Does anyone else experience FCP X CONSUMING ALL AVAILABLE RAM with simple tasks?

Of course video processing takes a lot of memory. A 2GB clip, once coded to optimized format for efficient handling in FCP X, can become 10GB. When I worked in software design, if the application knew it had the potential to work with things that were giga bytes in size, it would allocate (reserve) as much memory as it thought it might need. If other applications were subsequently launched, the system could ask the video editing task (for example) to free up some of the memory that task had previously requested. I recently upgraded my iMac Core i5 Mid 2011 from 8GB to 16GB. The 8GB was working well, but I was working on a project that was nearly 90 minutes in length so thought the upgrade would make things easier. I routinely have 5 to 6 applications running at the same time I am working with FCP X, but FCP X seldom seems to suffer while rendering or final transcoding unless I am copying a large number of files from one drive to another using Finder. If the apps I am using are a web browser, Pages, etc, I see virtually no performance difference in FCP X peformance because the other apps are spending most of their processor time waiting for me to look at what they have fetched for me.

My point is simply this ... just because a monitor says that all RAM is used, does not mean that it can not be freed up instantly and shared by other applications. It may be FCP X is allocating memory for the worst case scenario. When you consider that a single AVCHD clip, before optimization, can be 2GB ... and later 5x that size, that 8GB RAM you have no longer looks that large. The application, FCP X, would always rather edit the clip from RAM than to go to the slower mechanically rotating device known as the hard drive. RAM can be nearly 1000 times faster for data accesses. So, maybe that RAM is not really locked out from your use after all. Still an upgrade to 16GB would likely make things much more pleasant for you. If you are still unsure, run some other applications while FCP X is running. Obviously there is no way they could run efficiently if FCP X really is keeping all the memory to itself. If everything plays relatively nicely with everything else it could just be a misconception of what you are seeing on your RAM monitor. IMHO ... Best wishes.

stephen

It's doing it on mine too, only I have a newer imac, 27" i7 2.93 quad core running 16 gigs of ram. All I have to do is start up Motion and it locks up immediately due to lack of ram (will use up to 15.5 gigs of ram just like that!).

Yes, I am experiencing very slow performance at odd times. Midway through an editing session, the ability to swipe down the timeline, and even playing back the edit, becomes extremely choppy. Not like anything I am used to in Final Cut Pro.

Restarting Final Cut Pro X, and re-opening the project seems to cure it.

Happy editing,

Andrew

still_learning wrote:

If you are still unsure, run some other applications while FCP X is running. Obviously there is no way they could run efficiently if FCP X really is keeping all the memory to itself. If everything plays relatively nicely with everything else it could just be a misconception of what you are seeing on your RAM monitor.

I have the same problem as original poster described - FCP X drains memory completely and it does NOT release to other programs as still_learning suggests. My Mac Book Pro (2011, 8GB RAM, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7, graphics AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB) becomes totally unresponsive, almost frozen when I start working on FCP X. Once I close FCP X my mac becomes responsive again but here is what my Activity Monitor shows:

System Memory

Free: fluctuates betweeen 11 and 18 MB

Wired: 973.4 MB

Active: 1.24 GB

Inactive 5.79 GB

Used: 7.98 GB

VM size: 170 GB

Page ins: 7.48 GB (0 bytes/sec)

Page outs: 29.83 GB (0 bytes/sec)

Swap used: 60.6 MB

What OS is this?

Inactive Memory seems to grow with FCP X and Lion.

You might want to check out FreeMemory in the app store. It's actually free (no cost) and it does release Inactive Memory.

Or, if you are adventerous, run purge in Terminal.

Tom Wolsky wrote:

What OS is this?

Lion 10.7.2

it was fresh OS installation on a new computer. This memory drain by FCP X was one of the reasons I bought this new laptop thinking that my older Mac Book Pro 2008 with only 4GB RAM wasn't capable of handling FCP X therefore I got the most powerful available Mac Book Pro (2011) with the best graphics card, processor, RAM etc. and the result is still the same - FCP X eats up all the RAM, 8GB in this case.

I've seen multiple posts on the web by people who have the same problem with much larger amounts of RAM which is being totally "swallowed" by FCPX. I also have a desktop with 12 GB of RAM and still has the same problem.

I see that "Page outs" are extremely high in my last test - 29GB, which supposed to mean that I need more RAM according this technical note on http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1342

On the other hand other people run FCP X without such problems on much older and less powerful machines with only 4GB of RAM. According to Apple minimum requirement is 2GB of RAM (4GB of RAM recommended) - http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/specs/. Based on that we shouldn't be having such ridiculous problems with 8 or 12GB or RAM.

I did try running 'purge' and it looks promissing since it did release the memory, but I did this when FCP X wasn't running so I still have to try it when FCP X eats up my memory again.

I've run the purge command many, many times while running FCP X. Never experienced any issues.

However, always use caution when using any Terminal command.

Otherwise, try FreeMemory. It's free.

Also, please post your experience to Apple. Hopefully they will address this.

Hi, I experience the same problem even after installing 16 gb of RAM. It only takes a little more time to fill. It's interesting that the problem is not always there, sometimes I can use the same project for days with almost no problems.

I use atMonitor to check the RAM usage status, when it gets to 80% I have to close and reopen FCPX, otherwise the whole system would become irresponsive.

What OS are you using? Can you post screen shots of Activity Monitor or your app that displays the RAM usage?

I agree that 16 Gb makes everything easier, but unfortunately what ACE001 reports is a deeper problem. I upgraded to 16gb and it still gets full to the point FCPX stop working, many times the entire system becomes extremely slow. I tried to keep only FCPX opened, I even created a new user, just for editing.. the problem is still there.

You're tagging on threads that are over a year old. Same questions as I asked on the other thread.

I'll post a screenshot from the atMonitor App as soon as I experience the issue again. Here's the info about my Mac and OSX version. I also use Event Manager X to load only the necessary events.. the problem is still there.

How many apps are you running when this happens? The problem definitely exists in the OS and has for some years. It seems to come on to you faster than most. Working with large still images in FCP uses a lot of RAM. I'm curious about the levels of inactive RAM you're seeing when this happens.

Most of the time it's just FCPX, Chrome with Gmail and some news websites, Google Notifier and Dropbox in the background. I've tried with a new user and with no other apps opened and the problem is still there. It's interesting what you said about large still images, the project I'm working on now has some of them, I don't remember about other projects, but I'll try to pay attention to that.

I'll post the screenshot as soon as I experience the problem, I'll have to be quick, otherwise everything stop working.