Performance/Beach Balling question

[Jim Giberti]

[Michael Hadley] ”
Two things: Were you actually recommending regularly deleting render files to improve performance?

And what do you mean by getting corrupt versions out of your project folder? Are you suggest creating another project folder, on another volume, and then copying/pasting the new project into that location?

Thanks.”

Absolutely Michael – you must do this.

Here’s what Apple hasn’t explained to people and as I told them it should be on the cover of the manual (that they didn’t write.) – They actually “designed” a program that keeps every change you make in any editing session and all of that meaningless data will build forever until your program shuts down.

When you select a project and choose Delete Project Render Files you get a dialogue that asks if you want to delete only unused files. As one of my people watching this mess unfold asked “why the hell would a program retain unused render files? It’s like some first year coder wrote this thing.

So yes, just like X gobbles all your RAM with no Clear RAM feature, it actually gobbles all of your hard drive and will do so for eternity unless you regularly delete what should never exist in a program – it’s own bodily waste.

Regarding the corrupt projects. As soon as you suspect you have one, get it out of the project folder. And if the corruption (as it did with us twice) gets passed onto duplicate projects that you’re trying to copy into in order to save, then get all of that out of your Project Folder too.

It’s a very boggy, tentative program once you start asking it to do more than (and I hate to say this) …more than iMovie level stuff.

It’s a sloppy, self-destructive thing for professional use simply because of the mistakes and omissions in it’s core development.

If you’re doing demanding or critical work you must work way harder at managing your system and the program than anything I’ve seen since the early 90’s.

It’s flawed.

[Steve Connor]

[Jim Giberti] “It’s a very boggy, tentative program once you start asking it to do more than (and I hate to say this) …more than iMovie level stuff.”

I know you’ve had a horrible experience and there are huge flaws in X at the moment but that statement isn’t really correct. People like myself, Bill and others have been steaming through projects over the last few months on it with no serious issues. I’ve also just finished the second pass on a 110 minute feature on it.

It can work and it is working for many people, however it also seems to be going badly for people as well. It’s still new, but if some of the memory and bloat issues aren’t solved in the next couple of releases then even I’ll think about dropping it.

Steve Connor
“FCPX Professional”
Adrenalin Television

[Steve Connor]

[Jim Giberti] “When I did, this one 2:06 film was 56 GBs “

That’s ridiculous, surely they can limit the amount of undos and wipe the render files associated as other NLEs do.

Steve Connor
“FCPX Professional”
Adrenalin Television

[Tom Wolsky]

“When I did, this one 2:06 film was 56 GBs”

What exactly was 56G? What were you measuring? Not the currentversion.fcpproject file? Something else? The render folder? That’s not an usual number for a complex project. You’d see render folders that size in FCP7 as well.

All the best,

Tom

“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2012 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand

[Jim Giberti]

[Steve Connor] “I know you’ve had a horrible experience and there are huge flaws in X at the moment but that statement isn’t really correct…. however it also seems to be going badly for people as well. It’s still new, but if some of the memory and bloat issues aren’t solved in the next couple of releases then even I’ll think about dropping it.”

Not looking to Argue Steve, just share experience at my company and with Apple.

But just looking at your paraphrase above I don’t know how you can say that my comment isn’t “really correct”.

Sure it is. It’s what happened.
And just because something has performed well for some people in some circumstances doesn’t negate the things it’s done poorly for others in other circumstances – and mine is hardly unique.

Most importantly, the key information I’m trying to share about the horrible media/memory management and self bloat (that leads to corruption as Apple knows) doesn’t need to be soft peddled as you clearly state in the second half of your post.

I was one of the strongest proponents of X at the COW until it cost us thousands of dollars and many sleepless nights trying to fix it’s messes.

My posts of support and criticism are experience based and unemotional and come from someone who’s purchased and operated every Mac and virtually every Mac based creative program ever developed.

[Tom Wolsky]

“why the hell would a program retain unused render files?”

Earlier versions of FCP did the same thing. All render files for all sequences were retained as long as the application was open. And if you closed a project the render files for all the sequences for their playback were retained. Even if you never opened any of the sequences again or even opened the project again.

Because this thing is constantly background rendering, which I always recommend switching off, it generates two or three manure loads of render files in no time at all.

All the best,

Tom

“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2012 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand

[Jim Giberti]

[Steve Connor] “That’s ridiculous, surely they can limit the amount of undos and wipe the render files associated as other NLEs do.
“

Surely they can.

[Tom Wolsky]

The far more serious problem is RAM, and that I think is directly OS related. Inactive memory completely pouches the whole system fairly quickly.

All the best,

Tom

“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2012 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand

[Steve Connor]

[Jim Giberti] ” and mine is hardly unique.
“

The scale of yours appears to be, I haven’t seen another example of that scale of corruption to drive level

Steve Connor
“FCPX Professional”
Adrenalin Television

[Jim Giberti]

[Tom Wolsky] “Earlier versions of FCP did the same thing. All render files for all sequences were retained as long as the application was open. And if you closed a project the render files for all the sequences for their playback were retained. Even if you never opened any of the sequences again or even opened the project again. “

But this isn’t the earlier version.
This is the version where every project is open all the time which means you may be sitting on hundreds of gigs of junk, which is why I’m saying keep your project folder clean.

And I never had any earlier version spin beach balls and display a regular delay in key response.

Also you realize that the new backup that was implemented in 1.0.3 now saves your project every 15 minutes. Imagine trying to run a complex edit, while your program is trying to backup a 56 GB file 4 times an hour – which is why I pointed that out.

Deleting Unused render files and keeping a clean project folder is good advice in a thread regarding the nagging performance and beach ball issue that’s regularly discussed.

I’m just trying to give good advice Tom.