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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Extreme slow rendering with new plug-in :(

  • Extreme slow rendering with new plug-in :(

    Posted by Philip Nidler on September 26, 2020 at 6:48 am

    I just bought this new plug-in called ActionFreeze from Motion VFX but once I start using it every step gets super slow and the rendering time takes ages!

    I’ve done several steps to make it easier for the computer and FCPX like choosing “proxy only” and “better performance” in the view section, also closing down all other programs in the background. However, each time I lay out a point with this draw mask plug-in it takes such a looong time! WorriedFYI i work with an external hard drive for this project (USB3.1).

    This is what I work with:
    Macbook Pro, 2019,
    2,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
    16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
    Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 1536 MB

    Would really appreciate some help! Thank you. /Philip

    Joe Marler replied 5 years, 10 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Joe Marler

    September 26, 2020 at 5:46 pm

    Sophisticated effects are often very GPU-bound. This means no matter how fast the CPU is, without a powerful discrete GPU the effect may be slow. You list Intel Iris graphics, which implies that is a 13″ MacBook Pro which doesn’t have a discrete GPU.

    On my 2019 MacBook Pro 16, the GeekBench 5 GPU benchmark (Metal) does 4972 on the internal Iris graphics, whereas the discrete Radeon Pro 5500M does 28405, or 5.7x faster.

    Using proxies may help in some cases. Also using a 1080p timeline for 4k material may help, since render files are sized based on the timeline resolution. However it appears some compute-intensive 3rd-party effects such as Neat Video (and maybe MotionVFX ActionFreeze) do not benefit from this.

    You can investigate if it’s ActionFreeze itself that’s slow or some antagonistic combination of Fx. Try putting ActionFreeze by itself on a clip with no other effects.

    Recent versions of FCPX had significantly improved performance, esp. in some GPU functions. If you are not on 10.4.10, consider trying that.

    FCPX versions starting with 10.4.9 have variable-size proxies, so you could try both putting the material in a 1080p timeline plus creating 25% ProRes proxies. In my testing that helped with some built-in Fx but it didn’t help with Neat Video.

  • Philip Nidler

    September 26, 2020 at 9:04 pm

    Thanks alot for your response. By the way, what about buying an external graphic card? Would that help?

  • Joe Marler

    September 27, 2020 at 9:57 pm

    “2019 i9 Macbook Pro + eGPU vs 2019 i9 iMac – is an EGPU Worth it?”

    https://youtu.be/Q8ymjiCqCj4

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