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Adobe After Effects Help
Using Help | Contents
Setting image caching preferences
As you work on a composition, After Effects temporarily stores rendered composition and
source images in RAM, so that previewing and editing can occur more quickly. For
example, once you view a specific frame in a composition, that frame is stored in RAM until
you run out of memory or until you edit the composition in some way that affects that
frame. You can control how After Effects stores images in RAM by setting different image-
caching preferences. The controls available differ on Mac OS and Windows systems.
To specify image caching (Windows):
1 Choose Edit > Preferences > Cache.
2 For Image Cache Size, type a value to set the maximum amount of installed RAM to use
for cached frames. The default value is 60%. Values over 90% are not recommended.
3 For Maximum Memory Usage, type a value to set the maximum amount of memory to
use for any purpose. You can specify values over 100% (where 100% equals the amount of
physical RAM you have installed) because virtual memory uses hard-disk space. However,
values over 200% are not recommended.

4 Click OK.

Note: The Image Cache Size setting directly affects the number of frames that you can
play back in RAM preview. Increase the value to play back more frames. Decrease it if you
notice that your RAM previews jerk and halt during playback. This jerky playback often
occurs because of virtual memory paging activity, which is affected by the memory usage
the other applications you have running.
To specify image caching (Mac OS):
1 Choose Edit > Preferences > Cache.
2 For Image Cache Size, type a value (as described in step 3 of the procedure for speci-
fying image caching on Windows, above in this topic).
3 For Mode, select one of the following options:
Select Favor Memory to have After Effects rearrange the image cache and make it more
•
compact as you work, ensuring the most memory-efficient rendering. This option
favors memory over speed, and may noticeably slow down After Effects.
Select Favor Speed to have After Effects rearrange the image cache only when it's
•
almost out of memory. This option significantly speeds up the editing and rendering
processes, but you may run out of memory sooner.
4 Click OK.
No matter which setting you choose, After Effects makes the image cache more compact
when you choose About Adobe After Effects, when you perform a RAM preview, or when
you are between renders in the Render Queue.
Identifying memory-intensive layers in a composition
After Effects renders each frame of a composition one layer at a time. This means that the
memory requirement of each individual layer is more important than the duration of the
composition or the number of layers in the composition. The memory requirement for a
composition is equivalent to the memory requirement for the most memory-intensive
single layer in the composition. For example, it generally takes less memory to render 30
layers at NTSC resolution than two layers at motion-picture film resolution.
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