Adobe After Effects - Manual (Page 660)

Note:
Note:
preferences panel by the icons for each of these applications at the top of the panel. The icons are dimmed for the applications that are not
running.
A memory balancer prevents swapping of RAM to disk by dynamically managing the memory allocated to each of the applications. Each
application registers with the memory balancer with some basic information: minimum memory requirements, maximum memory able to be used,
current memory in use, and a priority. The priority has three settings: low, normal, and highest. Highest is currently reserved for After Effects and
Premiere Pro, when it is the active application. Normal is for After Effects in the background or Adobe Media Encoder in the foreground. Low is for
background servers of Premiere Pro or Adobe Media Encoder in the background.
An example of a practical result of the shared memory pool is that starting Premiere Pro will decrease the amount of RAM available to After
Effects for RAM previews; quitting Premiere Pro will immediately free RAM for After Effects and extend the possible duration of RAM previews.
Memory & Multiprocessing Details dialog box
The Memory & Multiprocessing Details dialog box contains additional information about installed RAM and current and allowed RAM usage. It also
includes a multicolumn table listing processes related to Adobe Media Encoder, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Encore. The table includes
information about each process, such as ID, Application Name, Minimum Needed Memory, Maximum Usable Memory, Maximum Allowed Memory,
Current Memory, and Current Priority.
To open the dialog box, choose Edit > Preferences > Memory & Multiprocessing (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > Memory &
Multiprocessing (Mac OS), and click the Details button at the bottom of the preferences dialog box.
You can copy the information to the clipboard with the Copy button.
Memory (RAM) requirements for rendering
Memory requirements for rendering of a frame (either for previews or for final output) increase with the memory requirement of the most memory-
intensive layer in the composition.
After Effects renders each frame of a composition one layer at a time. For this reason, the memory requirement of each individual layer is more
relevant than the duration of the composition or the number of layers in the composition when determining whether a given frame can be rendered
with the available memory. The memory requirement for a composition is equivalent to the memory requirement for the most memory-intensive
single layer in the composition.
The memory requirements of a layer increase under several circumstances, including the following:
Increasing the project’s color bit depth
Increasing the composition resolution
Using a larger source image
Enabling color management
Adding a mask
Adding per-character 3D properties
Precomposing without collapsing transformations
Using certain blending modes, layer styles, or effects, especially those involving multiple layers
Applying certain output options, such as 3:2 pulldown, cropping, and resizing
Adding shadows or depth-of-field effects when using 3D layers
After Effects requires a contiguous block of memory to store each frame; it cannot store a frame in pieces in fragmented memory. For information
about how much RAM is required to store an uncompressed frame, see
Storage requirements for output files .
For tips on decreasing memory requirements and increasing performance, see Improve performance by simplifying your project.
Purging memory (RAM)
Occasionally, After Effects may display an alert message indicating that it requires more memory to display or render a composition. If you receive
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