Slow Slow Slow Slow... do I need a new Mac Pro?

I'm confused...

It pretty tricky to understand what is going on without more info.

What kind of media are you using? Are the source clips .mp4s? Are they from pro-res original sources? Are they camera media? C300? 5D? MVI files? A mixture?

From a previous screenshot I can see some media is 60fps, your project is 25. Is that intentional? For slowmo?

On a low end machine, with not a lot of RAM, are you optimising media? Have you tried proxies?

Do you have your viewer set to "better performance" or "better quality"?

You mention comp clips, are you using lots of these within a 5 min project?

Give us some more info, and let's see if we can help.

Wow... ok I may have opened a can here and as such feel very guilty.

Media. Um - DSLR footage, IPHONE6 and Go Pro. 30fps - some are 25fps - this is a different session to the other I posted.

Its a low end machine? OH! ha, that was my first question in the OP. 8GB DDR3 2.9 i5.

Viewer set to better performance.

There are no comp clips currently.

The maker of the Mlooks just said...


"have you tried trashing Final Cut's preferences (by launching it with the CMD+Alt keys pressed)? mLooks are pretty light to compute so the performance overhead may come from FCPX's own corrupted cache files. Just remember that deleting the prefs will close all of your active Libraries, you can import them back via File > Open Library > Other > Locate menu

It may also be caused by the background render doing some heavy lifting, you could try disabling it temporarily.


- Not sure I want to do the above so late into a project. its the colours that have made the most difference.

Deleting preferences is not going to harm you in any way, and may indeed solve your issue. Don't worry, as this does not touch your libraries or media; you would not be "importing" anything, but merely opening the library. This is just because FCP X "remembers" the libraries that were open last time you used, storing this in the pref file; this being deleted, it will "forget" and open a new empty library, but your working library is intact.

Cool thanks,

I agree with the above, there is no harm in deleting preferences, it doesn't touch your libraries. It has helped me before, as has deleting FCPX and reinstalling from the app store (which also doesn't affect your libraries, or plugins for that matter)

If you do have background rendering set to off, make sure you do let the sequence render so there's no orange above the timeline. The built in graphics card on the laptop may struggle to render in real time with mlooks.

There's nothing in your media which should bring up any issues though, especially if you are working in HD. We have little mac mini here for admin stuff and that could easily handle that.

If you keep having problems, as others have mentioned, no harm in setting up a brand new clean test user, logging out of your own user account and loading your library logged into that new user. You'll need to install your plugins in that user, but that should be about it. Again, it won't mess with your project.

Wait that is wierd
I just re opened fc and when it was starting held alt and cmd and oddly there is now liek 60% less lag...?!!! no warnings or notices about cache just smoother. Really? that simple... surely its cause my machine has been off for a while?

PS - Orange is still there - always is when I colour, no matter what I do.

Have you tried to render the timeline? ctrl-shift-R, so that there is no orange left. If you do this is the performance improved?

Here is a great reason to keep projects and media on an external drive - they move to new users and computers with ease. ALSO on any computer, including your MacBook Pro, for FCPX to run smoothly you need to have a full half of your system *and* media drive empty. 8GB of ram is the barest minimum of ram needed to edit a timeline with multiple tracks of video, so you are pushing the computer's capability so you really need to make sure your drives are half empty to compensate.

The orange only indicated the media is not rendered. Your computer will play back more smoothly with the timeline rendered.

This is crazy... any reason now when I open the project having done all this and work on it - its like a completely differnt thing, surely its not that simple?

WOW you guys are amazing forum.

lydia.robertson1 wrote: Here is a great reason to keep projects and media on an external drive - they move to new users and computers with ease. ALSO on any computer, including your MacBook Pro, for FCPX to run smoothly you need to have a full half of your system *and* media drive empty. 8GB of ram is the barest minimum of ram needed to edit a timeline with multiple tracks of video, so you are pushing the computer's capability so you really need to make sure your drives are half empty to compensate.

So you think I should order a new Mac using the build your own jobby on MAC store?

I dont understand externals - so prefer to keep everything off the machine I am working on and keep all junk like music and docs on the hd - much less stress for me that way too many complicated librarys, proxies, files, rendering and strangeness with externals... but I do think being able to port is amazing.. that said I spend half a day learning that and failed dreadfully as I did also the creat a new user shenanigans.

I'm not sure what training or reading you have done to learn FCPX yet, but I would highly suggest Ripple Training. They currently have a 40% off sale that I came across.

FCPX Products
www.rippletraining.com/categories/final-...54&mc_eid=f2f1e38931

Beyond that, I would suggest reading the section in the online manual about media storage, library management and general workflow for projects. There are a lot of concepts there that I think could help you. Most of us have read through it and is how we learned:

help.apple.com/finalcutpro/mac/10.2/#/ver26ccfda0

Also, that online manual is broken into sections on the left and I think you could do a refresher of the Basics to see if there is anything there that stands out to look into. Media management and organization are the biggest selling points of FCPX and there are many ways to work there. It's deep, which is why I suggest reading up on it.

Thanks Dave... aaaah patience never my strong suit. Youtube.. in bed when I have time or when I get stuck

I'll mention what I personally consider the best way to get started.
www.peachpit.com/store/apple-pro-trainin...sional-9780134384153