sbell1

Q: How to get FCPX to use all my RAM?

FCPX is running very slowly, especially when running background rendeing/prerendering. This is very strange as I have the LATEST iMac with 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 and 16gb of RAM. I thought that maybe FCPX wasn't set to using all or most of my RAM howerver do not know how to check or change it? Does anyone know? Alternitivly does anyone know how to make FCPX run faster and render faster? Thansk very much!

 

Cheers,

Sam

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Jun 16, 2013 10:01 PM

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Q: How to get FCPX to use all my RAM?

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  • by Russ H,

    Russ H Russ H Jun 18, 2013 4:35 AM in response to Ian R. Brown
    Level 7 (21,835 points)
    Quicktime
    Jun 18, 2013 4:35 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

    Well, the test I earlier suggested to Sam was to create a simple 3 minute Pro Res project with several optimized clips, transitions and titles; Two exports –a PR master file  and the other using an Apple Device preset.

     

    He reported 40 minutes to get to 20% complete. As we know, those exports will actually complete when the indicator hits 50% so I assume Sam's 3 minute project would take an hour 40 minutes.

     

    Russ

  • by sbell1,

    sbell1 sbell1 Jun 18, 2013 5:29 AM in response to Ian R. Brown
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 18, 2013 5:29 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

    Hi Ian, these are very good suggestions but I have previously installed and currently use Event Manager X. I restart my computer every couple of hours and I have 3TB free space on my Hard Drive and a spare 300GB on my external hard drive.

  • by sbell1,

    sbell1 sbell1 Jun 18, 2013 5:32 AM in response to Russ H
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 18, 2013 5:32 AM in response to Russ H

    No, not while exporting everything else was close except for Firefox.

  • by Ian R. Brown,Helpful

    Ian R. Brown Ian R. Brown Jun 18, 2013 5:38 AM in response to sbell1
    Level 6 (18,660 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 18, 2013 5:38 AM in response to sbell1

    Have you done the test Russ has suggested?

     

    A 3 minute project should export in just a few minutes.

     

    If you haven't already done it, humour me by trashing the preferences.

     

    Many weird things happen as a result of corrupt preferences which can create a vast range of different symptoms, so whenever FCP X stops working properly in any way, trashing the preferences should be the first thing you do using this free app.

     

    http://www.digitalrebellion.com/prefman/

     

    Shut down FCP X, open PreferenceManager and in the window that appears:-

     

    1. Ensure that only  FCP X  is selected.

     

    2. Click Trash

     

    The job is done instantly and you can re-open FCP X.

     

    If you get no joy with that, take a look at these 3 troubleshooting articles:-

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3893

     

    http://fcpx.tv/troubleshooting.html

     

    http://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_fcpx_troubleshooting.html


  • by digibudII,

    digibudII digibudII Jun 18, 2013 9:53 AM in response to sbell1
    Level 2 (415 points)
    Jun 18, 2013 9:53 AM in response to sbell1

    Is your external drive a USB drive? You could be running a slow USB drive.

     

    I have roughly 20 projects ranging from 30 seconds to 25minutes on three different external drives. After opening a 20minute project  FCPx shows it is using 2.25GB of Real Memory. I've never seen FCPx use anything like 10GB, let alone 32. I have 24.

     

    I strongly suspect your hard drive or  a bad cable but it might also be that you have some nasty program like Norton Utilities  or MacKeeper running.

     

    If you have room on your internal drive, use FCP to move a project and event to your internal drive. Disconnect the external drive and reboot. Is it dramatically different?

     

    It's possible the problem is some whacky format, but your iMac should play normal AVCHD without optimizing. Mine does without a hiccup.

     

       If your hard drive is full that could also be a problem. There are so many possibilities. By transferring some footage to your internal drive you can get an idea if it's possibly due to the external drive. If you still have problems, it's probably software based (but not for sure).

  • by sbell1,

    sbell1 sbell1 Jun 18, 2013 4:20 PM in response to digibudII
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 18, 2013 4:20 PM in response to digibudII

    Okay, well the external hardive that I keep my projects and events on is a firewire 800 conection which then plugs into a thunderboldt adapter going into the imac.

  • by sbell1,

    sbell1 sbell1 Jun 18, 2013 4:59 PM in response to Ian R. Brown
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 18, 2013 4:59 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

    Well I was looking at the system requirments for FCPX and my computer is more than capible howerver I was unsure of what the following ment. Maybe someone could explain them for me-

    • Broadcast monitoring of video and audio with third-party PCIe and Thunderbolt I/O devices.1
    • 64-bit architecture to take advantage of more than 4GB of RAM.
    • Background rendering using GPU and CPU.
    • ColorSync-managed color pipeline.
    • High-precision floating-point render in linear-light color space.
    • Uses Grand Central Dispatch to tap into all available processors.
    • Full Unicode support.
    • GPU-accelerated exporting.
  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Jun 18, 2013 5:10 PM in response to sbell1
    Level 10 (118,353 points)
    Apple TV
    Jun 18, 2013 5:10 PM in response to sbell1

    These are the tech spec minimum requirements

     

    • Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better.
    • 2GB of RAM (4GB of RAM recommended).
    • OpenCL-capable graphics card or
      Intel HD Graphics 3000 or later.
    • 256MB of VRAM (512MB of VRAM recommended).
    • Display with 1280-by-768 resolution or higher.
    • OS X v10.6.8 or OS X v10.7.5 or OS X v10.8.3 or later.
    • 2.4GB of disk space.

     

     

    Really 8G should be recommended.

  • by Russ H,Helpful

    Russ H Russ H Jun 18, 2013 5:26 PM in response to sbell1
    Level 7 (21,835 points)
    Quicktime
    Jun 18, 2013 5:26 PM in response to sbell1

    Just to say, you have plenty of computer for FCP. I wouldn't be concerned about stuff like Grand Central Dispatch and GPU-acceleration. It's all good and your iMac is perfect for it.


    Russ

  • by sbell1,

    sbell1 sbell1 Jun 18, 2013 5:50 PM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 18, 2013 5:50 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

    I am all good in that deparment as i have a 2 week old iMac with 16GB or RAM and about 3T free on my macintosh HD.

  • by sbell1,

    sbell1 sbell1 Jun 18, 2013 5:51 PM in response to Russ H
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 18, 2013 5:51 PM in response to Russ H

    Yes I thought it would be! Just thought I'd check to make sure!

  • by Karsten Schlüter,

    Karsten Schlüter Karsten Schlüter Jun 18, 2013 10:49 PM in response to sbell1
    Level 7 (32,713 points)
    Video
    Jun 18, 2013 10:49 PM in response to sbell1

    still unanswered .... :

    • what is your source formats?
    • is your Project set to these format?
    • are you using original, optimized, proxy?
  • by sbell1,

    sbell1 sbell1 Jun 18, 2013 11:57 PM in response to Karsten Schlüter
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 18, 2013 11:57 PM in response to Karsten Schlüter

    I use H.264. I am unsure if my project is set to this, how do I check? And no I don't use proxy or optimised media currently.

     

    Sam

  • by Ian R. Brown,

    Ian R. Brown Ian R. Brown Jun 19, 2013 12:01 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter
    Level 6 (18,660 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 19, 2013 12:01 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

    !. Can you answer Karsten's questions as they are very high contenders for being the cause of your problems.

     

    Around 8 years ago on the old FCE forum  we spent ages trying to sort out a problem only to discover eventually that the person involved was trying to import and edit a format totally unsuitable for editing.

     

    If they had mentioned it initially, we could have saved a week or so of headbanging.

     

    2. Have you trashed the preferences?

     

    If not, do it immediately.

  • by sbell1,

    sbell1 sbell1 Jun 19, 2013 12:12 AM in response to Ian R. Brown
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 19, 2013 12:12 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

    If you look above you will see that I have answered his question. Yes I have trashed the preferences, this is the first thing I did.

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