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Performance issues
Hi Creative Cow,
FCPX 10.1 runs extremely slow on my 2010 Mac Pro; I’ve searched through the forums and haven’t found an answer that fit my situation. Specs are:
– 2 x 2.4 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon (12 core total)
– 64 gigs ram
– ATI Radeon HD 5770 (which is on Apple’s list of approved graphics cards for fcpx)
– Booting from an SSD and have all libraries, assets etc on a separate internal 2tb drive.
– Running MavericksI also have an NVIDIA Quadro 4000 but it isn’t compatible with Mavericks and I don’t think they’ve released a new driver yet so it’s useless for this application.
My question is, why does it run so slow, regardless of the resolution / file type etc? It runs just as slow working with 1080 prores files as it does working with 4k r3ds. Was wondering if anyone could shed some light.
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16 Replies
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[Yuko Takahashi] “FCPX 10.1 runs extremely slow on my 2010 Mac Pro; I’ve searched through the forums and haven’t found an answer that fit my situation”
I’m on a 12-core with 10.1 with a complex project. EVERY interface user interaction is slow. Nature of the beast, I’m afraid. I’ve seen it with new iMacs, too.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I don’t see any nature of the beast. My 2012 iMac runs much faster than 10.0.9. The whole system runs much smoother than legacy. I’m actually working in both lately.
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But why is what I’m wondering. My comp runs just fine in Premiere with 5k r3ds, but put some 1080 prores’s into FCPX and it just goes caput.. And I am pretty sure my mac pro has more horse power than your imac. Also I have it set to performance in case anyone is wondering.
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[Bret Williams] “I don’t see any nature of the beast.”
My results vary greatly with the complexity of the project. The more connected clips, the worse it gets. On the current project – the one with the audio export issue – it’s also faster to run the events in filmstrip rather than list mode. Seems to have to do a lot more work redrawing waveforms in the list view.
In my experience, once X gets out of its “sweet spot” it falls over pretty quickly.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Yuko Takahashi] “But why is what I’m wondering. My comp runs just fine in Premiere with 5k r3ds, but put some 1080 prores’s into FCPX and it just goes caput.”
In that case, stick with Premiere. You’ll be happier. FCP X is happiest with RED footage if you transcode to proxies for the initial editing.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Tests have shown that it does not. X was written to take advantage of Apple’s Grand Central Dispatch which uses AVX built into Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors. Your MacPro doesn’t have Sandy or Ivy bridge. As well, I think I’ve read that X can only utilize 8 cores.
But it does seem that most of the reports of sluggishness come from those on a MacPro. For example I use h264 all the time and never optimize. Optimizing doesn’t seem to make a difference in performance. The iMac also supports hardware acceleration of h264 in single pass mode. Making one off client exports of a 2-3min timeline take say, 10-15 seconds. I’m very happy. And the recent render tests of the new MacPro don’t fare much better than top notch 2010s or iMacs. It does sound like the new MacPro is a realtime beast though, so for 4k or Davinci or 3D it sounds like a pretty nice machine.
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Aaah thank you I guess that was the answer I was looking for. That kind of sucks haha. Has been driving me crazy for a while. I’m really curious to see how the new mac pros work with other programs.
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After updating to 10.1, several – but not all – of our macpros were sluggish to the point of being unusable. I don’t know if it was mavericks or FCPX10.1, but using digital rebellion’s preference manager to trash all of my preferences cleared the problem up.
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OutOfFocus.TV – Original series, music videos, mini-docs. -
Thanks for the tip; will try that out.
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Make sure you keep the inspector closed. Something about 10.1 makes mine unusable with it open. As soon as I close it, it’s smooth sailing. I’m on a late 2011 iMac.
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