An image forming apparatus includes a renderer configured to render a one page amount of image data based on intermediate data generated by either a first execution unit or a second execution unit, a printer engine configured to form image data of a page rendered by the renderer on a recording medium, and after forming the image data, stop each unit in the engine when there is no image data formation instruction corresponding to a next page of the page even after a cycle down time limit has elapsed, and a request unit configured to, during generation of intermediate data of a predetermined page by the first execution unit, request an extension of the cycle down time limit set in the printer engine based on a number of pages of rendered image data corresponding to intermediate data of pages following the predetermined page.