Rant: After Effects is a piece of stuff

[TristanLuigi]

After Effects (for those that don't know, it's a video editing program with a very heavily emphasis on special effects) is a slow piece of stuff.

On my graphics card, a game like Garry's Mod can handle 60fps at 1080p with a couple not-too-detailed props, a map, live lighting, some AA, and some particles (so long as they're not displacement effects), along with physics calculations, multiplayer connections, and who knows what else in the background.

After Effects can sometimes play videos at 24fps. Sometimes. And that is literally it's entire purpose.

I was trying to sync a sphere of particles up to audio and have it's particles disperse to the music. I had maybe a maximum of 50 particles on screen, and that was it. Nothing in the background, just the particles and some music. And trying to play it live at 720x480 resulted in around 5fps. I made a few tweaks - none of which should have made it significantly more intensive - and it literally froze my entire computer. I could not move my mouse or open task manager. It took a good couple minutes to get its stuff together and close, but not after freezing Google Chrome and forcing me to close it.

Adobe charges hundreds of dollars for this bullstuff. There is no excuse.


Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Anyone know of any good alternatives when I make the switch to Debian?

[Ad Bot]

[Headcrab Zombie]

What GPU do you have?

I've never used After Effects but I think the way it works is if you don't have a CUDA-enabled GPU (or AMD's equivalent if you have an AMD card) it'll use CPU for rendering instead.
Older or lower-end GPUs don't have CUDA, and based off your description of Garry's Mod performance, I'm guessing your GPU fits in that group

It's probably also optimized more for workstation cards like Quadro/FirePro than gaming cards like GeForce/Radeon

[The Murderous Cop]

i have a really crappy PC and it's about as bad as this (w/o freezing)

usually I get it right first time, and I just render and let it do its stuff over a couple hours
not TOO bad

after effects isn't horrible though, it gets the job done

[Pie Crust]

I've tried this on a school PC. The program itself lagged a lot but the final file was impecable.

[TristanLuigi]

I never said the results weren't good, just that the program is unoptimized as stuff.

What GPU do you have?

I've never used After Effects but I think the way it works is if you don't have a CUDA-enabled GPU (or AMD's equivalent if you have an AMD card) it'll use CPU for rendering instead.
Older or lower-end GPUs don't have CUDA, and based off your description of Garry's Mod performance, I'm guessing your GPU fits in that group

It's probably also optimized more for workstation cards like Quadro/FirePro than gaming cards like GeForce/Radeon

I've got a Radeon M275X.

[ZSNO]

Lol After Effects is for editing and rendering video, not for real-time playback.

Also nVidia GPUs are best for After Effects cuz of CUDA cores.

[TristanLuigi]

Lol After Effects is for editing and rendering video, not for real-time playback.

obviously
but being able to actually watch the thing you made without waiting 5 minutes and freezing your computer would be nice

[ZERØ]

I never said the results weren't good, just that the program is unoptimized as stuff.
I've got a Radeon M275X.

The Mobile version of the 275x can only do so much, M implies its a mobile gpu, as in your trying to render something in after effects on a Laptop.

Come on your only going to get so far on a laptop.

[The Murderous Cop]

obviously
but being able to actually watch the thing you made without waiting 5 minutes and freezing your computer would be nice

then render it you forget

[ZSNO]

obviously
but being able to actually watch the thing you made without waiting 5 minutes and freezing your computer would be nice

Pre-render it?
You could also change the scaling to render the playback to like 1/4 the resolution.

[Val]

Also nVidia GPUs are best for After Effects cuz of CUDA cores.

OpenCL and AMD's equivalent stream processors are cool too...

[·:Taboo:·]

Garry's Mod is over a decade old. It is not by any means a good benchmark for your computer.

[shitlord]

Garry's Mod is over a decade old. It is not by any means a good benchmark for your computer.

[Rainzx¹]

You need to get rid of your potato.

Garry's Mod is over a decade old. It is not by any means a good benchmark for your computer.

[TristanLuigi]

Garry's Mod is over a decade old. It is not by any means a good benchmark for your computer.

doesn't change the fact that it is far more efficient than after effects