Error while rendering 3 min composition, ‘after effects’ is too slow

Hello,

I am receiving this error message every time I try rendering my 3 min composition. It gets about 1/5 way through, which takes about an hour. I have read the General Specialist troubleshooting guide and it has not helped yet.

I am now rendering with Image Cache: Maximum RAM Cache Size at 10% and purging after every 20 frames (in secret press) even if this works, the 3 min rendering is estimated to finish in 9 hrs. Does this sound normal, or acceptable? Is it possible that I have a hardware deficiency? Or something else lacking.

My PC specs are: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.40GHz; 4GB RAM; Geforce 8800 GTS. Running XP 32bit SP3; after Effects CS3 (fully updated). I have updated my graphics card driver (180.4 and my main board chipset driver. My memory settings are as they appear in the <http://generalspecialist.com/2006/11/avoiding-after-effects-error-could-not.asp> guide, & I've dropped max RAM cache to 10%. My disk cache size is 10000MB and set to an empty 75GB 10000RPM Raptor HDD.

The composition has 30 layers – mainly layers imported from PSDs and then animated with basic transform tools and some distortion effects (wave warp) to create 2D character animation. There are 6 pre-composed layers containing the same kind of PSD layers and animation. I try to render out to an uncompressed .avi in 720×576 with 15fps.

Even before I noticed this rendering problem, 'After Effects' runs painfully slowly. The composition monitor takes ages to refresh, even in the Quarter quality view mode, I am forced to work in, and over the course of the day, on 3 occasions – the PC lagged after scrubbing through the timeline, froze, then Blue Screen of Death'ed before rebooting, even before I could even read the blue screen error.

Please offer some assistance or ideas as to how I can move forward.

I have tried to help myself with existing material online, but to no avail.

Thanks.