how much memory can FinalCutStudio use ?

[Bret Williams]

Well, I guess you didn’t read the article…

1st, it can only access 2.5GB of ram if you have 4gb of ram installed. In other words, for example if you have 3 gigs of ram installed, the max might be 1.75gb of user allocateable ram.

2nd, to quote the article… “Although this memory isn’t directly allocated by the program itself, the allocation still falls into Final Cut Pro HD’s address space and contributes to the 4 GB limit. Final Cut Pro HD reserves 1.5 GB of RAM for these frameworks, libraries, and drivers and so only allows a maximum of 2.5 GB to be allocated by the user.”

Meaning FCP is grabbing 1.5 GB for resources, and allowing the user to define the rest of the ram it’s using, in this case 2.5 GB, and maxing out the full 4GB of the machine. But that’s all reliant on a 4GB machine. It doesn’t say what kind of resources it grabs on a 2 GB machine.

So it sounds to me that 4GB is the maximum for FCP. BUT, of course that’s if FCP is the only thing open. FCP will only grab a max of 1.5 GB in resources, and allow the user to grab a max of 2.5GB in more RAM. So if you have 4GB of RAM, and you’d like to open something else, your machine is going to perform immensely better if you have more RAM, so that when you switch between FCP and AE for example, the system isn’t using your hard drive to swap out RAM. If FCP is taking 4, you might want 6 installed for AE to run seamlessly and simeultaneously.

But to put it all in perspective, I have a dual G4 with 1.75 gigs of RAM. I run whatever I want and have never noticed a slowdown or a problem. I’m running 10.3.9 and FCP 5. The machine feels no different than a G5 until you hit the render key.

[Jan Joubert]

Hey,

well having read this and the article,
the mac I’m running is a 8x core MacPro, 6gb of 800Mhz Ram.
Final Cut only allocates 2.1gb of RAM to itself,
another .8gb is used by various apps,
and another 3.2gb approx is free according to activity monitor,

so… shouldn’t I be able to boost this up to over 2.5gb usage? or atleast a 2.5gb usage?
Moslty I don’t have playback issues, but sometimes i need to run smoothcam and such things in the background while jumping between editing various fcp projects…

not urgent but a response would be interesting,
thanks

building puzzles with timecodes.

[Mark Maness]

[Jan Joubert] “so… shouldn’t I be able to boost this up to over 2.5gb usage? or atleast a 2.5gb usage? “

No…. This is the program requirement as set by Apple. The program isn’t so difficult that it needs more and more RAM as you need it. It relies alot on the FX plugin architecture now and on third-party capture cards for realtime performance. This isn’t totally true but its a simple way of putting it. Most of the realtime performance issues that people see are entirely related to RAM configuration.

Your system has 6 gig of RAM. You should be seeing some realtime performance issues. Maybe you don’t realize it yet…

Apple specifies a proper RAM configuration for optimal performance but its not widely broadcasted to the users. Here is a Apple tech doc talking about this.

https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1957?viewlocale=en_US

The more memory you have in your system makes yours system able to do more things at one time. I have 8 gig of RAM in mine and its not uncommon for me to run Entourage, FCP, Safari, iTunes, Photoshop, Motion and whatever else at the same time. That’s what the RAM is for.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com