Is it my Mac?

[Oliver Peters]

I’m afraid this is all normal. In my experience, X gets more sluggish after several hours of use on large projects. Close and relaunch and sometimes it will improve.

The UI has lots of animations, which take time to perform. Make sure you have no background functions running. This includes things that don’t show up as background operations, like drawing waveform caches. Sometimes it is better to ingest, organize and then let X “cook” overnight.

Make sure you are ONLY using optimized media. Forget the bunk about using native H264 or AVCHD files. Convert these to ProRes – even externally if you have to. Avoid working in bigger-than-HD timelines. It’s possible, but those workflows are better if you work in the proxy mode.

FWIW – Premiere Pro, Media Composer and FCP 7 UI responsiveness (forgetting about the benefits of X for a moment) are significantly better. Good luck!

Oliver

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

[Julian Bowman]

Cheers oliver. Figured that may be the case. Is it better with the i7? Do you know? If not, does anyone else know?

I encode using QT7 to ProRes 422 then drop the folders into my event as keyword collections. I turn off background rendering. I actually use the waveforms whilst I edit. I turn thumbnail images on my clips and use the waveform option and I find them useful a lot of the time so am not really willing to turn those off. Although this may not be what you mean by waveform cache.

My timeline is 720p50 (I think that[‘s the correct term for it… basically 1240×720 at 50fps).

Basically it is exhausting having to edit through treacle. I’m not sure I can suffer it over years so I am hoping that because my machine is old I am suffering. It is hard to believe a bit of software like this can’t be run optimally on some machine, even if mine is too old and wasn’t even top end at the time of purchase.

[Oliver Peters]

[Julian Bowman] “Figured that may be the case. Is it better with the i7? “

I’m afraid I don’t know. I do have a friend with a decked out iMac + T-bolt Promise array and he’s very happy with his experience. His machine is definitely more responsive with X, but I haven’t done any direct comparisons with the same job in an iMac and a Mac Pro.

[Julian Bowman] “My timeline is 720p50 (I think that[‘s the correct term for it… basically 1240×720 at 50fps).”

That will be more taxing than other combinations and requires the fastest drive arrays. I tend to work on 1080p/23.98 projects and those are a bit less taxing overall.

[Julian Bowman] “Basically it is exhausting having to edit through treacle.”

I would suggest a direct comparison with Premiere Pro CS6 on the same machine and see if it’s more responsive. At least that will give you some idea if the machine is the issue.

– Oliver

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

[Julian Bowman]

Cheers Oliver. Will wait and see what others suggest but nice to hear some good feedback from the latest macs.

I cancelled my cloud sub with Adobe as CS6 wasn’t what I was hoping for after FCP7 and the other software of theirs I use I am happy with my paid for CS4 versions so I no longer have CS6 to compare it to I’m afraid. I do know FCP7 doesn’t act like this on the same machine with the same type of rushes and I have done very large projects in a single timeline with no real treacle effect at all, but not sure if that is a valid comparison in this issue.

Many thanks again for posting and I will wait and see what others come back with.

[Steve Connor]

What drives are you using?

Steve Connor

There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum

[Mark Dobson]

[Julian Bowman] “After reading up I upgraded my ram to 32 gigs from 16 and bought a ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB and I cannot say i’ve noticed a blind bit of difference. FCPX still has this sluggish response time.”

I was in your situation – I had ( still have ) a 2008 Quad core MacPro and like you I upgrades my Ram, to 22GBs, installed a new 5770 graphic card and still found that my experience was frustrating and very sticky on longer projects.

So rather than wait for a new MacPro I bought the 27″ 3.4 GHz iMac and installed 32 GB of memory and I have to say it a huge improvement, not perfect, but a lot more responsive.

I’m still clearing the preferences on a regular basis with Preference Manager but spinning ball crashes are almost non-existent.

I am editing using native files from a C300, I don’t optimise the media and touch wood it’s all been worth it. It has also allowed me to move forward into thunderbolt and USB3 storage devices and to enhance the eSata drive performance using a Lacie TB Hub.

Should a new MacPro be released with superior performance I would probably sell the iMac and get that but for the moment I feel as if I’ve moved forward in the right direction.

[Oliver Peters]

[Mark Dobson] “I am editing using native files from a C300, I don’t optimise the media”

I concur with everything you mentioned. I would point out though, that FCP X sees the C300’s native MPEG2 XF codec as already optimized. It will not transcode it to ProRes (only rewrap as MOV).

– Oliver

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

[Mark Dobson]

[Oliver Peters] “I concur with everything you mentioned. I would point out though, that FCP X sees the C300’s native MPEG2 XF codec as already optimized. It will not transcode it to ProRes (only rewrap as MOV).”

Thanks Oliver – I’ve just finished a 20minute edit on a 25p project timeline mixing the MPEG2 XF Progressive files with native 1080i XDCAM files and it all worked pretty smoothly.

The main cause for crashes is the unresolved problem with the CoreMelt plugins, Lock and Load and SliceX.

[Craig Seeman]

While there’s not much to the description beyond Grand Central Dispatch Apple notes FCPX’s uses of AVX technology in Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge CPUs…. which are not available in the Xeons in the aging MacPro

https://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/all-features/
Grand Central Dispatch
For even more speed, Final Cut Pro utilizes the AVX capabilities of Intel’s Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors.

Also based on some of the tests on Barefeats in relation to Apple’s Pro Apps, the GPUs in the higher end iMacs and I believe the Retinas as well, exceed the 5770 and maybe even the 5870.

[John Davidson]

I have the new iMac 27 with everything maxed out and the 3TB fusion drive. Since getting it in early Jan I’ve been pretty pleased with it. So much so that I ordered a second one yesterday. There are little things about it that won’t occur to you until actual use that will make you happy later.

Pros:
*USB 3 drives are significantly faster – you will hate any non USB 3 external drives you have.
*The screen reflections over older iMac and Cinema Displays are dramatically less.
*The iMacs are not, in fact, disposable. We have 3 (4 with the next one coming in a few days). Our 2009 iMac isn’t good for editing, but is excellent for web/email/general office use.

Cons:
There is no firewire and optical disk drive, so any blue ray burning you want to do will have to be done with a usb 3 external burner. I don’t know about purchasing one of those but they probably exist.

If I had my way, our Mac Pros would be for server use only and all editing and designing would be done on new iMacs. That’s the goal for us now – simplicity and power. It’s pretty awesome that you can buy a new computer that’s this powerful for 3k. Thunderbolt is pretty fantastic with a TTap or Mini Monitor tethered to a RAID.

If you get an iMac, check out the Satechi 10 port USB 3 hub (or something similar).

Good luck with whatever you end up getting!

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.