Stuttering / glitching… :(

[Craig Seeman]

Not enough RAM?
Using internal drive for media?
Using a 13″ MacBookPro but you said “top of the line” so would that be a 15″ Retina?

[Daniel Mulford]

Don’t think I’ve got a Retina, but yeah it’s a 15″ MBP, with 4GB RAM.

I’m not using an external drive. I only read about using an external drive earlier today. I have a fairly cheap 500 GB backup drive, should I set up FCP to use that? Is there a way to get FCP to save Events to the backup drive?

[Bret Williams]

Get some RAM. Its pretty cheap. 4 GB is barely enough to run X and the OS. It’s not recommended to use the internal for media, but X is definitely designed with that in mind. If your second drive is USB 2 I’d stick with the internal. But if its USB 3 you might give it a shot.

[Daniel Mulford]

Thanks for the advice so far. 🙂 I’ll definitely invest in some RAM – how much would you recommend? Also, my drive is pretty slow – it’s a USB 2.0. If anyone could recommend a good (budget-friendly) drive, that would be appreciated.

[Marcus Moore]

I have to disagree with Bret. FCPX may ALLOW Events and Project on the internal drive, but it wasn’t meant for it. It’s never a good idea on any system if you want good performance.

For good performance:

1. More RAM! Any number over 10 will be WAY more acceptable.
2. Use external drive for Projects AND Events.
3. This drive shouldn’t be USB 2. Either USB3.0 or Thunderbolt.

[Russ Haskell]

Also, in Preferences, set Playback Quality to Better Performance.

Russ

[Lance Bachelder]

Welcome to FCPX – there’s no machine made – yet – that can run FCPX well. While it does some tasks better than any other NLE, it’s amazing how simple things like a certain transition or effect will make it choke.

I was doing some bumpers this week using X – background, .png logo with 2 keyed greenscreen shots (Pro Res 4444) on top (4 video “tracks” plus sound fx). FCPX just couldn’t handle it – yes it could be the 8GB of RAM and ATI 4870 card I know but playback was terrible and pausing on the comp turned black.

Then it did the exact same comp in Premiere CC on the SAME machine (8 core 4,1 2.93 blah blah). Without an approved CUDA card Premiere was 100% real-time! And the Ultra Keyer in Premiere is fantastic while the keyer in X was terrible! I didn’t expect this at all and remain blown away how fast and smooth CC is.

So while your current set up is a contributing factor, there is still a lot of work for Apple to do to optimize FCPX the way Adobe has optimized Premiere CC.

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[Steve Connor]

[Lance Bachelder] “Welcome to FCPX – there’s no machine made – yet – that can run FCPX well.”

Bullplop

Steve Connor

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

[Lance Bachelder]

Well I’ve run it on the fastest iMac made and a couple of pretty fast Mac Pro’s all using RAID arrays, SSD’s etc. and it definitely chokes way more than any modern NLE should. There is simply no comparison to the real-time performance of Premiere CC whether you want to believe it or not. I assume you won’t…

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[Steve Connor]

[Lance Bachelder] “Well I’ve run it on the fastest iMac made and a couple of pretty fast Mac Pro’s all using RAID arrays, SSD’s etc. and it definitely chokes way more than any modern NLE should. There is simply no comparison to the real-time performance of Premiere CC whether you want to believe it or not. I assume you won’t…”

Well I don’t get bad choking on my system and based on the fact it’s only mentioned as an issue on the tech forum when people like the OP try to run it all on their system drives or via USB2.0 and have only 4GB RAM then I would dispute your ridiculously sweeping statement at the start of your post.

PPro CC is very fast though, there is no doubt about that, I am using both at the moment, but interestingly FCPX runs 4K XAVC better than PPro CC

Steve Connor

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