How to fix "Out of Memory" error

Usually, if we go to the Preferences window, it is displayed like this. No secret categories, everything looks normal. But if we return here holding down “Shift” we’ll see something interesting Hold it down, then go up to your preferences menu, and select General or something else and After Effects will show the Secret.

Here we can see 3 options. First one - Disable Layer Cache This will help you a lot if you get an "Out of Memory" error.

This is how it works: When you do render or preview After Effects also renders out information about each layer in your composition onto your memory. This is pretty useful because if you change only one layer and rerender everything again, theoretically it shouldn't take as long as the first time. But if you’re working on a computer without a lot of RAM memory it’s better to not calculate all information. By selecting the checkbox next to Disable Layer Cache you are telling After Effects not to render out the information from each individual layer. This will lighten up your primary memory but remember - AE will render from a scratch each time. Again - Use Disable Layer Cache if you’re working on a computer without a lot of RAM memory - otherwise, it is absolutely unnecessary.

The second option is Purge Every ‘X’ Frames During Make Movie This tells After Effects how often to purge its memory. By purging your RAM you will free up space for After Effects to do more rendering. For example, if you move your setting to 10, After Effects will empty the memory cache every time 10 frames are rendered. If your renders keep crashing try to set it closer to 1 I’ve done some experiments with this setting and compared its results. So first I’ve rendered my composition with footage, layers, and effects with default settings. Then with purging every 50 frames. And then purging each frame.

So let’s compare my results, you see that with default settings it renders faster, and with the enabled Secret option - it takes a little more time to render. So the more often After Effects cleans its memory, the slower it renders because, in addition to rendering, it also takes time for purging. But this helps to avoid some render issues related to memory and makes life easier for your RAM. I usually use it when I work or render in a lot of programs at the same time.

And the last option is Ignore Sequence Rendering Errors (Danger!) Use it only if you render a sequence of images, instead of a movie. When you have this box checked After Effects will Ignore errors during the rendering process. And its danger because You can really damage your computer’s hard drive or memory by bypassing render errors. This may be useful on rare occasions, like rendering image sequences, but it’s generally not a great idea to have this box checked. Maybe this dangerous option is the reason why the whole menu is hidden But anyway know you know how to avoid some memory exceptions and lighten up your render process with the Secret menu in After Effects. Have a nice day.