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FCP 7 and 64 bit
Dear all,
I have a loto of confusion in my head.When I was starting in video editing two years ago, I was deciding to go from Win/Linux and Solaris OS to Mac OS. I was knowing that FCP was a good product for video editing and I have purchased a dual quad core xeon 2.8GHz with 16 GB RAM and FCP6.
Running the system monitor I am seeing that the 8 nuclei are not used and the same for RAM.
My Apple resellers is assuring that upgrating from leopar to leopard snow and FCP 7 I will fix thi problem, but I am not trusting in him.
Is true or false?
Thanks in advance
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14 Replies
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[Ugo Danesi] “My Apple resellers is assuring that upgrating from leopar to leopard snow and FCP 7 I will fix thi problem, but I am not trusting in him. “
I don’t understand, where is the problem? Just the fact that FCP is not running 64 bit? That’s not a problem, that’s just how it operates.
A problem is stability, system errors, dropped frames, etc….
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative MediaCreative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
I would question them too. Ask them if they will put it in writing and see what they do.
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The problem is tha I have invested some money ina machine not fully used. The resseler is assurn me tha this leack of performance (I do not see grat difference between a normal dual core) is due to the fact that FCP 6 is capable of using only 2 GB RAM (on my system I have 16 GB) and is not programmed to use multiprocessors computing and that only 64 bit system are capable of managing 16 GB of RAM and that only FCP7 is running ina true 64 bit configuration.
Is it true? Should I upgrade my system to Snow Leopard and FCP7 to fully use my system?
Thanks
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Not True, FCP7 is still 32bit. However reports are that FCP7 is somewhat faster but probably not to the degree that you are looking for in that it won’t utilize all your processors like we all dream of. We all have to wait for Quicktime X to be developed further before FCP will start utilizing 64bit. Right now it is still relying on Quicktime 7 which is 32bit and almost 20 years old.
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What I failed to mention however you will want more than 2GB of Ram in your machine, even though FCP is still 32bit more than likely you will have other programs running in the background and the overall machine will take up quite abit. 4GB is a minimum 6-8GB depending on what machine your looking at is optimal.
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[Ugo Danesi] “The problem is tha I have invested some money ina machine not fully used”
I really don’t understand the problem here. The machine is not fully used? Just because it doesn’t run 64 bit and FCP uses 2GB of RAM? Your logic makes no sense to me. The faster the machine, the more cores you have, the faster the machine can render. The more RAM you have, the better FCP handles larger project and the more applications you have running at the same time.
And for the record, FCP 7 is a 32 bit application as has been pointed out in another thread with a link to a great article.
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/1053457
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative MediaCreative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
when FCP is sitting idle, it should be using almost NO resources. when playing, seeing less CPU usage is good because that means less chance of dropped frames. when getting into TL sections where the RT effects are CPu rendered, you will indeed see FCP use the processor cores as needed. during rendering, I can very much assure you that FCP will use all your cores, typically at about 80% load across all of them provided that there isn’t an I/O problem – your drives are too slow. I could only see this as a problem if you are working uncompressed HD with many layers at once, otherwise any compressed format should not be a problem, nor SD uncompressed with most storage in use. in case any one does not believe FCP is multi CPU core aware, and uses them, I can send you screen shots showing FCP at 600-700% usage on a 8 core machine – max would be 800%. nothing to complain about !
FCP will use about 2.5G of ram actually, and may use a bit more for storing still images. its not really the end of the world for MOST users in MOST situations… unless you are working at greater then HD resolutions, greater then HD sources, and deep color, which means 99% of most folks won’t see FCP’s out of memory errors like I do…. because I do do these things.
Steve Oakley
DP • Editor • VFX Artist
http://www.practicali.com -
I just did a test with FCP 7 and OS X 10.6 and it was using 600-700 percent of the CPU’s in the activity monitor during a render. 6 out of 8 CPU’s. Also on playback with 6 layers of video I see 300-400 percent of CPU usage with RT in unlimited mode.
Dajen Productions, Santa Barbara, CA
MacPro Two 2.8GHz Quad Core – AJA Kona LHe
FCS 3 OS X 10.6 QT 10 -
What codec were you using?
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XDCAM EX 35Mbit
Dajen Productions, Santa Barbara, CA
MacPro Two 2.8GHz Quad Core – AJA Kona LHe
FCS 3 OS X 10.6 QT 10
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