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FCP and RAM
I’m running Final Cut Studio (the first one, still havn’t recieved #2 in the mail) and I was wondering if there’s any way to use more than 2GB of RAM? I’ve got a MacPro 3GHZ with 5GB of RAM and I’m using a BlackmagicDesign Multibridge Pro.
The reason I’m wondering, is becuase there’s currently a lot of unhappy people on the Blackmagic forums who want to be able to use more than 2GB of RAM with thier Blackmagic FCP projects, but BMD doesn’t support it. What confuses me, is that looking at the preferences (even before I got the BMD card) FCP would only go up to a hair over 2GB of RAM.
Is there a way to crank it higher?
Thanks,
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5 Replies
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The problem isn’t Decklink’s… it’s the way FCP addresses memory. It’s still a carbonized application, and don’t think that will access a lot more RAM.
That said, having more RAM may not speed up things much. It would allow for more complicated and numerous sequences to be open is all I think. Rendering performance, and real time playback of unrendered effects wouldn’t be affected much if at all actually. That’s all dependent on CPU umph..not RAM.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer
Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here
Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D
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[Jerry Hofmann] “Rendering performance, and real time playback of unrendered effects wouldn’t be affected much if at all actually. That’s all dependent on CPU umph..not RAM.”
Don’t forget hard drive throughput… RT performance is greatly affected by drive throughput.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
[David Roth Weiss] “[Jerry Hofmann] “Rendering performance, and real time playback of unrendered effects wouldn’t be affected much if at all actually. That’s all dependent on CPU umph..not RAM.””
Not exactly true… I am speaking from personal experience with this. There is a memory issue with the Mac Pro and FCP. Apple recognized this from the start. Take a look at this.
https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304492
Having 5 gig of RAM in a Mac Pro is probably your problem. I have found that the Mac Pro and FCP like for your memory to be in increments of 2, 4, 8, 16 gig. Odd numbers will decrease you performance dramatically in FCP.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com -
Good point, but according to the article, if are symmetrically installed there’s no mention of a speed up by adding more ram with rendering times. More RAM doesn’t mean more RT in and of itself… symetrically installed in a Mac Pro does help, but not more…
5 gigs could still be “evenly installed”: two 512’s one on each riser, and 4 1 gigs with 2 on each riser… the OP might check that out on his install.. put one of each across from each other. the article isn’t clear on the bit about having an even number of gigs at all… they just showed even numbers in the examples. If you’re right about even numbers of gigs though, takeing out a gig of RAM might speed things up, right?
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer
Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here
Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D
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Everything I’ve seen is matched pairs on their own risers. Not spanned across risers. I’ve got the original 2 512s on 1 riser (as they came from apple) and another matched pair of 1gigs on the other risers. I’ve had great performance on my 2ghz mac pro. Especially with the new fx from motion that are inside FCP 5.1.4 as well as the FXFactory plugins. That stuff renders and plays back practically like a dissolve. And with only 3 gigs I’m still surfing, emailing, and running my ical, etc. all at the same time. Just mainly doing DVCam and 720P DVCProHD stuff.
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