FCP X 10.4.7 great improvement on iMac Pro but not on MacPro Trashcan

[Oliver Peters]

[Giampaolo Moretti] “Not the same on 2013 MacPro Trashcan. Here nothing change. Not even a little faster
All the systems have Mojave 10.14.6 and 64Gb RAM.”

Interesting. I’m on a 2013 8-core and it definitely feels faster to me. Are you talking about media handling or interaction with the interface itself? If media, what format and codec? What type of storage?

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Joe Marler]

[Giampaolo Moretti] “improvement in all rendering and importing sessions and 4K XAVC-LongGop clips can be played directly without dropped frames.

Not the same on 2013 MacPro Trashcan. Here nothing change. Not even a little faster”

XAVC-L is a variant of H.264. The Trashcan has no Quick Sync or any other type of hardware acceleration for this. The Xeon-powered iMac Pro uses the accelerator on the T2 chip.

[Jeff Kirkland]

It feels way snappier on my 2013 Mac Pro but that computer doesn’t have any specific hardware support for decoding h264 so there’s probably no improvement to be had for a format like XAVC on that machine.

—-
Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer & Cinematographer
Hobart, Tasmania | Twitter: @jeffkirkland

[Joe Marler]

[Oliver Peters] “I’m on a 2013 8-core and it definitely feels faster to me. Are you talking about media handling or interaction with the interface itself? If media, what format and codec?”

All good questions. On my Vega 64 iMac Pro BruceX is 2x faster on 10.4.7 than 10.4.6, all on Mojave. Other FCPX built-in effects also seem faster. In general we’d expect the FCPX Metal improvements to help GPU-oriented code – if that code uses Metal. Neat Video is definitely GPU-intensive (if so configured) but it’s no faster on 10.4.7.

On anything with a T2 chip there is apparently an improvement with H264 encode/decode. I haven’t yet tested machines with Quick Sync.

I would expect even on a trash can Mac Pro that BruceX and similar GPU-oriented built-in effects might be faster. Doing back-to-back BruceX tests between 10.4.6 and 10.4.7 on a trash can would be interesting. Namely whether the Metal improvements extend back to those older GPUs.

[Giampaolo Moretti]

I’m talking about simply ingesting and playing media.
We are working with Sony FS7 and 4k XAVC-LongGop, one iMacPro (Radeon Pro Vega 64 16 Gb, 64 Gb Ram) and one MacPro trashcan (2 D700 6Gb Ram, 64 Gb Ram), Areca Thunderbolt 3 (with thunderbolt 2 adapter for trashcan) Raid-5, 8 slot tower.

Before the last update we ingested and work XAVC-LongGop with optimized codec (ProRes) for cut and playing without lag or frame drop.

Now like a magic, the iMacPro can work without optimized codec but simply ingesting the XAVC-LongGop. This magic don’t happens on Trashcan, everything here remains the same.

http://www.metisfilm.it

[Giampaolo Moretti]

That’s right but it seems that the T2 chip is wake up now with the last update of FCP-X.
With precedent version (FCP-X 10.4.5) XAVC-L have lost frames during play and edit despite T2 was here…

http://www.metisfilm.it

[Tangier Clarke]

Here’s some initial tests I ran after the 10.4.7 update just to see what would happen. I had hoped for better. Perhaps with Catalina I’ll see better numbers.

– Majority Picture Media: Multicam Sony FS7 4K (3840×2160) @ 23.98 AVC Intra, Linear PCM, Sony S-Log3/S-Gamut3.Cine (2-2-1) applied automatically by FCP X, Color Profile (2-2-2)
– Other Picture Media: GoPro Media, Canon C-100 MKII Media, created animated graphics at above frame rate/size
– FCP X Storyline Settings: 3840×2160 @ 23.98 FPS, Stereo 48 Khz sample
– Storyline duration: 37 minutes, 56 seconds
– Export Settings: Apple ProRes 422, Multitrack Audio Roles (how I usually make them for D, M, & E)

Computer 1: 2016 MacBook Pro 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7 / 16 GB of RAM / Radeon Pro 455 2 GB & Intel HD Graphics 530
– Mac OS: 10.14.6 Mojave
– Media Source Drive: Western Digital USB 3 desktop hard drive
– Media Source connection to computer: USB-3 thorugh USB-C connected hub
– Destination drive: G-Tech SSD Slim USB 3.1 drive
– Destination drive connection to Computer: USB-C
– Export Time: FCP X 10.4.6 – 53 minutes
– Export Time: FCP X 10.4.7 – 1 hour 1 minute

Computer 2: 2013 Mac Pro / 3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5 / 64 GB Ram / Dual AMD FirePro D500 3 GB Cards
– Mac OS: 10.14.6 Mojave
– Media Source Drive: Western Digital USB 3 desktop hard drive
– Media Source connection to computer: USB 3 (Type A) to USB 3 Micro B
– Destinatino drive: G-Tech SSD Slim USB 3.1 drive
– Destination drive connection to computer: USB-C to USB 3 (Type A)
– Export Time: FCP X 10.4.6 – 29 minutes
– Export Time: FCP X 10.4.7 – 28 minutes

[Oliver Peters]

[Tangier Clarke] “Perhaps with Catalina I’ll see better numbers.”

From what I’ve seen in various tests and blog posts, it’s about the same under the two OS versions. In fact, a few were slightly slower under Catalina. The change is mainly in the FCPX update only. I would avoid Catalina as longer as possible, though, unless you can go with a completely clean install from the ground up. Especially on older machines.

But, looking at your stats, there’s not a whole lot in that that would be accelerated by the update. This update helps things that are GPU-intensive, like lots of effects filters. That’s why the BruceX test shows shows big differences.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com