FCPX export slow but cpu usage is slow

[Jeremy Garchow]

Exporting is done with the GPU.

So if your MBP is newer, and even though it’s “lower powered”, it might have a faster more efficient GPU.

[Wally Yoshimura]

Thank you so much for your help.
I guess Ill need to buy a new video card then.
such a shame that I spend so much on a mac pro and still it needs an $300 upgrade….

[Jeremy Garchow]

It’s a fairly cheap upgrade for a 3 year old machine.

What’s in there now?

[Wally Yoshimura]

its the base model so it has the NVIDIA GT120 with 512mb of ram
is there something you would recommend ?

[Claude Lyneis]

I think it may be the interaction with Compressor and Motion. I have a very short graphic, less than 10 seconds long created in Motion and when I compress it it adds almost 30 minutes to the total compression time of my videos. This is on a 2011 27 inch iMac with 8 GB of memory and 3.1 GHz Core i5.

I am not sure why the Motion compresses so slowly while the rest of the video which is 1920 by 1080 H.264 goes very fast. I think I saw a comment at one time about Motion projects and Compressor.

Since I use the graphic in front of my short films I guess the answer to to Compress once and then use the compressed output rather than the Motion file.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Wally Yoshimura] “is there something you would recommend ?”

Currently, Apple offers the ATI 5870.

It’s not the newest or fastest GPU, but it will be better than what you have now.

The 5770 is less expensive.

Also, as Claude eludes to, are these Motion Templates you are rendering, or simply motion effects on stills?

[Wally Yoshimura]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I`ve been searching all over the internet to solve this problem and I think I might have found the answer.

According to my research, when exporting in FCPX in ProRes422 CPU is used so it`s not just about the GPU.
Now I found on the internet that Lion seems to have a bug that forces the OS to use 1 core in Safari so sometimes other programs will run on 1 core as well.
There is a program called Xcode to check how many CPU is used so I guess I`ll check that out before I buy a new Graphic Card.

Hopefully that is the answer.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Wally Yoshimura] “According to my research, when exporting in FCPX in ProRes422 CPU is used so it`s not just about the GPU.”

The 10.0.6 release notes state that the GPU is used during background rendering, and exporting is a background process. You are right that its not all about the GPU, but it does play a big role.

[Wally Yoshimura] “Now I found on the internet that Lion seems to have a bug that forces the OS to use 1 core in Safari so sometimes other programs will run on 1 core as well.”

I haven’t heard of that one, but anything is possible I guess.

If you transcode a file in fcpx (make proxy or optimized media) does it only use one core?

[Wally Yoshimura]

[Jeremy Garchow] “If you transcode a file in fcpx (make proxy or optimized media) does it only use one core?”
that`s what I`ve been trying to find out.
Now If I transcode to optimized media like you said, how do I know if its only using one core?

I`m downloading Xcode right now so hopefully I can figure it out with this program.
Will update this thread once I find out.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Wally Yoshimura] “Now If I transcode to optimized media like you said, how do I know if its only using one core?”

Open Activity Monitor and click the CPU tab, you can also hit command-2 with activity monitor open. Command-5 will add a floating window.