After Effects Minimum Requirements < Must Read >

Now go make that glitter dystopia without the crash.

You will not get real-time playback. You will get a slideshow. after effects minimum requirements

In 2024/2025, After Effects uses the GPU for dozens of effects (Lumetri Color, Gaussian Blur, Sharpening, and the new AI tools). Without a decent GPU, those effects render via CPU—which is 10x slower. Now go make that glitter dystopia without the crash

After Effects loads every single frame of your composition into your RAM before it plays back. 8GB is eaten up by your operating system, Spotify, and Chrome. By the time you open AE, you have roughly 2GB left for a 4K comp. In 2024/2025, After Effects uses the GPU for

4GB VRAM (NVIDIA RTX 3050 / AMD Radeon 6600) The Pro: 8GB+ VRAM (NVIDIA RTX 4070+)

More RAM. If you can only buy one thing, buy RAM. Then set your disk cache to a fast SSD.