[Nick Canton]

Thanks, these were helpful. I picked a card leaps and bounds over my current one, and am coming to the conclusion that whatever bottleneck I’m experiencing isn’t too affected by this change. Managed expectations were a good call, so I think due to the price of the upgrade I’ll return what I have, after another week or so of playing with settings and deciding if the changes are real or in my head.

[Nick Canton]

Thank you!
My problem was not being able to find those options in the Preview Panel, but I eventually did (Unchecking “Stacked Panel Group”). Skip frames have been a huge help for my more intensive projects.
After looking into it some more, I also purchased some more RAM so that should help when it arrives.

[Nick Canton]

Thanks for your response! I’ve attached my system specs below.
Frankly, I’m hoping RAM would help with my bottleneck, as apparently my motherboard can run up to 64gb and it’s inexpensive/easy to buy/install, relative to other changes. I upgraded piecemeal over the course of a few months and learned that some components have little to no relation, and since it’s so soon for a complete overhaul, I’d be happy to find I could improve my workflow with a couple of changes.
[Video card was the one thing that I didn’t upgrade recently and is the thing I know the least about, mostly because when researching, similar model numbers will vary wildly in price and I can’t tell if the memory listed online is the Total or VRAM.]

How would I adjust preview settings like you suggested? I consider myself comfortable with After Effects, but I’m completely out of my depth on previewing options. At one point I was able to load a preview without it playing, but after an upgrade I can’t find that option anymore, let alone the 5 frame skip you suggested.