FCPX : insane computer slowdown when rendering on maxed 2015 MacBook retina – normal ?

[Bill Davis]

First no, it’s not “normal.”

But the moment you said Magic Bullet looks, my radar went off.

One aspect of X that people sometimes don’t understand is that it ALWAYS tries to calculate changes to footage at the highest resolution possible. So when you use certain plugins, they can put a HUGE processing load on the software since it takes few if any shortcuts to process those effects at the highest quality possible – often in the background where it slows up the main software performance. This is why “every pixel fixing” software (Neat Noise Reduction is famous for this) – will grind X rendering to an exercise in frustration.

Also, if you have scads of partial render files from back when MBL was applied, that’s doing nothing to increase your database loads and overall performance.

I’d do a fresh clean Library and a test on the same footage without the MBL applied. If it suddenly flies, then maybe do your edit with clean footage and apply the Looks last and go to a art museum or something while everything renders.

Just some suggestions.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Noah Kadner]

Yep- love Red Giant but some of their plugins are notably processor intensive on renders. It’s just the nature of the beast. You might want to consider a Mac Pro if this is the sort of heavy lifting you see yourself doing often.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training

[David Axelrod]

Hey !

Thank you both for your reply.

I think your right. If I turn of the MBL things roll much faster. I also noticed if I am not working at 1920 things are fine in terms of not rendering my computer useless during a render. I’m also working with layers a bit .

One feature that would be some ( does this exist ?? ) GLOBAL turn off / on effects . So you could describe effects while you work and turn them on to preview / render . Similar to those “wireframe” modes . I have turned off effects while doing cuts but sometimes I have compound clips or layers and it’s a pain to go into each and turn it off .

I guess that is an issue for another thread 🙂

Does anyone have luck working on a maxed iMac over a Mac Pro ? Just thinking cost wise.

Thanks again !!

[Tim Jones]

I agree with Noah. Since the 10.2 update, it seems that the background operations can really saturate the rMBP. I’ve just learned to let it go until the background (or not-so-background) tasks complete.

I’ve even found this to be true on built-in Motion transitions and generators.

But, as Noah also said, these issues disappear on my Mac Pro.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Oliver Peters]

Actually this is quite normal. All third party effects will bog down FCP X and a laptop – even the best MBP – is NOT designed as a robust workstation for effects and rendering. The built-in FCP X effects are less taxing because they use native effects and are not just Motion templates. Therefore they tend to run in real-time even with a stack of several filters. Load up a lot of third-party plug-ins and prepare to hear your machine scream for mercy 😉

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Bret Williams]

Very few FCP X effects are native (quartz composer?) effects. Can almost always right click and open them in motion. Even their basic color filters like hue and saturation are Motion templates. Blur, sharpen, crop and feather… all motion templates. All the looks are templates. Only things like the draw mask, keyer, and color board are native.

But even when X is being a dog and beach balling or lagging, with 32gigs it doesn’t seem to affect other apps like Motion or PS which I’m often running simultaneously.

[Oliver Peters]

[Bret Williams] “Very few FCP X effects are native (quartz composer?) effects. Can almost always right click and open them in motion. Even their basic color filters like hue and saturation are Motion templates.”

I’ve built custom effects that way, too. I’m still not convinced that the native FCPX effects are Motion templates. You can’t find those files anywhere on the hard drive as Motion templates, that I’m aware of.

FCPX uses the FxPlug/Motion effects engine under-the-hood. I think these are editable, which creates a new Motion template, but the original is a native effect as a starting point, just like those in Motion.

For example, the hue control in the FCPX effect uses different color science than the hue control in Motion. So these are actually not the same. I ran into this issue here:

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/building-fcp-x-effects-update/

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Noah Kadner]

It’s easy enough to tell which one’s are not actually Motion effects- if you can’t open them in Motion. For example Cross Dissolve is a native effect not a Motion built-one.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training

[Oliver Peters]

[Noah Kadner] “It’s easy enough to tell which one’s are not actually Motion effects”

If you are at liberty to say, is a third-party Motion template the exact same as the identical effect within FCP X, assuming similar controls? Are Motion templates created by a user using Motion more or less taxing than say a commercial filter that’s appear as Motion templates?

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Noah Kadner]

I wouldn’t know to be honest- that’s a bit more under the hood info.

But generally speaking, if you’re working with a 3rd party effect that uses only Motion to be developed then it should be comparable in performance to a ‘built-in’ effect made from only Motion components. It’s when a 3rd party UI, rendering engine, etc. gets into the mix that the differences in coding begin to emerge more readily.

Also if you notice you have the ability within Motion to publish much more of the Motion interface to FCPX than most plugins actually do. I guess this is to avoid overcomplicating effects within FCPX.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training