FCP X Memory Usage, Is This Typical?

[Mark Dobson]

I’ve been monitoring my memory usage (14 GB on a 2008 Quad Core ) and I’ve never seen it going above around 6GB.

My CPU gets maxed out frequently but memory does not seem to be drawn on in a way I was expecting.

So your theory that FCPX has a predetermined memory usage limit makes quite a bit of sense for me.

I’m thinking that my computer is getting pretty old and out of date now so it would be fascinating to here from someone with a brand new iMac with a load of memory on it.

[Andy Borowa]

I have the same problem. After some editing (let say 1 hour) memory moves up to 15,8GB
2x3GHz Quas-Core Intel Xenon 16GB RAM.

—
Pozdro
Andy

[Kevin Patrick]

[Mark Dobson] “it would be fascinating to here from someone with a brand new iMac with a load of memory on it.”

Seems to be a question that’s not always easy to answer. Especially when you are talking about an applicaiton like FCP X, since there are a number of factors to take into account.

This link has some benchmarks for what they claim to be just CPU and Memory. Note that it’s a long list, with 64 bit starting halfway down.

https://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/

24,218 Fastest Mac Pro (12 core 2.9 GHz)
11,873 My early 2008 Mac Pro (8 core 3.2 GHz)
12,524 Fastest iMac (i7 3.4 GHz)

So, looks like I could double my CPU processing power. But, I have an ATI 5770, which is close to the 5870. So that does help. It’s a pretty cheap upgrade for performance and FCP X uses it. I came from a GT 8800. Certainly a lot cheaper than a new system.

The link below shows the latest (and fastest configured) Mac models running FCP X. Although it should be pointed out that the Mac Pro used here is the 6 core, not 12 core. The 6 core has faster CPU’s, but less of them. Not sure why they didn’t test FCP X with the 12 core. My guess is it would be better, as FCP X seems to do a good job using all cores.

https://barefeats.com/fcpx01.html

Also, here’s a link to graphic card comparisons using Motion 5. Here’s where you can see some differences between the latest iMac and the latest Mac Pro. Playback performance is similar, but preview to RAM is twice as fast on the Mac Pro’s grahpic card.

https://barefeats.com/wst10g12.html

So, to address your question, the fastest iMac seems to hold it’s own with the fastest 6 core Mac Pro. At least for FCP X. You certainly get a lot for the price differential.

Of course, you do loose capability with an iMac.

I won’t get in line for an iPhone 4S. But I might get in line for the next generation Mac Pro. Which I still believe is coming. Otherwise, it would be gone by now. As was the Macbook when the latest Air came out. If iMac’s were to replace Mac Pros, I think (hope) it would have happened already.

(I think I just side tracked my own post)

[Kevin Patrick]

One thing I recently noticed is that Inactive memory usage slowly starts to climb up.

From a fresh reboot:
Launch Text Edit
Launch Activity Monitor
Launch FCP X

Once again, I went back to assigning Keywords to my media. No editing. Nothing even in the Timeline. Just going through clip after clip, adding Keywords. Over time, the FCP X Real Memory grew up to, but then hovered at just over 7 GB. As it has before.

During this time, the Inactive memory usage climbed up to just over 5 GB. My understanding of Inactive memory is that this results from memory being used by an application after you quit the application. The OS keeps it reserved, for some period of time. I’m guessing if you relaunch the app, it will get this same memory back? Not sure.

Either way, if my understanding of Inactive memory is correct, I’m not sure why I would have any in use, let alone gradually gowing in size. I launched only three applications and never quit one of them.

I could skim a clip, arrow down to the the next clip, skim it, arrow down, over and over. Each time I did this, I could watch the Inactive memory usage grow.

So, is FCP X is consuming and then giving back memory to the OS?

I also noticed that somewhere along the way my skimmer started to skip. You can see it skip in the viewer and in the frame info for the skimmer. When you skim back and forth, you can see it’s skipping anywhere from 1 to 3 frames.

Perhaps these two issues are related?

I wound up quitting FCP X after Inactive climbed to over 5 GB. Rebooted and started over.

Very odd.

Also, I sent Apple feed back on this issue.