Optimize your system for FCP X

Hello Folks,

This is for the new people out there, or people who are thinking about giving FCP X a spin.

I was using FCP X on an iMac, dual core duo 3.06 GHz with 4 GB RAM on Lion. My source video (events) was on a firewire800 5200 RPM LaCie external hard disk. FCP X had an annoying delay when I would press the spacebar and play my timeline (storyline etc), it would delay about .5 a sec from when I depressed the spacebar and when it would play in the viewer. Also previewing effects and transitions in the browser was very sluggish. AND ingesting new video seemed to take forever. Actually where I work in TV news, I was showing other people FCP X, and they were not impressed because it seemed slower on this system than FCP 6 and 7.

So, I just picked up a MacBook Pro (early 2011), 2.3 GHz Quad Core i7, and added 16 GB of ram from Other World Computing (OWC), and installed a OWC 240 GB SSD. I moved the stock hitachi 7200 rpm 500 GB HD to the SATA connector on the optical drive bay with a kit OWC sells called a "data doubler". I installed Lion, and FCP X, Motion 5, and Compressor 4. I now put my source video (events) on the 2nd 7200 RPM HD going through SATA instead of the external firewire 800 Lacie external drive like before.

Let me say this....FCP X SCREAMS! I get zero playback lag, I can preview all the effects easily, and it renders very quickly. In addition having the SSD, I can cold reboot in 18 seconds max, and have FCP X loading.

So for those of you who are experienced with all this, I know what I am saying is no big deal...But for those of you who are new, or taking on video editing with FCP X, let me tell you don't look at the minimum requirements to run FCP X... This will let u run the program, but it will be rubbish for any good use. Get a good processor (quad core), lots of RAM, and a SSD, and FCP X will be awesome to use! I would have done it sooner if I knew that it would be a HUGE difference, it is!

Thanks everybody:cheer:

Gary
TV Video Journalist

Right on! You are exactly right about that. There is no comparison to the two systems you describe above. Now you can really begin to enjoy FCPX.
BTW - 5400 rpm drives aren't even good for SD, much less anything else.

I must interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this important (to me) rant (from years of hearing end users bitch):

Let me say, as a LONG time consultant and trainer, folks complained so much about the 4GB RAM limit of FCP legacy in a 32 bit system. For a LONG TIME no less! We BEGGED for 64 bit. Now we have it, and folks complain, "Why do I have to buy so much RAM now?" Oh poor pitiful users. A 64 bit system means ALL of your apps will be RAM hungry. Even Logic Pro going to 64 bit demanded more RAM.

The other thing is, "Oh, when can we get GPU support?" Well, you got it, and now you're complaining that your low end graphics chips in laptops are not good enough. HELLO?

Yes, FCP X has some powerful technologies under the hood, but they also demand the higher end hardware to take advantage of those technologies fully, period!

If you think FCP X takes too much hardware to run properly, go back to FCP 6 or 7, and be happy with no GPU support, 4GB RAM limit (it rarely used over 1.5 or 2 GB RAM), no multi-core anything. And be happy. But if you want updated technology that takes advantage of everything, be prepared to upgrade everything.

And be prepared for new, cutting edge, infancy, still evolving technology under the hood. FCP has always relied on the technology in the OS for it's support and power. FCP X is the same. Unlike other NLE's that have to rely on generic BS, FCP can fully leverage the power of the OS. That is what put it ahead of all other NLE's in the past. It's doing the same now. So, if weak, limited, crippled FCP legacy ran just barely on a laptop before, what makes you think new, updated, more powerful FCP today will require "less" hardware to run?

OK, rant done. Go back to your regularly scheduled programming...

I don't think the OP was complaining...he just realized what you just said. :side:

Sounds good! Have you measured the read/write speed you get with the SATA drive vs the SSD? I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense to put events on the SSD and the system and apps on the SATA. Obviously that depends on the size of your projects.

@BenB

I couldn't agree more. Thumbs up for this rant.

I'd not use an SSD drive simply because they're not large enough for my work, and way to expensive for the tiny size, and very short life span. I don't think the speed bump from SSD is worth the price. Just how I feel about them.

@BenB SSD's are getting cheaper and will continue to do so. I use (2) 512GB SSD's, one for the apps and one for the scratch drive. I love the performance, but after two or three projects I need to move them off. With smaller projects I can get quite a few on that size. I can see where a 128 GB or 250GB would be limiting.

I just sent the message to say, the more power under the hood, the less hair you will be pulling out.

BenB.... just tell those skeptics to be careful what they wish for...

dgwvideo...Very neat and lucky you have 2 512 SSD's. I have my one 240GB now, someday I'll pick one of those up. Just have to be careful with some of the MacBook Pro's that many of the 6GB/sec SSD will not work well in the optical drive I hear. That's what OWC told me.

Gary

CPU, RAM, GPU, hard drives, the 4 variables in how FCP X and Motion 5 will work. Can't do much about your CPU, in laptops and iMacs you can't do much about GPU, but you can increase RAM, and get faster hard drives (T'bolts are awesome).

Just remember the common sense rule to all software, "Minimum requirements equal minimum performance."

And Resolve integrated into the advanced workflow adds a whole other can of worms. It looks like it works with three graphics cards or something like that.

yep...

VideoJounalistGB wrote: ...Very neat and lucky you have 2 512 SSD's.

Well, neat for sure. But nothing lucky about it. It was a business decision to purchase SSD's along with a new Mac Pro as my old system completely died after 8 years. There needs to be sufficient workload to support the expense. SSD's are not for everyone as 3Gbps Sata drives handle HD video extremely well and are significantly cheaper.

And as I have learned with every version of FCP I have owned since FCP4, the application becomes more demanding with each release and if you can equip yourself with the most powerful system your workload economics can afford, the more efficient your editing experience will be.

For fast exporting (current settings) would you put the system or the events on the SSD?

OS on SSD drive, Events and Projects elsewhere for sure.

And would you export it to the SSD or to the HD?

We have ran different tests comparing SSD and different internal and external hard drives to optimize our FCPX systems. My conclusion: OS and apps on SSD as SSD drives really make your system run snappier. Anything else on separate internal drives or on fast external ones. For full HD editing you definitely need a decent RAID system.

Be aware of using video on an SSD. To quote BM's technical paper: Some SSD’s can have up to 50% lower write speed than the manufacturer’s claimed speed due to hidden data compression. So even though the disk specifications claim an SSD is fast enough to handle video, in reality the disk is not fast enough for real time video data capture. Hidden data compression mostly affects capture and often these disks can still be used for real time playback.

The more RAM you throw at a 64-bit app (this not only applies to FCPX) the better your user experience will be. And of course your graphics card is extremely important if you want to take full advantage of GPU rendering.

Resolve does not really require three cards. If you want to get good performance out of FCPX and Resolve on the same machine you can use the Open CL graphics card you use for FCPX as the GUI card for Resolve and add a certified CUDA card (Quadro 4000, Quadro 4800 or GTX285) to be used as the GPU card for Resolve. Although since v.8 Resolve supports OpenCL cards for GPU you will still get better performance using a CUDA card.

This same setup will also give you great results when you add Smoke 2013 to your system. We have been working with the pre-release version for awhile now and although it is still fairly buggy it's a very promising high-end compositor that might well become the third link in the next-generation editing workflow we are developing around FCPX.

Export to the media drive, export the only thing that will help make it faster is GPU/CPU speeds.

Ronny has some good point there, thanks for bringing that up, man. One thing to add, though. FCP X and especially Motion can get quirky with multiple GPUs on some systems, especially of different make/models. That's one area I wish I had more info on, but Apple doesn't really like to talk about that. It's been an issue with Motion since v.1.

Yes there is a known issue where FCPX and/or Motion5 occasionally can introduce green flashes in exported video when two or more graphic cards are installed inside your Mac. We have tested this issue and have found that this ONLY happens when you physically attach a monitor to each of these cards AND if these two monitors are used in a dual monitor setup with FCPX. This second condition is not mentioned in the tech note published by Apple but it is very important. To simplify my explanation:

When you have two or more graphic cards installed and you use one of the cards to drive your main FCPX monitor and another card to drive your secondary monitor in a dual monitor setup: you may have issues when exporting.

When you have two or more graphic cards installed and you only use one of the cards to drive a single monitor setup or a dual monitor setup for FCPX (using both DVI ports on the same card to drive two monitors): you won't have any issues.

When you use one dedicated graphics card to drive a single or dual monitor setup with FCPX and you use the same card or any other installed cards as GUI or GPU cards for other applications (such as Resolve or Smoke): you won't have any issues.

In our test setup (2010, 8 core Macpro, 32GB RAM) we use an ATI Radeon HD 5770 for FCPX and Motion 5 (dual monitor setup with FCPX from the same card). The ATI is also used as the GUI card for Resolve. The second card inside is an NVIDIA Quadro 4000 which we use as the GPU for Resolve and Smoke. Using this setup I don't have any issues with FCPX and/or Motion 5.

So Smoke and Resolve let you manually select which GPU they use?