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FCP on tiger or Lion?
A deceptively simple question:
I am editing on an iMac 2007 2ghz Duo core with 2gb memory.
(and this is not about upgrading my machine, it works fine thank you!)
I run FCP7 on the iMac (dedicated to FCP7), and it works absolutely fine. In fact, maybe better using Tiger. I downgraded it from Lion after some conflict problems with plugins recently.
The Question is…
What is the benefit of running Lion or even Snow Leopard? I am curious. Does it speed up render time? That would be the only bonus for me.
I am amazed and happy/surprises that this old machine is running ProRes422 cuts fine. it slows a bit with AE, but that is to be expected.
So rather than buying into the cult of constantly upgrading, and getting flashier ways of accessing programs or the app shop, what’s the hardcore technical benefit?
🙂
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13 Replies
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It wouldn’t slow with AE if you had enough RAM to actually utilize an extra processor core or two. Do you have $30? Go buy 8 gigs of RAM. RAM is insanely cheap and since even FCP 7 can access 4gigs of RAM you’d see some major performance increases. Definitely with AE which relies on RAM to render quickly by caching uncompressed frames in RAM.
That said, Snow Leopard is your best bet. It’s a smaller footprint than Leopard or Lion. Lion is RAM hungry. I think then minimum suggested to Lion just to run the system and a few small apps is 4gig. I believe 4gigs is the minimum you’ll find on all OEM Lion machines. I installed Lion on 2006 MBookPro with 3gigs and definitely Snow Leopard ran better. 3 gigs isn’t enough for Lion. Geez, it’s not enough for anything really. Get some RAM. Amazon is your friend.
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What about “Mountain Lion”?
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Hi Bret,
I know i can buy RAM etc and even install snow leopard/lion/fat rat etc.
AE/no AE…
Not the point.The question is what is going on under the hood.
I am not trying to improve the situation. Quite happy with it as is. I am curious to the specific technical benefits of upgrading the system.
My original question was what Apple have done with the system software and if there is any noticeable difference?
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There were two major improvements with SL and FCP7. Firstly gamma. SL made it possible to use 2.2 gamma instead of 1.8 . Second improvement is that the OS has less bloat as it threw away a lot of the old PPC software requirements.
Lion has nothing but pain to offer FCP7 as the OS has already caused some issues for FCP7 users and with FCP7 as legacy software, don’t expect Apple to want to fix anything that breaks FCP7.
SL is 64 bit capable so if you want 64 bit performance from other software it can be done with a reboot. I jumped from FCP6 on Tiger to FCP7 on SL and I felt there was big improvements in the OS over Tiger.
Finally maybe you should consider partitioning or having a second boot drive. Leave FCP7 with SL 10.6.7 which is solid and reliable and on the second drive/boot partition have newer OS and other software.
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Hey Michael,
many thanks for your answer. The Gamma is a very good reason to go to SL, and I think I will get some more RAM. This machine is just a dedicated Off-line machine so no need to partition. I just get lazy and use AE on it sometimes, and usually pay the price in render time!I think though that after trying Avid 6.0 i might well be going back to them, after being away for so many years now.
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Before long, if you run both AVID and legacy FCP you will want to upgrade OS. To avoid potential conflicts with things like Decklink/AJA/Matrox drivers I would consider a partition or dual boot option to keep your FCP legacy system totally locked and dedicated.
That way also you can experiment with FCPX or CS6 without potential damage to the FCP7 setup.
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I have other machines running Lion and snow leopard for that. I just keep the old iMac as an off-line suite since it still works fine and i see no need to replace it (or upgrade the sys :)))
I might leave it on tiger, on second thoughts. I have some old PPC software that is fantastic, and anyways will be doing all the 4444 conforms for the offline edits in Davinci and Smoke.
But thanks for the low down!
BTW do you rate FCPX? it sure is a weird beast. I suppose it has to be learned, but it is like the fisher price of editing systems. Not bad, just different. I don’t like it’s lack of precision.
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Um, not precise? What do you mean by that?
Jerry
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What about it? I’d bet that FCP will not work on Mountain Lion. Not very well at least. I would think that the trickle of plugins and plugin updates and driver updates will be slowly grinding to a halt by Mountain Lion anyway.
I don’t think Apple wanted it to work on Lion but they couldn’t find a good enough excuse. By the time Lion comes out, FCP will be the equivalent of 2007 software that was mildly upgraded in 2009 to string people along until the 2011 X debacle. Perhaps another update to FCPX will enable Apple to argue that X is on par with 7 , blah blah blah. They’ve got some work to do.
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[Nikolai Yurievitch] “I just keep the old iMac as an off-line suite since it still works fine and i see no need to replace it (or upgrade the sys :)))”
What I’m writing this on. Its a 1 GB RAM, 2GHz Intel Core Duo Tiger (not upgradeable as it isn’t a Core 2Duo, so new OS is a non-starter. However, this old honker has been plodding away for 6 years and could give the others a race for ‘favourite’.
jPo
You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?
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