Improved the ability to play back raw footage without needing to cache or render first.
Expanded the use of the Mercury GPU Acceleration for faster effects like motion blur and color correction. After Effects CC 2017 discontinued? - Adobe Community adobe-after-effects-cc-2017-v14-with-patch
A new Cinema 4D rendering engine allowed for faster creation of extruded text and shape layers. Improved the ability to play back raw footage