of software can be capable of consuming an enormous amount of resources. However, it would not be entirely normal for Adobe After Effects wear a high usage of CPU and RAMWe don’t have to exaggerate either.

Fix high CPU and RAM usage by Adobe After Effects

Meet the recommended requirements

The first thing we have to take into consideration is simple: our computer has to meet the recommended requirements to be able to run Adobe After Effects. In the event that our computer does not meet the minute requirements, then we will have to carry out a hardware update to be able to use the program.

As for the processor, a quad-core Intel or AMD is recommended, although an 8-core processor would be best for rendering in multiple frames. The recommended operating system is Windows 10 (64-bit) V20H2 or later; It is also essential to have 16 GB of RAM and 2 GB of GPU VRAM as a minimum.

Close Google Chrome

One of the most popular browsers is Google Chrome and ironically, it is also one that consumes a huge amount of resources on our computer. So when we are using a program like After Effects, we recommend closing Chrome to avoid problems. To make sure Chrome doesn’t have any background processes, we recommend using Task Manager.

Clear memory and disk cache

The more we use the program, the more memory and cache will be saved on the disk, this can cause high CPU and RAM usage by Adobe After Effects. To solve it we are going to click on Edit in the Menu bar and we will choose Preferences.

Now we are going to choose the Media and Disk Cache tab. After this we are going to click on Empty disk cache in Disk cache and we will click on Clear database and cache from Conformed media cache. What this will do is erase all media and cache on the drive. To finish, we will click on Accept so the changes are applied.

Change playback quality

When we are using a PC that is not designed to do this kind of work or run programs that require so much hardware power, we will see a high CPU and RAM usage by After Effects, because we will need to encode and decode videos. high quality.

We recommend adjusting the playback quality of the preview from the dropdown button that we will find just below the preview in the timeline. We’ll click the dropdown button and choose half ¼ of the options and notice a little difference.

Enable hardware accelerated compositing preferences

When we work with this software, the encoding and decoding of the compositions are done by Adobe software components that use a wide variety of codecs. We’ll have to switch it to hardware accelerated encoding and decoding when enabling it.

After enabling it, whatever project we work on, everything will be encoded and decoded using hardware acceleration.

To achieve this we will have to click on the Edit menu, we will choose Preference and Screen. After this we’re going to check the box next to the Composition, Layer, and Hardware Accelerated Footage panels. Next, we will have to click OK for the changes to be applied and in this case it will be necessary to restart the program.

Enable GPU acceleration

It is important that we activate GPU acceleration because the project and its tasks use a lot of our CPU resources. We will have to enable GPU acceleration from the File menu. Then we’ll go to Project Settings and click on the dropdown button found on the Effects and Video Playback tab.

Here we will have to select Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration (CUDA) if we are using an NVIDIA graphics card. In case we are using an AMD graphics card, the option will be the same but it will say (OpenCL). When we have everything selected, we will have to press Save for the changes to be applied.

Update After Effects

In case none of the above methods work, we recommend updating After Effects to the latest version available. On many occasions this problem occurs due to file corruption from the last update we have made. We recommend updating from Adobe Creative Cloud to avoid issues.

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