AE CS4 poor performance scrubbing the timeline

[Skip Harris]

Wanted to provide additional input on the problem I am experiencing.

As stated in my first post, scrubbing the timeline is an annoyance. But as I work further with AE CS4 the poor resolution of the video in the composition window becomes an even bigger issue when working with effects. While trying to refine an effect I will scrub an adjustment, the composition gets all blocky and I cannot see the results until I let go of the mouse and the composition window has time to refresh.

Found an Adobe document kb402244 “Troubleshoot OpenGL problems in After Effects CS3” and it lists some of the symptoms I am experiencing –
The composition window takes a long time to redraw.
Artifacts or blocks of “garbage” pixels are drawn in the composition window.

That document is in regards to AE CS3, but I followed best I could with CS4, made no difference.

I also have AE CS3 loaded on this same system it continues to work fine, only experiencing these issues with CS4.

My question is anyone else experiencing the problem with my level of hardware/software. I ask because trying to chase down issues with Apple & Adobe can sometimes be very frustrating. So just trying to see if this is a problem or just my problem.

My setup – MAC OSX 10.5.5, MacBook Pro 17″ 2.5 GHz, 4 GB memory, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT w/512 MB memory

[Darby Edelen]

It sounds like you may have OpenGL Adaptive Resolution enabled. This is a new feature in CS4 that downsamples the composition (as in Adaptive Resolution) for OpenGL preview. You can disable this in the Preview preferences.

Darby Edelen

[Skip Harris]

Darby, I did as you suggested and it improves the composition resolution. Still not quite as smooth and responsive on my system as it is AE CS3. I learned AE with CS3 and have just become accustom to its look and feel. I guess if this is suppose to be an “improved” implementation of OpenGL in CS4 I will have to get use to it.

[Darby Edelen]

There are several circumstances under which OpenGL will not be used for rendering at all, even if it’s enabled. OpenGL is occasionally a huge bonus in AE, especially with specifically accelerated effects. More often it makes little difference throughout an entire workflow, and occasionally causes a major headache.

If the same project is rendering slower in CS4 than CS3, then that definitely seems to be a problem of some sort. If this is a project you’ve never looked at in CS3, my money is on it rendering slowly there as well.

Darby Edelen

[Skip Harris]

Darby, I understand what you are saying and there is rendering happening at some level when using AE all the time. Just to be clear I am not talking about “render to movie” I am talking about the general interaction when building a project. When I started using CS4 I experienced noticeable user interaction differences than with CS3. Grabbing the CTI and scrubbing the timeline in CS4 is slower, jerky, and blocky as compared to CS3. This is with the same source footage and effects applied in both AE versions. Also have issues when working with some effects, Keylight as an example. In CS3 when making an adjustment to Keylight I could clearly see the results when making an adjustment. Now in CS4 the composite window gets blocky and I am unable to see the fine detail of the adjustment until I let go of the mouse and the composite window has time to refresh.

When I “lost ground” in CS4 as compared to CS3 my concern was that I had an option set incorrectly, or worse, something broke. I don’t know if this has anything to do with OpenGl or not, I guess I just assumed that was where the issue lies.