[Frank Feijen]

What are your render settings (and most specifically, antialiasing)?

[Frank Feijen]

I’d rather use a bit of espresso instead of IK’s. An example

[Frank Feijen]

I don’t have a name for it, but I’d use an extruded rounded rectangle for it:

[Frank Feijen]

I think I’d use a loft for that.
But I’m sure there are multiple approaches possible.

[Frank Feijen]

Maybe with Roughen Edges?

[Frank Feijen]

I’d try to do it with a spline, spherify and some cloners:

[Frank Feijen]

Found It! With a little help from Adobe support: the culprit was the latest update from Blackmagic Desktop Video – the drivers for my Decklink card. I downgraded them, and now all is well

[Frank Feijen]

Nobody has a clue? I’ve reinstalled windows and after effects, tested ram and gpu-ram, tested drives, replaced the gpu…

[Frank Feijen]

Yes! You saved my day ????

[Frank Feijen]

If you enable Point level animation:
You can add keyframes to the shape of your spline.