Stutering playback in FCP X, specs should be ok?

[Diego Barraza]

Thank you Michel and others for your support.

My graphic card is a AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1024 MB more than plenty to handle HDV and ProRes. Most definitely RAM is the only way to go. I am thinking that because I have other events in the media browser that might be hogging the RAM, will check the RAM usage via process view.

To edit in Proxy seems a contradiction. I have a decent specs machine, with the latest and to edit in Proxy something that I could do in older machines and older versions of FCP would be a sad regress.

Ill keep posting how its going.

filmmaking-editing-dop-dad

[Sandeep Sajeev]

Have to disagree with this Eric. FW800 handles ProRes without any issues.

As an aside, the FW800 ports on my GSpeed Q stopped working in the middle of a project and I was forced to use USB2. This worked flawlessly as well (ProRes 422 HQ footage). I was surprised, to say the least.

[Michael Garber]

agreed re: proxy. just making a suggestion of a workaround to get you, well, working 😉

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company

[Claude Lyneis]

When the stuttering occurs open the Activity Monitor and look at both CPU activity and system memory. If the amount of free memory becomes small (much less than 1 GB) that would verify that you need more memory. This happened all the time on my old iMac, but with my new 27 inch iMac which is running 8 GB it seems to manage the memory OK. The good news is the iMac 27″ has four slots so I can add another 8 GB without dumping the existing memory.

[Diego Barraza]

Thank you Claude for the input. Just ebayed a couple of 4GB sticks. It is definitely a RAM issue. Kind of sad, that a 4min HDV project with 4 cross fades and 2 effects is eating the 4GB of RAM the machine now has. FCPX is a bit of a RAM hog. Was not the case in older versions.

I will post more info, when I get the new RAM slotted. See how things run.

filmmaking-editing-dop-dad

[Diego Barraza]

12GB of RAM upgrade. Much better, no stuttering and things running smoothly. FCPX loves the RAM.

Thank you everybody for your comments.

filmmaking-editing-dop-dad

[Chad Smith]

I too am having stutter issues with my Mac Pro early 2009 dual quad core 2.26Ghz with 14gigs of RAM GT120 and flashed GTX 285 display cards. BMD Decklink Extreme 3 playing back a pro res HQ file that is 1hr and 28 min. From Raid 5 450megs sec. Running OSX 10.8.2 FCPX 10.0.7

One thing I found is if I have the video scopes running FCPX will not play without stuttering. I am not finding a way to have less resolution on the scope as was possible with FCP7. With scopes off I can play down for 10min or so before it starts stuttering and dropping frames. Playback quality is set to high as this is the final version of the film and want to see how it really looks. Is there a way to watch a film down in FCPX without it dropping frames and stuttering? Perhaps I need to upgrade the GT120?