'new mac pro's & fcpx

Does anyone have one of the cylinder mac pros and use it primarily for FCPX?

What I'd like to know is its editing performance vs. your older system.
By editing, I mean timeline performance, not render times.
(trim, multiple projects open, copy/paste, plugins etc..)

I just re-installed yosemite and fcpx new. No other software other than video card drivers and better touch tool.
My system is a 5,1 mac pro tower, 3.33ghz, 32gigs ram, internal SSD (raid) and a gtx 680 w/ 2gb ram.

After the new install, fcpx is better, but nothing worth bragging about. Not really sure if it was worth the effort.

Are the new mac pros 'that much better' ?

thanks for any input..

Kurt

There are known issues with the current version of FCP X. I know Apple is aware of it because they have communicated with me about it.

Projects slow down over time. The interface can become very laggy as a project gets more complex. Changes can take a full second or more to complete.

Sometimes a re-start will clear it and sometimes not. I am seeing this on a new Mac Pro cylinder. I noticed the difference on my laptop when updating from 10.0.9 to 10.1.4. If they don't do anything else with the next update, they have to fix this.

good they acknowledged it anyway..
I've been seeing this from day 1..

yes you are right, shutting down fcpx and re starting it works... till then next restart 15 minutes later.. really frustrating.

because you cant save a filters (trans, filter, generator etc..) presets, I fin that I need to have a previous project open, in order to copy/ paste the settings. Having multiple projects open is no help in the matter. We really need the ability to save effect presets (amongst other things I'd like to see)

But this is the big issue for me, that editing on the timeline and its sluggishness takes so much out of me during editing..

Late 2013 Mac Pro (tube), 3GHz 8-core, D700 GPUs (don't get the slower GPUs), 1TB SSD internal, P2 12TB RAID external. I've no real issues at all.

I really feel like Apple needs to address the crappy performance issue with Final Cut, because at this point... I'm starting to wonder if FCPX is something I should stick with or try other platforms. Don't get me wrong, I love FCPX, but when my 15 minute long project bogs down to the point where I can't do anything quickly.. I wonder how in the hell other editors are putting up with making 30~60 minute videos!!

agreed.
this sluggishness really is a let down using fcpx and it never seems to get fixed.
I just watch the memory meter usage rise and rise, even with smaller projects.

I like fcpx because of the integration with motion and custom effects/titles etc.. that I can make. It speeds things up a lot depending on the project.

Every now and then I need to use premiere, and its speed (timeline editing) is like day and night compared to FCPX.

Using a mix of maxed out new iMacs and new MacPros and we don't get these issues. Timelines are anything between 25 and 50 minutes (broadcast program lengths), sometimes 90 or 100 minutes. Footage is a mix of Alexa, RED, Sony broadcast cameras, C300/500 and sometimes GoPros as well. My friends in Denmark now work with 6 to 8 people on the same FCP X projects at the same time over SAN and they report no sluggishness either.

On long multicam projects with loads of active audio channels things can slow down, mainly due to constant waveform redraw. In such cases we turn waveforms off when we don't need to see them, which makes editing much smoother.

When we use lots of titles and effects we regularly render, even though this is not required for smooth playback on these fast machines. But it helps improving the editing experience. All in all FCP X runs pretty fast no matter what kind of projects we deal with.

I know there are some people who do experience sluggish timeline response over time, but it's certainly not a general issue. As Anickt said: Apple has contacted several people who have reported such problems. So I'm sure they are looking into what may be causing this for some people while others have no problems.

- Ronny

It is my main issue w/ FCPX.
Sluggishness from day one, and on a couple mac pros w/ various video cards.

This is why I installed a new OS on SSD and a new install of FCPX with no other software and plugins, to see if it was a bloated OS causing the problems.
I have done this now two times on two different mac pros.

Ronny, what do you mean by 'maxed out' systems?
Hopefully I wont need to mortgage my house to get FCPX to run right..

I as well have turned off waveform draw but it still draws..
What is suppose to NOT draw if this is set in the preferences?

It would be nice if FCPX drew all the waveforms at once rather than when a clip/project is opened. This way you could let it sit overnight, if need be, rather than have to face the issue every time you open a clip.,

thanks
Kurt

Hi Kurt,

The iMacs are early 2013 models, not even the new Retina 5K ones. Work like a charm. Maxed out = 32 Gigs RAM and the fastest processors and GPU. I also had FCP X on 2012 12-core MacPros with 64 GigsRAM. The 2013 iMacs outperformed these so much, and they cost much less, so I dumped the MacPros. So you absolutely don't need much money to run FCP X, just a fast new iMac which is even cheaper than equivalent old MacPros.

When working on the timeline you can disable waveform redraw by setting Clip Appearance to video only. If you also want to disable waveforms in the Inspector you just need to hide the Channel Configuration.

- Ronny

No Issues here woking in Final Cut Pro X on a Mac Pro late 2013.

Only time when Final Cut Pro X hits its knees "sometimes depending on the length" is when working only in REDcode.

Also, who is running weekly and monthly maintenance routines? We run Disk Utility to repair all drives once a week, and verify free space on all drives. Verify all unnecessary files are trashed and trash is emptied. Once a month we run Disk Warrior to repair the directories on all drives, too. Just wondering out loud if anyone else does these things religiously?

I use Disk Warrior regularly. My external LaCie Thunderbolt 2 SSD RAID seems to need replacement directory quite often. I am not sure if this is a false alarm, I do not know, or if it is the media on the disk that confuses DW. I only have libraries on that disk.

That is not unusual, most directories have errors in them. The are designed with some fault tolerance, but if the get to messed up your drive wil crash, with very little if any recoverable data. The majority of crashed hard drives are not due to physical damage, but corrupted directories. There is now way to determine which is which unless you have a kazillion dollars. So we toss them as bad, not worth taking the chance. Disk Warrior is great preventative maintenance to avoid this. So yes, it should be rebuilding the directory almost every time you run it.

Thank you Ben, good information. 9 out of 10 are always good (version 5). There are no "red" warnings after running DW all is "green" It never goes lower than that so I think I stop replacing the directory. I have solid backups so I run 0 RAID and this drive is extremely fast.

Although I'm only on a MacBook Pro (2.6ghz/16gb) with a 1gb graphics card, things are generally smooth. I only use USB3 drives, and start to feel that I need to get some TB raid or something. (Wouldn't mind a new computer either though).

What usually slows my FCPX down is certain third party effects, the worst offenders are motionVFX's mVintage and mGlitch. They are unusable without render. Need to add them, render, look, modify, render again, look and repeat until I have what I want. Very annoying as I really like the look of the motionVFX stuff.

Yes, I also use disk warrior and try to keep HDD (SSD) up to par.
I can usually tell if it is a HDD issue causing any slowdown of editing.

Plugins, if used, can cause unexpected results.

But I want to point out that this is a clean install of the OS and FCPX with nothing else on the system OS...

Scrubelicious, can you give me some speks on your system (CPU/cores, video cards etc..)
thanks
Kurt

To explain a bit more about timeline editing and what I mean when I started this post:

.Trim a clip on the timeline and there is a pause before you release the courser.
.Alt and drag to copy and paste a clip, long delay before the clip actually settles to where you want to paste it.
.open another event so you can copy paste an effect setting from a previous project or open another project on the timeline so you can copy paste the effects settings into your new project, this paste action also has delays.
.contextual menu on the timeline, for example expand audio video compnents, delay on expanding and collapsing.
.drag a transition between 2 clips, delay before the trans is applied.
.drag filters generators to the timeline, delay before applied
.from the timeline, show clip animation and add a keyframe and the keyframe gets applied in the wrong place, delay as well when its finally applied.
.drag a clip from one area of the timeline to another, delay before the clip settles within its new position

All these issues above are on 422 clips and a timeline set to the clips properties.
All these issues above get worse over time or get worse because the timeline is 'more complex'
All these issues above are with using the default effects (no 3rd party stuff)

These are some of the things I mean by timeline editing, nothing to do with speed of rendering or timeline render. just activity on the timeline itself.

thanks
Kurt

Do you experience the same effect when having your waveforms off?
We have a older MacBook that does the same when the Waveforms are on.

Yes, sorry I forgot to mention that, the timeline I usually set to the small setting where you can not see the waveform, however many times as well I need to see the waveform for trimming.
So as a test I copied all media (a lot of it) to an internal SSD raid.
Not much of a difference. Theere was plenty of difference however in importing files. I usually have all the cache write to SSD.
On the external raid I have, I can see the HDD lights working so I can tell if any delay is HDD seek time related.