FCPX 10.4.7. egpu problem

As Luis has mentioned, make sure to use your Purchased tab of the App Store. Also make sure to perform a clean install and not an update from an older version already on your machine. If all goes well, you should see this ...

This one is actually from Yosemite 10.10.5!

Hi

Maybe I have not made myself clear I have run a configuration with macbook pro 13 and mini with display either non connected or connected directly to the unit this because I had an LG ultrafine monitor that only had a thunderbolt port so I was exactly in the situation of this post for 12 months using a Razer X powered by a Vega 64 Nitro

During those 12 months I always experienced laggy playback of my original media in the browser (Panasonic AVC intra 200/400 mbps HD/4K) from high sierra to Catalina from FCP 10.4.3 to 10.4.7

After discussing with Apple again and having looked on the eGPU forum and again on the developer documentation I decided to get rid of the LG monitor and get a display that can connect to the Razer through displayport or HDMI.

Since I have run a configuration with the display attached to the eGPU I have no longer any problem

Now just for the sake of this post I restored final cut 10.4.6 from back up and identified a library I have not touch since months I have connected the display using thunderbolt to the mini and detached the display port cable.

I have then run 10.4.6 with Prefer GPU setting and disabled background rending and then played back some original media in the browser as well as some project media rendered and not.

As I was experiencing before with my original media (that despite apple claim cannot be edited native) stutters and playback drops frames in 10.4.6 as it used to be. The activity monitor shows Vega utilisation of 0% confirming the eGPU is not used for live tasks. Only when playing back some project media and going through the occasional title I see some movement on the eGPU but essential what the documentation says about Final Cut is correct the live tasks are managed by the GPU that drives the display. To confirm I have connected the display to the eGPU and back to fast performance

Attached screenshot of 10.4.6 with eGPU usage at zero during playback and stop due to dropped frames

So at this point the claim that the eGPU was accelerating live tasks in the browser was clearly not true and what I have been experiencing for one year confirmed which is the mini can't play decently media not optimised nor timelines fully rendered in prores.

Moving on I updated the library and opened with 10.4.8 and checked the situation with exactly the same source media still with rendering disabled and display connected to the mini not the eGPU screenshot below

The eGPU remains at zero as before and actually it does not even move a little when it finds a title and the iGPU is now at 24% while in 10.4.6 it was much lower for playback

Conclusion: the performance of 10.4.8 is rubbish in playing my media as it was in 10.4.6 when the display is connected to the mini however now it accomplishes the same poor performance with much higher internal GPU utilization which is rather bizarre. When I use a configuration with the display connected to the eGPU the performance is outstanding in both 10.4.6 and 10.4.8 frankly is so fast I can't even tell if there is a deterioration

In terms of rendering the two version both pass it to the external GPU when the monitor is connected to the mini as this is a background task I don't know if there is a deviation or not in performance

So I think your claim that the eGPU was accelerating the internal display is not founded and consistent to the documentation and other sources eGPU is only used for background tasks so there is nothing that Apple can do as the functionality was never there.

For what concerns rendering in background there appear to be no differences that I can see on my past and new set up between the two versions.

Finally for sharing I am not planning to bother doing any tests because the H264 encoder of final cut is pathetic and although fast has terrible quality and should not be used. Also to clarify encoding is a CPU task as the newer apple hardware have hardware decoding and encoding in the CPU using Intel Quick Sync Video so they don't use the GPU at all. The GPU internal or external is only used if there are parts still left to render and as background rendering should be active on an eGPU set up when you get to that point there should be little left to render anyway

Got access to the eGPU. Here's a really simple illustration of the problem for playback acceleration. Please excuse the different image sizes.

Host machine is a MacBook Pro 16" with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M running the Bruce X test on loop using built-in display.

Final Cut Pro X 10.4.6

Final Cut Pro X 10.4.8

SO..........

I have tested this on my mac mini & 16" mpb and got my egpu to work!!!!

See if this works for you.....

Goto share......Add Destination.

In here you can add/delete/edit your Destinations.

I chose to edit my master file.

Go to format and select Mastering Video And Audio (it's at the top). Change your codec to whatever you want (I kept h.264 just to prove the naysayer WRONG!

The GPU history is showing 50% in the bars whereas it would show 100% in 10.4.6 and before.......

BUT....I am back to 5 minute renders as I was getting before :)

Let me know if it works for you guys too??

I have this question too.

My environment is MBA 2018（10.15 Catalina）+eGPU(NODE PRO+RADEON Vega 56 @ SAPPHIRE).

I suspected it was 10.15 Catalina.

But that was a mistake. Returning to 10.14 Moyave did not change the results.

So I suspected GPU this time.

Because I found a note that Vega was the cause.

I prepared the RX470 for verification.The result is as shown in the image.

Although the same video is encoded, the usage rate is completely different.

I probably think there is a problem between Vega and FCPX.

The reason is that there are cases where Vega performs processing depending on the operation.

However, other applications may not use Vega, so you may need to suspect the driver.

I want to Apple. To solve this FCPX problem.

In the case of the RX5600, since the inside has changed, I don't think that the same trouble will occur, but I hope that the report will go up.

Sorry for the machine translated English, but thank you for reading to the end.

I long for a solution to the problem.

Ok guys I was sitting in the same eGPU boat as you are. My Radeon VII in combination with the MB Pro late 2016 performed perfectly under 10.04.06 and massively degraded with 10.04.07 and 10.04.08.

Once I received my Mac Pro I decided to conduct a multitude of tests and there's certainly something wrong with FCPX that goes way beyond eGPUs when it comes to rendering and the support of 3rd Party Graphics.

So my Tests were conducted with the same Project Files at the following setups:

I cancelled the Test with both cards installed and the 580X selected, since both cards were used for rendering even tough only connected to the 580X. Funny thing this behaviour doesn't occur with the Radon VII.

One thing in my opinion becomes abundantly clear. Once you are using 3rd Party Graphics there's no reliable Support in FCPX yet. Even worse with the introduction of a second Graphics card FCPX shows weird behaviour especially when the stock card is selected (like in the case with the 580X).

On the other hand with tested cards like the 580X, that rendering Results massively improved. This also shows the massive potential Apple has on their hands if they get the upcoming releases right.

By the way in the German forum there's also somebody with the Blackmagic eGPU complaining about the same things we are.

Apple certainly needs to throw more money at bug fixing and quality control regarding their software in general.

✌️

Rhe release notes for 10.4.7 say that you now can select which gpu, internal or external, to use.

I haven’t tried it yet but I take that to mean that there somewhere in the interface where you can make that choice-thus it would make sense to do away with the setting in the Get Info Window.

As far as I know, you enable it via Finder. (eGPU needs to be connected)

Quit FCPX and go to finder Applications, Right click on the FCPX application icon to get info, and enable(tick) the box for Prefer eGPU and then launch FCPX again.

Playback will use eGPU.

I have exactly the same problem (still on Mojave). The egpu is not used for playback. With 10.4.7 you don't have the option for "prefer external EGPU" when right click -> get info. You do have the option in FCPX itself (preferences, playback) and it shows the EGPU and I can select it. But it doesn't use it for playback while with the previous version of FCPX also for playback the EGPU was used.

How did you go back from 10.4.7 to 10.4.6, because currently FCPX is useless to me.

Yes...me to. ? Bit different, running i7 iMac , Mojave 10.14.6 NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M (system check says Metal capable?)

Did manual update FCPX 4.7 . Trashed prefs etc etc

FCPX 4.7 screen menus 'ripped' artefacts everywhere...switch desktops...open other apps same problem. Have to force quite FCPX. Other apps back to normal. Reinstall FCPX...nope. luckily only updated copy of FCPX 4.6 library. So I guess that's trashed??

Could it be an GPU issue??

big thanks Tom...

ha ha...dont hold back, was being dumb in missing that?

Is this some kind of OpenGl display preference that conflicts with FCPX Metal requirements?

Not moved to Catalina yet, does it have such display prefs still defaulted ON ?

They're off by default in a clean install. If you update from Mojave I presume they'll take whatever settings were in the older OS.

Thanks for coming back. I didn't release the problem was in Mojave. I thought it was introduced in Catalina. You're probably right though, that it's related to changes in the application for Metal.

I think the setting was just removed because a manual setting was no longer needed. FCPX 10.4.7 works perfectly fine with my Vega 56 eGPU on Mohave and now on Catalina. Playback is clearly using the eGPU according to Activity Monitor.

Maybe it is because I have a Mac mini with no dedicated internal GPU but it seems to use my eGPU right out of the box. Perhaps systems with a dedicated internal GPU don't really work with the automatic selection. Apple should probably bring back the optional setting to prefer GPU since a lot of eGPU users are MBP 15" users.

One other issue I did find however is that many of the share formats in FCPX will not use the eGPU. Any of the Apple Devices share options will default to the internal GPU. Selecting Master and ProRes or Master and h.264 as the codec will however use the eGPU I select in the preferences so I know FCPX will work with the eGPU. It just seems to be specific encoders that will not use it.