Ben Pirouet
Forum Replies Created
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The current and new FXPlug plugins do work, you can see one of the new ones in use on my FCP screenshot above, and though i haven’t actually tested them, the new ProRes Quicktime plugin is ‘Universal’, though i will have a go at that tomorrow on a G5 to see how it performs.
I suppose the point i’m trying to make is that the new features work on PowerPC machines, so there must have been some conscious effort to make them PowerPC compatible, so why isn’t the software officially PowerPC compatible? Did Apple just say ‘na lets not bother testing it even though we’ve spent time making new features that work on PowerPC’ . I’d just like an explanation really.
And like i said above, FCS2 is still good software, BUT we can’t run a dual economy. We want to upgrade our Intel machines to FCS3 to take advantage of new features, but we can’t leave our PowerPC machines on older versions, they’d be useless to us.
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One thing i forgot to mention, when i loaded FCP7 on an older 1.9ghz iMac G5 machine to test it, it said FCP required a 2ghz G5 processor, and this box was new, it didn’t look like the box you got on FCP6 when you were missing a required hardware feature. So FCP7 clearly is designed to work on a G5 processor. FCP6 needed a 1.25ghz G4 Processor. So it’s not as if it’s an old requirement stamp that has been left in the programming.
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We have 30 Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5ghz machines at work which are more than capable, and if Final Cut Studio 3 works on PowerPC machines, why should we be forced to replace them at massive expensive? Also it’s useless having a dual economy with Final Cut, it’s either one version or nothing, so even if all the features didn’t work, the advantage of having PowerPC support to us would be enormous.
Anyway I’m not even hacking the software itself, i’m just bypassing an Installer system requirement check. The software itself is completely untouched. This is not like what some people do with FCP6 and hack the program itself to make it work with machines that don’t have Quartz Extreme or what have you. This version of FCS3 was clearly designed to work on PowerPC machines, at least to some extent. From what i’m observing, it looks as though the Intel only decision was made right at the last minute.
I could understand your point if the new features of FCS3 didn’t work, but as you’ll see from these pictures below, they DO actually work. With the exception of AVC-Intra support as i mentioned, all the new features i’ve tested so far work and work very well. Admittedly i haven’t tried every single feature, but so far i’ve had nothing but success. Even Motion 4 which is very processor and GPU heavy actually works faster than Motion 3 did.
Some examples here:
https://www.bpirozzolo.com/powerpcmotion.jpg – The new features of Motion like Reflections, shadows, framing camera support and depth of field all work perfectly, and on our G5 PowerMacs with the 256mb Nvidia GPUs work smoothly and efficiently.
https://www.bpirozzolo.com/powerpcfcp.jpg – FCP7 as you can see loads fine, new features like the new speed tools work without problems. I outputted the FCP timeline display via a Formac box to a studio monitor, all with no issues.
https://www.bpirozzolo.com/powerPCSTP.jpg – New features in Soundtrack Pro work very well too.
So what doesn’t work? I’m not stupid as to think that i KNOW that everything is going to work, but from the testing i did today everything seems to work very well.
I would never recommend that you purchase FCS3 purely for a PowerPC machine, but if you’ve got some Intel and PowerPC machines and you know that you’re going to purchase the software anyway, i’d say it’s worth the risk just to see if it actually works for you! So far it does for me… We’ll see if that changes.
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If you download the free app ‘Pacifist’ (search for it on Google), It will install the Final Cut Studio apps, including all the codecs and plugins etc exactly as the Apple Installer would do. It just ignores the System Requirements.
Before i did this though, i did manually look through all the packages to see what was Universal and what was Intel only, and like i said so far only AVC-Intra support is Intel Only it seems.
I’ll post some screenshots and some more details later.
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I can confirm that FCP7 not only works on PowerPC, it works VERY well.
I’m going to write up a full report about this tonight when i get home, and i’m going to be testing the rest of the apps too, but having done a very quick test, all the FCS3 apps at least open without issue on PowerPC. FCP i’ve done more testing on and no issues so far, even with new issues and stuff you’d expect to screw up if it’s not supported.
What i will say so far is that i’ve been through all the components and install files of FCS3 and so far the only ‘Intel Only’ component i can find is the AVC Intra plugin. I kind of expected that.
As i said, full report when i’m at home tonight.
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If anyone can get to a G5 machine before me, Install the individual .PKG files of Final Cut Pro rather than using the main installer. That’ll bypass the system requirements test.
I’ll have a go myself tomorrow morning if no one else does.
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So what’s the deal then? Even some of the new elements in FCS3 like the ‘Create Disc’ app that creates Blu-ray disks are ‘Universal’
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That kind of suggests that some elements require Intel processors but not all. To actually not state in the system requirements that PowerPCs will work to some extent is a bit dumb isn’t it, if it does work? Seeing as though all the Mac websites have stated that FCS3 is Intel only.
A bit of an update: I’ve managed to get Motion to open in Rosetta without any issue.
If elements of FCS3 do require Intel, what are they? All the apps seem to be Universal.
I’ve got a PowerMac G5 at work, i’ll test this tomorrow.
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Hmm dunno why those links didn’t work, try again.
https://www.bpirozzolo.com/FCP1.jpg
https://www.bpirozzolo.com/FCP2.jpg -
Just some screencaps to prove i’m not lying, both from FCP7:
Loading FCP7 from Rosetta gives me this box