Is it RAM that's giving me hard time

Hello,

I been using Mac Pro late 2013, 3.5Ghz 6 Core Xeon E5, with AMD FirePro D500 3072 MB and 32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3 to edit my HD footage on FCPX.


by default RAM was 16GB which I upgraded to 32 GB (16*2) from Kingston.

Not sure is it RAM now that, my footage on timeline lags and often slow?

How can I check if I got a faulty RAM or what else can I do to make faster

Rds
Robin

Probably not. What is your hard drive configuration and specs?

Its an 250Gb SSD that comes with MAc Pro

OK, so how much of that is free space?

You really should have an external drive for all your Libraries and media.

I have 200 GB free space on internal SSD, I have all my Media on external Seagate USB 3 drive, Also I store the Library on external drive only..however FCPX makes one default copy of Lib in documents.

robinsaini wrote: ...Mac Pro late 2013, 3.5Ghz 6 Core Xeon E5, with AMD FirePro D500 3072 MB and 32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3 to edit my HD footage on FCPX....my footage on timeline lags and often slow?...what else can I do to make faster....

If you are editing H264 4k content with the viewer set to "best quality", it might be a little sluggish -- especially if multicam.

H264 4k is very difficult to edit with totally smooth performance -- it is 4x the data of 1080p, but your computer is not 4x faster. Fortunately FCPX has built-in proxy support, but you must generate the files then remember to switch the viewer back to "optimized/original" before exporting, else it will export proxy resolution.

If it is slow when editing 1080p, let us know -- in that case there may be something wrong.

[quote=

H264 4k is very difficult to edit with totally smooth performance -- it is 4x the data of 1080p, but your computer is not 4x faster. Fortunately FCPX has built-in proxy support, but you must generate the files then remember to switch the viewer back to "optimized/original" before exporting, else it will export proxy resolution.

If it is slow when editing 1080p, let us know -- in that case there may be something wrong.[/quote]

I only edit 1080 p footage.
Also sometimes fcpx works extremely fast and sometimes goes slow.

regarding proxy media, i guess you meant this

- Import all media by ticking "Create Proxy Media under Transcoding"
- Under view , change setting to Better performance & Proxy
- but when I export , I change the setting under View to better performance & Optimized/original

Right ?

robinsaini wrote: ....I only edit 1080 p footage.
Also sometimes fcpx works extremely fast and sometimes goes slow....

I have never seen FCPX slow when simply editing a single stream of H264 1080p without any effects on a Mac Pro or top-spec iMac 27.

If you are editing multicam or split screen it might slow down a bit; likewise if you have applied compute-intensive effects those must be either rendered or simulated. In that case it's not the *material* slowing down FCPX it is the effects which you applied. You don't get something for nothing, and some effects such as stabilization and video noise reduction are extremely compute-intensive and slow to run.

It may be best to do most of your content editing first before applying any effects, and certainly before applying any compute-intensive effects. If you apply these effects early in the edit process, it will have to frequently re-render those.

If you have left background rendering enabled, this could explain why it is periodically slow. Depending on how long you sit and think about the next edit, it has a variable period to perform background rendering. When the timeline is rendered it will be fast; when not rendered it may be slower if certain effects or multicam are employed.

Normally FCPX is so fast that on a recent well-equipped machine it can edit H264 1080p using camera native files, with no need to transcode or even use background rendering. However if you are using any combination of (a) 4k H264 media, (b) Compute-intensive effects, (c) Multicam, then you may need to create proxy or optimized media files.

You can create these either during import or after import. Instructions: support.apple.com/kb/PH12702?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US

Hi Robin
For finding out if RAM is an issue there are at least 2 possibilities for problems. The first is "Do I have enough RAM". This you can check using Activity Monitor in your Utilities Folder. Under the Memory Tab you can see how much memory is being used and monitor if at anytime you are pushing the need to "Swap" ram to disk. There is a "Pressure Graph" on the bottom left of the window that will do real time updates of memory pressure represented by 3 colors, Green no pressure lots of RAM available, Yellow means some compression of memory but should still be OK and finally Red which means the System is having to write data to disk. Lots of Red means you need more RAM or close any programs you can to free up memory. Shutting down and restarting your Mac is also a good practice in this case. You can also see how much pages are being "Swapped".
Here are a couple of articles… www.lifewire.com/use-activity-monitor-to...memory-usage-2260880
support.apple.com/en-us/HT201464
I suspect you have plenty of RAM

The second problem could be bad RAM. Still I don't think this is problem either unless you are having other issues like apps quitting unexpectedly, kernel panics that restart your Mac…. Bad RAM almost always causes lots of problems. Apple provides a way to test RAM and system hardware via Apple Diagnostics or you can use Terminal to run MemTest or a GUI based RAM test, like Rember.
support.apple.com/kb/PH18765?locale=en_US
www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac/how-test-f...-ram-on-mac-3640485/

Personally I think it is your storage device, specifically you Seagate drive. If this is the portable drive, then Seagate mostly uses 5400rpm drives inside, the chipset may not be USB Attached SCSI Protocol (USAP) capable and therefore uses Bulk Only Transport (BOT) and came formatted most likely as EX FAT a Microsoft drive format. Did you reformat the drive to macOS (GUID) journaled? Don't reformat without backing up as reformatting will erase drive. If using Sierra, make sure your drivers and firmware is up to date via the Seagate website.
UASP is a much better and faster protocol than BOT and I always recommend getting devices that are UASP capable. I have written about this before here on fcp.co. Or Google it.
Using a Seagate 1TB 5400rpm USB3 drive (BOT) I get around 55-65MB/s data throughput W/R for sequential files in the standard Seagate USB3 enclosure. Have seen up to around 100MB/s by putting this drive in a UASP enclosure.
My advice would be to get a ssd drive and a UASP enclosure. I am seeing ~388Mb/s Write / 465Mb/s Read speeds with the 500GB Evo disk in both a Inatech and StarTech enclosures with UASP enabled.

All of the other advice is good, but with your Mac you should be able to edit just fine.

Hope this helps, Greg

What kind of footage are you trying to edit? Are you transcoding it to optimize it, and/or creating proxy media?

There is an option in the FCPX preferences, on the "Playback" tab that says "If frames drop due to disk performance, warn after playback". You might want to enable that, perhaps your external disk is becoming a bottleneck.

You might also want to try something like Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on the external drive to make sure the performance is suitable for your format.

Also, if the external is getting full that will have an impact on how it performs.

" I have all my Media on external Seagate USB 3 drive, Also I store the Library on external drive only..however FCPX makes one default copy of Lib in documents."

So you have TWO external drives, or ONE?

If you open FCPX with no Library specified, it will open with the default Library called "Untitled" it creates itself. Be sure that on your Mac, in the System Preferences > General > Recent Items is set to something (10-20 is good).

RAM won't cause playback to be slow, that's a drive issue for sure. What we need here is:
1- Make, model, capacity of each and every external drive.
2- How cable are run to connect them all.
3- How much free space is on each (must be at least 15%).

We can pretty much answer everything with that additional information.

FCPX.guru wrote: ...
So you have TWO external drives, or ONE?...RAM won't cause playback to be slow, that's a drive issue for sure. What we need here is:

He has a six-core nMP D500, media is on one (or more?) external Seagate USB 3.0 drive -- whether bus-powered, AC-powered, 5400 rpm, 7200 rpm, 2.5" or 3.5" -- we don't know.

He has (apparently) only H264 1080p content from three cameras: 5D Mark III, 5D Mark IV, and Sony FS7. He is not using proxy. He has not said whether multicam is involved. We assume he imported with "leave files in place" and all his media is on the external drive, but he hasn't verified this. Since the FS7 uses tree-based MXF, it's possible this was copied to the library -- which is also on an external drive, whereas the .MOV content is being accessed in place.

His stated problem is skimming the Sony MXF 1080p content is slower than skimming the 1080p content from the Canon cameras. He has not said whether it's continuously slower, intermittently slower, or how much slower. He has not said whether the viewer is in "best performance" or "best quality". Robinsaini, please correct any of this as needed.

If his MXF content was copied to the library during import and if that is on a slower or overloaded drive (maybe different from the MOV content) that could explain why skimming it seems slower than the MOV content.

He needs to use the library inspector and tell us where the imported MXF media actually is. Is it in the library, outside the library, same drive as MOV, different drive, or what.

Another possibility is plug-ins.
Robin do you use any 3rd party plug-ins? If so, which ones and what versions? Make sure all are up to date. Some plug-ins are notorious for slowing down FCPX.
What effects are being applied? Are you using certain effects or plug-ins on the clips that are stuttering?
Are we indeed talking about Multi-cam here?
Have you done the RAM testing to eliminate bad RAM as a possibility?

Hope this helps, Greg

joema wrote:

FCPX.guru wrote: ...


I HAVE SET MY PREFERENCE TO "BEST PERFORMANCE" , ALSO THE SKIMMING GET STICK MOSTLY WITH MXF FILES AND SOMETIME WHEN I HAVE GOT THE TIMELINE READY, IT ALSO SLOWS DOWN ON TIMELINE.


NONE OF THE CONTENT GETS COPIED TO LIBRARY, ALL IS LEFT IN PLACE I.E ON THE HARDRIVES.

I DO USE MULTICAM , SOMETIMES AS IN INDIA WEDDING DURING DANCE HOUR WE NEED 4-5 CAMERAS, IF I USE A 2-3 MINS CLIPS FOR MULTICAM , IT SOMETIMES WORKS GOOD AND MOST IF TIEM SLOWS DOWN THE MAC

SEAGATE IS 3.5 INCH 5200 . PLUAGABLE DRIVES WITH USB 3.0 CONNECTION

GUESS ********************

I FOUND THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM, IT WAS THE HARDRIVES THAT WAS BOTTLE NECK IN THE PROCESS, AS WITH 72MB/S SPEED ..EVEN IF 32GB RM AND MAC PRO...GUESS DRIVES WERE NOT FAST ENOUGH TO SEND READ DATA.

SO GOT A G-TECH 12 TB RAID O DRIVE AND HOPEFULLY THAT SHOULD SOLVE THE PROBLEMS..WILL KEEP YOU ALL POSTED.

RDS

robinsaini wrote: ...I DO USE MULTICAM...4-5 CAMERAS, IF I USE A 2-3 MINS CLIPS FOR MULTICAM , IT SOMETIMES WORKS GOOD AND MOST IF TIEM SLOWS DOWN THE MAC...SEAGATE IS 3.5 INCH 5200....WITH USB 3.0....
I FOUND THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM, IT WAS THE HARDRIVES....WITH 72MB/S SPEED....SO GOT A G-TECH 12 TB RAID O DRIVE AND HOPEFULLY THAT SHOULD SOLVE THE PROBLEMS..WILL KEEP YOU ALL POSTED....

Yes, editing 5-camera 1080p H264 multicam with all media on a single USB 3.0 hard drive having 72 MB/sec performance can be slow.

While sometimes the need for hard drive performance is exaggerated, you have a Mac Pro with heavy multicam media on a single 5400 rpm external USB 3 drive. That is an extreme mis-match of CPU/GPU vs I/O performance.

I have an 8GB Thunderbolt G-RAID RAID-0 drive. It does about 310 MB/sec which is much better than a single drive. It is about the minimum I/O performance I'd use on this type of work. Of course any RAID-0 drive should be backed up regularly, since a failure of any drive in the RAID will lose all content.

A 12TB OWC Thunderbay 4 in RAID-5 would give even better performance, provide some fault tolerance and is not much more expensive: eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB2IVT12.0S/