Why does AE CC 2015 RAM Preview work fine on one computer and not on another?

[Walter Soyka]

Same EXACT version of Ae? Same EXACT version of the OS?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Noah Campeau]

imac 2012:
AE v13.7.0.124
Yosemite 10.10.3

Im not on the retina machine right now but the AE is the latest trial, so I presume its the same version. It is actually running El Capitain. Can confirm what version later

[Chris Evans]

How much free space do you have on your SSD? It’s possibly your graphics card as I’ve always heard recommendations for Nvidia, but I don’t really know enough about that. Lack of space on your SSD could be a problem. Do you have other drives on that computer?

[Noah Campeau]

El Captain 10.11.3

[Walter Soyka]

[noah campeau] “El Captain 10.11.3”

“After Effects CC 2015 (13.5-13.7) has an incompatibility with a Mac OS X drawing API that changed in Mac OS X v10.11 (El Capitan) that causes the entire Timeline panel to be redrawn each time that only a subset of the panel should be redrawn—e.g., if only the preview time indicator should be redrawn because it is moving. This excessive redrawing can cause the effective frame rate of previews to drop below real-time speed. Apple and Adobe are working to address this issue. In the meantime, you can work around this issue by not showing the Timeline panel during previews; maximizing the Composition panel during previews with the accent grave (`) key is one good way to do this.”

https://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2015/09/after-effects-ready-for-mac-os-x-v10-11-el-capitan.html

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Noah Campeau]

Thanks to a guy over on the Adobe forum, there is a solution…

The render queue window needs to be tucked down at the bottom!!! (see screenshot)

Not quite sure how adobe managed to f**k this one up!!

[Noah Campeau]

Thanks!

A guy on the Adobe forum suggested to have the render queue tab tucked away, which works (see screenshot)

[Walter Soyka]

[noah campeau] “Not quite sure how adobe managed to f**k this one up!!”

I don’t mean to apologize for Adobe or excuse Ae’s poor performance here. This is a crummy situation for us all as users… but it’s more complicated than that. Apple’s fast OS updates are a moving target for developers.

In this case, the code to draw the UI on-screen that has worked perfectly on previous versions of OS X suddenly broke with El Capitan. Now Adobe and Apple have to work together to determine where the problem really lies.

If it’s Adobe’s problem, and if the change to drawing behavior is intentional on Apple’s part, then Adobe clearly has to fix this issue, like, yesterday.

But if this is related to an Apple bug, the situation is harder for Adobe. Obviously they look like dopes for getting it wrong, but what do they do? Wait for Apple to fix the bug and let their application be broken until they do? Develop workarounds for the current different drawing behavior, depending on which version of OS X is running? What if adding that kind of complexity introduces more opportunities for bugs, and what if it just breaks again if Apple fixes the bug in the next release?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]