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FCP X hardware performance
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[Jeremy Garchow] “You mean through the multiple Ae instance thing? If you only have one computer, what’s the point? Is it going to help? Are you saying that Macs are faster at distributed rendering than similarly specced Windows machines?”
I was talking about using Qmaster for distributed rendering on a render farm, and that works not only for Compressor and Shake but also for AE, Nuke and others. If you only have one computer, no, it doesn’t make sense. Only exception is Compressor which I’d never use in unclustered mode because it’s slow.
And, of course, Macs aren’t faster at distributed rendering at all. Not quite sure what your saying.——
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I tested on
On my Mac Pro 2008 8 Core GPU ATI 5770
13 minute XDCAM EX edit (no effects)
Exporting to ProRes (Current Settings) and then also testing exporting to XDCAM EX took about the same time. Around 8 minutes.Now the interesting part
I took a 50 minute H.264 .mp4 edit (no effects). This was a Standard Def project
Exporting to ProRes (Current Settings) it also took about 8 minutes.
BLAZING FAST.
One wouldn’t even dream of editing H.264 in FCP7.So the source is having a major impact. It may seem that source codec is a major factor as 50 minutes of H.264 .mp4 exports as fast as 13 minutes of XDCAM EX going to ProRes 422HQ.
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[Frank Gothmann] ” Not quite sure what your saying.”
That Macs aren’t the fastest machines when all hardware is equal.
Windows is faster.
I am not talking about distributed rendering.
Oliver’s original post: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/35887
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[Jeremy Garchow] “That Macs aren’t the fastest machines when all hardware is equal.
Windows is faster.
“Then we are on the same page, I totally agree that Windows (and Linux) is faster. However, I don’t think thats because Apple favours stability over speed.
On the other hand, especially in our field, a lot of speed issues are not related to the OS but to codecs and video frameworks. Quicktime is notoriously slow on Windows, much slower than on the Mac. Some AVI codecs on the other hand totally blast QT and Prores even when compared with render times on a fast Mac (and with a lot less system load). So you may see an run into bottlenecks on both platforms.——
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[Frank Gothmann] “I don’t think thats because Apple favours stability over speed. “
OK. So what is it? Just because?
[Frank Gothmann] “So you may see an run into bottlenecks on both platforms.”
As I have mentioned on threads like this in the past, there are no hard and fast rules. It’s true. Codecs are a big one, AVI vs QT is a great example.
I do think that a long time ago when windows was BSOD land, that Macs were more stable and Apple advertised this capability, they don’t refresh computer lines right away when the fastest/newest processor comes out. They have not been in the CPU race, ever.
They have never been as fast as windows machines, all things being as equal as possible, for pure CPU revs.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “OK. So what is it? Just because?”
It’s a number of things. Certain choices of architecture (Graphics rendering, memory management, the Darwin kernel is also known to be a slow dog, networking is slow an painful), on top of that animations left and right (which, I agree, probably is more the perceived feeling of slow) but most importantly it’s the “innovation” instead of evolution. Few things in Apple land have time to grow and mature. By the time they have come out of puberty they are flushed down the toilet and things restart from 0. We’ve gone from OS9 to X, from PPC to Intel, apps get eoled internally shortly after having reached a point from where they could become truly great.
This is actually my biggest grief with Apple. Lots of stuff their stuff has tremendous potential but they loose interest after a while and things get left behind.
Windows, on the other hand, has matured with compatiblity in mind and it shows with certain under-the-hood technologies that are just damn solid (although some “surface” stuff could use more logic, I agree). The amount of times a software update from Apple has broken important things is insane compared with the Win side of things.[Jeremy Garchow] “I do think that a long time ago when windows was BSOD land, that Macs were more stable and Apple advertised this capability, they don’t refresh computer lines right away when the fastest/newest processor comes out. They have not been in the CPU race, ever.
They have never been as fast as windows machines, all things being as equal as possible, for pure CPU revs.”
Yeah, but a lot was also marketing hype. I remember the OS9 days only too well. Not too stable to say the least. And the odd kernel panic on X is also just a few kernel extensions away.
I think you overestimate the crash potential of new hardware. Look at Linux. Runs rock solid on bleeding edge hardware, out-of-the-box kernel support for tons of raid cards, network cards, fibre etc. and no billion dollar giant making it all happen.——
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OK.
Then we can agree that Apple does not favor speed.
Although, system reinstalls/sharing, and diving in to Terminal are all part of it.
It is much easier on Mac to fix these things (boot a MacPro from a mini just for example).
I guess this is what I mean, in part, by stability.
FCPX is not a prime example of stable either, that’s why I said that this is probably not true anymore.
This is an architecture choice, not a side effect.
I, too, remember os9. It was much more hard, but all computing was back then. What has happened with almost all computing is that things have gotten much more complex, yet “easier” to use for consumers.
Marketing hype, is part of it, certainly. They sure market hyped speed, but Windows sure seems to win speed tests consistently.
What do you I mean when you said I “overestimate crash potential on new hardware”?
I know what you mean about Linux, but what NLE are you using with which capture card?
And yes, Apple does move fast. Microsoft doesn’t move that fast. Apple has now committed to an OS rev every year, it takes msoft three years.
I’m not saying either of these are right or wrong, better or worse, they have different needs as companies.
It will be interesting to see what happens with Montain Lion.
The upgrade to Lion has been a very easy one for me, but I know that I’m speaking for myself there.
Jeremy
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Sorry, but are we talking about render times or export times, because FCPX is blazing fast on exports for me even with MB Looks filters applied. I’ve found it quicker than PPro 6 in that respect.
Steve Connor
“The ripple command is just a workaround for not having a magnetic timelinel”
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[Jeremy Garchow] “But the OS isn’t optimized for it, Walter. We have had this discussion sooo much. Instead of singling me out for it, reread what Oliver said… Apple is not in the CPU race, my guess is from their standpoint, they don’t have to be and take a different philosophy about what “speed” means.”
Sorry, mate, I’m certainly not trying to single you out — but you gave me the easy one-liner “Apple has always favored system stability over raw power” to riff on. I think that the way the statement above pits performance against stability is a false dichotomy, and I think it doesn’t give Apple enough credit for how they have competed in performance computing.
In my previous post, I gave specific examples, both in hardware and software, that show that Apple goes beyond simply caring about computational performance — they’ve actually driven it in some areas (though clearly not in all).
Saying the OS isn’t optimized for performance is inaccurate. Look at current technologies like Grand Central Dispatch [link] and OpenCL [link] — two technologies designed to allow developers to wring even more performance out of modern computers with both multiple homogenous processors and multiple heterogeneous processors. Look at the movement away from creaky old APIs like QuickTime toward newer APIs like AV Foundation. Look at the addition of high-performance APIs like CoreImage and CoreVideo.
To Oliver’s point, some apps in the now-discontinued FCS weren’t exactly modern applications, so the apps themselves performed relatively poorly on multicore systems because they had poor or non-existent multithreading support. That’s got nothing to do with OS X’s support for multithreading.
As for comparing the performance of cross-platform applications, I’d argue there are too many variables to say whether a specific performance difference have to do with the OS or the apps themselves. I’ve seen a report that Cinema 4D runs faster on the exact same dual-booting Windows/Hackintosh hardware when it’s running OS X than when it’s running Windows.
Further, I think that FCPX is actually a great example of a modern application that can wring phenomenal performance from a Mac by exploiting Apple’s recent performance-oriented technologies, from AV Foundation up to GCD and OpenCL. As Lance pointed out, any dings against FCPX performance should take into account its floating point, color managed processing pipeline. What FCPX can do — especially on “limited” hardware — is impressive. I love Adobe, but can Premiere Pro CS6 match FCPX’s render times on an iMac (or even a BootCamped iMac) when the sequence set to maximum bit depth?
All that said, I certainly agree that you have more performance options on Windows than you do on Mac — that’s why I’ve gone cross-platform. I’d also certainly agree that many cross-platform apps perform better on Windows.
I can agree with you that Macs are slower. I can’t agree with you that this comes from a conscious tradeoff of speed for stability. If I understand correctly, you’re saying that Apple is simply choosing not to compete on performance, and that they differentiate instead on stability. I’d argue that stability is a wash, and Apple tries to compete but just plain loses on performance.
(The most bizarre part about it is that Apple is doing some really hard stuff around performance computing — like the initial development of OpenCL and all development of GCD — but scrimping on the easy stuff like keeping current with Intel’s reference designs while Intel does all the hard work on advancing the chipsets. Meanwhile, they are also doing the very hard work of designing their own SoCs like the A4 and A5X, getting phenomenal performance per watt in a different market segment. In light of this, I can certainly agree with you that their commitment to performance is highly disjointed.)
Finally, it may be unintended, but there’s an implication in the statement “Apple has always favored system stability over raw power” — and that’s that the “raw power” platforms (Windows and Linux) favor raw power over system stability. This is simply not true. You can have your cake and eat it, too — just not with Apple.
In other words, I agree with you that Windows is the better choice for performance, but I disagree that it has anything to do with a tradeoff for stability.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
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[Jeremy Garchow] “What do you I mean when you said I “overestimate crash potential on new hardware”?”
What I meant was that Apple isn’t slow to implement new hardware because it migh impose stability issues. hence my remark about Linux.
They’re slow to implement it because of internal politics (eg. esata, usb3).[Jeremy Garchow] “I know what you mean about Linux, but what NLE are you using with which capture card?”
I am not running any NLE under Linux. I have a Linux partition in one of our HPs for film restoration software, using it with DPX only. Stuff comes in via BM Decklink card or, beyond 1080, from hard drives.
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