FCPX Rendering Sooooo Slow

Hey guys.

Im sure this has been asked 100 times and it now my turn.

Bought a brand new imac 6 months ago with an external 4TB G-drive. Lateley the more and more I edit now the slower and slower my machine is becoming with rendering and even trying add the simplest of transition. Since then I have added an additional 16gb of RAM to the existing 8GB Ram bring the machine to 24GB RAM. This has made a slight implrovement but still chugging. I store everything on my external hardrive and work out of that. I am sure this program is meant to work much more efficently than this and know I am doing something wrong.

My IMAC

27-inch: 3.2GHz
3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5
Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
24GB (two 4GB two 8GB) memory
1TB hard drive1
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX with 1GB

external HD 4TB G_DRIVE

Running FCPX 10.0.8

There is so much advice on the internet and really not sure what angle to take. I have spoke to apple store and they are not sure and only said to upgrade ram and try maybe working from computer harddrive instead of ext.

I am sure there are some FCPX experts on here that konw exactly what I am doign wrong and would be so grateful for some direction. This issue is really suppressing the way I wish to edit as I get frustrated trying to do something and having to wait constantly for FCPX to even sometime recognise my cursor.

Also is there advice on the best way to manage folders, events, projects, and how to import in and out of FCPX?

Thanks in advance.

Before getting into details I have some more questions for you:

1. How is your G-drive connected to your system?
2. By rendering do you mean rendering clips on the timeline or exporting (sharing)?
3. Do you always have all your Projects and Events open in FCPX or do you use Event Manager to hide any Events and Project you do not need for the job you are working on?
4. Do you have any Projects or Events on your system drive?

- Ronny

1. G-drive is connected externally through USB connection
2. rendering on timeline in project
3. Event manager ? by open you mean I can see all my events displayed. Yes I think. Also when I open FCPX it has to load all my events. Y
4. nothing is on my system drive. everything is managed out of G-drive.

I think the main problem with your workflow is the USB connection.

Yes, unless it's a USB3 drive and your iMac has USB3 and you use the correct USB3 cable, it's definitely the drive that is the main bottleneck...

everything was bought brand new 6 months ago from apple store. the gdrive is 7200rpm and supports usb3.0 but i dont think i have it connected. I think i need to buy adaptor to support the cable form ex hd. thanks a good start for me. appreciate it. will buy tomorrrow from apple and let you know

i think i need to get a thunderbolt to firewire adaptor

If your iMac has a USB3 port this is good enough for regular editing and rendering.

If your iMac does not have an USB3 port an USB adaptor cable will not improve your performance and you should look for a different way to connect your drive to your iMac. A Thunderbolt to FireWire adaptor would indeed be a better option.

But that's not your only problem. You have all your Events and Projects open at the same time, this is bad for FCPX performance. You always must hide any Events and Projects that you don't need for the job you are working on. You can hide them manually in the Finder by taking any unused Events and Projects outside of the "Final Cut Events" and "Final Cut Projects" folders. Or you can use Event Manager X to do this automatically for you. Event Manager X is cheap and it is a must-have for anyone working with FCPX.

If you have connected your external drive via USB3 or via Thunderbolt/FireWire, and if you make sure that FCPX only sees the Event and Project you are working on and not all the others, you will be working much faster.

However, if you still should experience slow rendering after having done this it is time for you to delete your Project render files. Multiple render files for the same clip can get corrupted, and trashing them will improve your workflow. Render files are absolutely unnecessary for exporting your final project as they are ignored during the sharing process.

- Ronny

hey cheers ronnie i thought that may have been the case but wasnt sure how to sort. the addition of the manager sounds like the go. I will sort out tomorrow following your advice and get back to you. really appreciate your time and explaining it for me. Thank you

No sweat, that's what we're here for

Do keep us updated and feel free to ask any further questions.

- Ronny

@Ronny
Slightly off topic. Did a quick test on a small project that was already rendered. Export master file to HD was ca. 10 seconds.
After I deleted project render files and did a new export master it took ca. 2 minutes (40 second test project).
So obviosly render files must play some kind of role?

I'm sorry, I should have phrased this differently: exporting an un-rendered timeline is faster than rendering and then exporting. We have had some discussions about this:

www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/...ally-render-in-fcp-x

- Ronny

Hey Ronnie

That event manager is a must have, so glad to have that now. and will try turning render off tonight. Read that link you passsed on. A lot saying that is a big hurdle in FCP processing.

Anyway followed all the advice using event manager and thunderbolt connection and rendering is still running slowish. It is better but happy to take on more advice.

One thing i do quite often is copy other events (compounded clips) out of other projects, like an intro used previously or a graphic that I know is in another project. Is this a big no no and should I be importing again or Should I be isolating these to there own project file your thoughts. I am aboviously working FCPX the wrong way.

is there a must read before using FCPX or do you just get into and learn as you go.

If there is media and CCs you use often over and over and over, put them in their own Event.

Are you using any 3rd party plug-ins/effects?

I've found that for example Motion VFX's mVintage makes rendering suuuuper slooow on my machine although it's really fast with other effects, the ones that came with FCPX especially...

DZ
So your saying stick with the plugins the FCPX provide only?

BenB
Ok cheers for that will do.


Last night I created a new event with clips imported from my camera and dropped some clips into a new project. it still seems to be taking its time to render. is there some maintenace or cleanup you should do periodically with FCPX? like a defraf all clean out certain files to optimise?

ive used a few

pixelfilm studio
motion VFX

am I totally agree they killed my machine and made it super slow.

What do you do if you want to use them then? do you have a prefered plugin? My case must be an isolated isssue otherwise people would not use thse plugins or use FCPX for that matter.

I have Red Giants Magic Bullet Looks 2 and mLooks 1 and 2. The FCPX factory installed looks are the fastest. mLooks are second, and Magic Bullet, (as much as I love them), are the slowest, but better, of the bunch. Otherwise I have been getting better and better at just using the color board, saturation,, and exposure for what I want. As time goes by you'll obviously find which individual effects, looks, etc bog ya down. You can also add them to see what they look like then disable them in the inspector until you want to actually share the project...then don't forget to turn it back on.

thanks Don.

the thing that gets me is you look at the project FCPX use to promote this software with the audi and there is so much going on and my projects are not even close to that and FCPX goes blurr too hard and slows down.

Do you do any clean up or maintenance to FCPX. is there a cache that should be deleted? Ronnie mentioned render files in a previous post, should i delete them?

Please check the following:

1. Did you check the USB connection of your G-drive? As we said before USB2 is NOT acceptable for editing and this will surely make your entire system run slow. Can you confirm you are not editing from a USB2 drive?

2. If the drive connection is not the issue it is correct that certain effects render much slower than others. To test this you should create a new project and fill the timeline with some clips but add no effects at all. Then render or export the timeline. Does it render or export slow?

3. If you are sure you are not working with USB2, the new project without any effects renders fast enough and your existing project still renders very slowly this is probably a third party effect slowing you down.

- Ronny