near the top of the ae forum is an area called sticky posts… in that area is a link to using ae7 with intel macs. you will want to look in there for tip to get ae to run better.
also, i would disable opengl with an intel mac… ae will crash every time you try to apply an opengl accelerated effect (like fast blur, gausian blur, curves, etc.) to a layer, unless you apply them to adjustment layers for some reason.
you mentioned auto levels… when i tested opengl on old projects to see the benefits of opengl several months ago, i found that an project that used auto levels took about 5 times longer to render with opengl (i don’t know if this is an auto level issue of intel mac issue), just an observation.
i would suggest turning on disk cache, decreasing the max ram cache, and possibly enabling the purge every xx frames option in the secret menu (hold the shift key, then select any preference from ae>preference menu, making sure to hold the mouse button down while selecting the preference… then from the preference window, click the pulldown menu and at the bottom should be ‘secret.’ chosse it and enter a purge value of around 30 frames for starters).
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW