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So how are we all getting on with 10.3?
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2009 upgraded MacPro (6 core 3.46ghz CPU, 980Ti GPU, and PCI SSDs) and 2013 MacBook Pro here. FCP X 10.3.1 is lighting fast with no issues yet.
Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com -
[Oliver Peters] “in comparing the two across several different machines, I find that when I do trimming via dragging clip edges, Premiere is a lot more responsive. This is not a new issue in my opinion.
The only time I feel FCPX truly lives up to its potential is when everything is SSD – computer hard drive, storage, etc. For example, it’s very slick on my MBP, but less so on a trash can connected to an external RAID – even via Thunderbolt. I always feels like I am outrunning the speed of the UI when I makes changes in the timeline. I don’t feel that way with Premiere.”
Premiere generally has a “crisp”, direct-coupled UI feel, but in some cases this can degrade much worse than FCPX. OTOH the FCPX UI is often severely degraded by computational load from plugins. A plugin like Digital Anarchy’s Flicker Free will cause the UI to lag severely. This isn’t pure CPU contention, since macOS UI events outside FCPX are still processed. Rather the UI event queue in FCPX is somehow in the same loop as back end plugin computation. I’ve never seen Premiere do that.
FCPX 10.3 has significant UI performance issues with stacked timelines (ie connected clips), which can cause several seconds of lag when dragging clips. This will probably be fixed pretty soon.
That said, FCPX (at least when running on identical Mac hardware) is much faster than Premiere in terms of viewer update rate and general keyboard responsiveness on a H264 4k timeline. On my top-spec 2015 iMac 27 with media on a Thunderbolt 2 SSD RAID-0 array, Premiere CC 2017 can lag several seconds updating the program monitor when fast forwarding on a 4k timeline. That is using Mercury GPU rendering and 1/4 resolution display. Viewer updates on FCPX are much faster, and that’s not including skimmer performance which is probably 20 times faster. Premiere lags severely on JKL input when FF/REV on a 4k timeline — it’s so sluggish it feels like the keyboard is broken.
Premiere does keep the playhead moving more smoothly than FCPX in such cases — almost as if they dedicated a separate high-priority thread to just doing that. However you can’t really tell where you are because the program monitor is like a slide show.
Improving performance in cases like this is often hard, tedious work. Years ago the senior managers at FoxBase would walk around with stopwatches around their necks, and the programmers were subject to an impromptu timed performance test of their code. The message was that performance — not just features — was critical. That definitely doesn’t happen anymore.
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Glad to know I am not the only one experience lag with dragging connected clips For some reason it is much worse in 10.3 than in 10.2.X.
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I removed FCPX 10.3.1 with FCS Remover from Digital Rebellion and re-installed from the App Store and so far the interface issues have gone away. FWIW
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I’m very sad to see FCPX 10.3.1 still suffers from horrible latency when A/V output is active. I’ve sadly had it confirmed “that’s the way it is” more or less. Unusable I’d even say for people requiring this.
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[Erik Lindahl] “‘m very sad to see FCPX 10.3.1 still suffers from horrible latency when A/V output is active. I’ve sadly had it confirmed “that’s the way it is” more or less. Unusable I’d even say for people requiring this.”
What device do you have?
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8-core 2013 nMP / D700 / 64 GB / 1TB with a LaCie 8-big 24TB raid and a BMD Ultrastudio 4K.
Sadly this issue has persisted on every single version of FCPX / OSX and hardware I’ve tested. MacPro 2008 and MacBook Pro 2011 with AMD-GPU’s and AJA video-cards (Kona 3 and t-tap), iMac 2012 with a GTX680MX and BMD Ultra Studio Monitor and the nMP. I must have tested every macOS- / FCPX-combo.
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[Erik Lindahl] “BMD Ultrastudio 4K.”
I switched to back to AJA after a brief hiatus and it changed my FCPX life.
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Sadly that’s a no-go since we use Resolve.
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[Erik Lindahl] “Sadly that’s a no-go since we use Resolve.”
Blackmagic devices… a mix of pleasure and PAIN.
Dean Neal…
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