How to run PugetBench for After Effects

In the past few weeks, we have shown you how you can run some of the benchmarks that we run in our laptop reviews to see how well your PC stacks up to others on the market. We are looking at PugetBench for After Effects, created by the PC manufacturer Puget Systems, which will measure how well your computer can handle visual effects.

The benchmark is still in the early stages of development. It is more glitchy than some of the other benchmarks. Puget Systems has a lot of ways to fix problems. If you use the system while PugetBench is running, it can break the benchmark and force you to start over.

The benchmark can be run.

• If you’ve got Adobe Creative Cloud, sign in and go to Stock & Marketplace. Search for PugetBench for After Effects and install it.
• You can also find it for free on Adobe’s website. You will still have to install it from the Creative Cloud desktop app; you will find instructions here.

• Open After Effects.
• Go to After Effects > Preferences > Scripting & Expressions and check the box next to Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network.
• Make a new composition, and then go to Composition > Preview and uncheck Cache Frames When Idle. You can close the new composition once you’ve done this.
• Now, you’re ready to run the plug-in. Go to Window > Extensions > PugetBench for After Effects. A window will pop up where you can enter your license key (if you have one) and tweak whatever other settings you want.

It's important that you have enough memory for After Effects to work. The benchmark will error out if you don't have enough.

The benchmark will give you a score and you can use it to create a public database. You can see how your score stacks up against other machines. If you want to look through the results, make sure After Effects is selected.