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Do I need more RAM?
I’ve got a dual 2GZH PowerPC G5 with a 1.5TB striped Medea array and 2GB of RAM – is that enough RAM? FCP seems awfully slow and sluggish with fairly simple things (it struggles sometimes with 8-bit Uncompressed material – without heavy effects). Would RAM be the thing to add?
Nick
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20 Replies
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FCP 5 can utilize up to 4 Gbytes of RAM. Usually, extra large project files will benefit from more RAM, in addition to a good graphics card to help with RT effects.
If you think your system is slow, consider using system optimizing programs such as Mac Janitor or Cocktail to get rid of bloated cacheand log files, etc. that contribute to slowdowns in FCP.
– DOn
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I have a Dual 2.7 here with 5 GIG of Ram, and it also struggles with 8-bit Uncomressed matirial. These files are very large. I always have to set my playback video quality to low in that case. As far as being “generally sluggish” yes, Ram is always the best addition IMO. Other things help like general maintenance etc. You could try trashing your preference files and repairing permissions. Try a general maintenence tool like YASU or Cocktail.
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Try turning off your audio waveforms. option-apple-w
At least 4 Gigs of RAM seems to be the unspecified minimum for FCP.
How long is your timeline?
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[Don Greening] “FCP 5 can utilize up to 4 Gbytes of RAM.”
The 32-bit limit is theoricaly 4 GB, but practicaly it’s 2 GB. Of course if you have other apps running having more than 2 GBs is a good thing.
The slowness of FCP is very relative, but I guess that if you are taking the time to wirte a post about it, it’s probably not normal. How is you array hooked up? Firewire ? SATA ? SCSI ? Which host adapter do you use (if not firewire). There have been posts about some SCSI host controllers causing problems…
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Also, try turning OFF all “duplicate frame detection”. Even in sequences that are NOT currently open.
Mark
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Thanks for all the responses everyone,
Hmmm, I had no idea that 4gigs was so commonly needed. I’ll chat with I.T. and see what they can get me. The Medea is a SCSI array, does that that raise a flag in anyone’s mind? My timelines don’t have to be very long to become slow to respond. I’ve not been very aware of duplicate frame detection – so I’ll turn that off as well.
Nick
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The Medea should be plenty fast enough. Download AJA’s system test and get a read/write evaluation on your disks.
The app is free and you do not need an aja card to use it.
Do you ever restart the computer?
Jeremy
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Yes, usually shut it down every night. I’ll download the AJA diagnostic and post back…
Nick
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Just ran the AJA system test – I’m getting write speeds of 46.6MB and read speeds of 175MB. Does that sound about right? The graph shows a fairly steady right process with a few huge drops in write speed at certain frames. Sound normal?
Nick
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Bingo. The write speeds do not sound correct at all. They should be up there with your read speeds. I’d call your drive manufacturer’s tech support.
Jeremy
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