Anyone else haveing issues where Motion 5 performs worse than Motion 4?

Motion used the GPU, not the CPU to do its heavy lifting. The CPU may calculate particle positions or other things, but the GPU does all the image processing. Thus you will never see much CPU usage.

I have that software "atMonitor" running, which shows GPU activity (or at least it should show it). According to this software, the GPU activity is 0% all the time.

Does someone know some other GPU monitoring solutions?

0%, eh?

Doesn't sound like it's working...

I wish Apple included it in Activity Monitor. AHA - A feature request! Quick, everyone pile on Apple! Request that they add GPU to Activity monitor...

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Patrick

Yes, I did this feature request on the website.

I will also contact those people who made "atMonitor" to ask them about this strange behaviour.

Yes, Motion 5 can render without using the GPU, this is new to this version and, normally, it happens if you run Motion 5 in a Mac with an integrated intel graphics card. In my MacBook Pro 2010 if I force to use only the integrated graphics card the gpu activity also shows 0%. I must say that even like this, Motion 5 still doesn´t use much of the processor ressources.

When I switch to the Nvidia GPU, atMonitor shows again that there is a GPU activity.

An update motion 5.0.1 was released today.

I downloaded it via the appstore and motion 5 is performing twice as well as it was before. Its still not as good as should be but less irritating.

Try it. See if it helps.

I updated to Motion 5.0.1 and compared the rendering and preview against M4 on my MBP 2011 (i7 2.3GHz 8GB RAM, Radeon HD 6750M 1024RAM, OSX 10.7.2) and it's still worse.

Here are my symptoms:

- very choppy playback

- inconsistent playback and render quality

- sometimes I can't change project properties

- opening application under different user account creates error - I get an error message saying that it's installed in the same directory as a previous version of Motion and that I need to move Motion.app, yet when I did the original FCPX and Motion installation (properly) the previous version of Final Cut (Studio) was already moved and isolated for me

- have to keep reinstalling motion just for it to work right

- scrolling text behavior playback is choppy as well as the render

My machine:

Mac Pro 2x2.26 Quad-core Intel Xeon/ 16 GB RAM/ ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB/ Two HD Monitors, 1 broadcast monitor fed by a Blackmagic Multibridge Pro 2

Motion 4 worked by default in an 8-bit color space. Motion 5 is 32-bit float all the time. To compare apples to apples, you'd have to set Motion 4 to 32-bit float firat - then you'll find that Motion 5 is generallly quite a bit faster.

That's a good point mark in terms of why this is occurring.

I would like the option to work at a reasonable pace in 8 bit and then switch to 32 bit when nearing completion. Its that or wait 10 years till machines get powerful enough by which time it might be a bit late for apple. Apple are making some strange choices these days.

So I suppose the best workflow is to make projects in motion 4, then later open them in motion 5 and to add the parts only 5 can do which is mainly only stuff relevant to FCP X.

Bring back 8 bit option is my opinion. Take the pain away.

I agree, I'd like an option to work in 8-bit for speed and switch to float for rendering.

I am going to scream. Motion did it again. My machine just started operating very slow while working in Motion 5. Same symptoms. Slow playback, can't modify project properties (such as project duration). It ust stops being useable because it so slow. Parameters buttons hilight. It becomes so unresponsive.

This will be my 4th, maybe even my 5th reinstall.

There's a simple fix: move to AfterEffects.

After the intitial FCP debacle, and never-ending problems with Motion 5, I checked out Premiere and AfterEffects, and now they are my main tools.

It's sad about about Apple. It's not that they're arrogant. The hard fact to grasp is that, when it comes to software, they might just not be all that good.

Perhaps the new version of FCPX will change things.

But I've left the MotherShip.

Try it youself. You'll find it liberating.

Interesting proposition, but I'm not ready to give up yet. I came from After Effects years ago. Motion allowed me to spend more time playing creatively than AE. Version 5 perhaps has some growing up to do. I have AE too though. I may reconsider.

@Tangier Clarke1

I know what you mean. I very much want to like Motion 5, as well as FCP X.

But like you, I just got so frustrated with the bugs and freezing and crashing in Motion 5 that, from as business point of view, I just couldn't deal with it.

Having been an AppleHead for over 20 years, my heart's still with the company.

But I did find that moving over to Adobe not only solved my technical issues (for the most part---as you know, Adobe's products also have their flaws), but also opened up my horizon to the non-Apple world.

As I say, it's been libertating in a way.

But I'll probably check out this latest version of FCP X.

Maybe I'll return to the fold. Or maybe not.

Good luck.