A possible solution to FCP X memory problems - it is working for me so far

Sounds interesting. Anyone currently trying this?

This sounds great but to be honest, my RAM problems seem to have disappeared since FCP X 10.0.3.

Having said that, my projects have all been short ones recently - and I always move the events and projects I'm not working on to temporary folders.

I'll certainly keep a note of the Terminal code and use it if I get RAM problems again - but at the moment, FCP X is working near perfectly for me (using Lion 10.7.3).

Thanks Luis.

Andy

Very interesting and if it works safely you would think Apple would incorporate some control in the preferences.

I don't know whether this is the same thing which I have in FCP 7 in Final Cut Pro>System Settings>Memory & Cache . . . . . I always left it on 100%.

Looking again at my FCP 7 Memory & Cache window reminded me of a slight curiosity. My Application Memory Usage is stated as 100% (2560MB) yet my computer has 4GB RAM.

Why the lower figure or is that what is left after other essential processes use some?

Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown

Very interesting topic, but to risky for me at the moment. I say as Andy I have not memory issues at the moment with Snow Leopard. I am not sure if it Snow or just the fact I make a very short projects.

Hey Luis, and everyone else.

I just tried your terminal script, and it has completely cured the sluggish problem with FCPX. Thank you, thank you , thank you!!.

I am working in a pretty large project, and now is flowing like a champ. Even skimmin is on point.

The project is 60 GB in size and I didnt create optimized media or used Proxy, so is working out of the RAW data, and boy must I say is flowing.

Again thank you dude.

PS: to you all out there, if you jump in a large project, I found that by making compund clip over compound clip helps the speed of the whole project. Example: I am braking down scenes in to compound clips, and portions of the scenes in to more compund clips, that has created a fast flow to go in an out of.

Macbook Pro 13 2009,

8GB ram / 750GB HDD

FCPX 10.0.0

I am running Mt. Lion and when I type in the Command I get that -INT is an illegal argument. Can you help?

Thanks

I did use Copy and this time it worked. I have one other question. The slow performance of both Final Cut Pro and my entire computer seems to occur ONLY when I have Background processing checked - turned on. As long as I have it un- checked , it seems I can run as long as I want with no problems. Once I turn it on however, performance gradually degrades ( only if I try and actually use the computer ). What I have been doing is creating my movie and when I am ready to stop working I turn on Background Processing and just let the rendering take place while I am away from the machine. When I return, everything is rendered and I turn off Background Processing and continue to use the computer. Can you help explain this behavior of Final Cut Pro? Also, while Pro was rendering, I checked my Activity Monitor Program and it showed Final Cut Pro using 145% of the Processor. How can an application use more then 100% of something?

It's been pretty much agreed universally that background rendering should be turned off for better performance. As far as the memory problem that FCP X had, that this thread began with, it has been cured for now since at least 10.0.4. There were a lot of posts back in January, Februaury pleading for a fix from apple as it really was a pain for large projects kinda like the Soundtrack pro issue. In Soundtrack Pro once your Ram usage aproached 2GB which would happen with any project over 20 minutes you where in the land of constant crashes and hanges. This is what I thought made Soundtrack Pro really stink.

There is a 100% for each core(virtual core) that your CPU has. A 4 core(8 virtual) can have up to 800% for all programs being used. I have 8core(16 virtual) mac and when using qmaster with compressor up to 16 vitual core are being used simultanously at 100%. This is where a mac pro tower really kicks *** over imac and macbook pro's in my world of video edinting.

I am going to try turning off auto rendering.

My mid 2011 iMac with 12 gbs of ram with FCPX and mountain lion is blessed with the spinning beach ball with almost every mouse move.

Freeing up more space on the internal drive. I use external drives for editing and have all events and projects out of the normal folders to help speed the flow.

I'm having the very same issue and I have everything updated, I bought 16Gb of RAM but it only takes more time. I bought Event Manager X in order to load just the projects I'm using, same problem.

I've tried your method, but unfortunatelly the bug is still there.. it gets to 99% and everything stops working 😟

PLEASE let me know if you have any other solution.

Have a great day

Unfortunately it's not been cured for all users, in my case, even with the command in the terminal I still experience the same problem, even after updating to 16GB of ram

If anyone is stil having this problem, or is uncomfortable testing out the line of code in terminal, then I may have a solution. I downloaded the app "free memory" and it allows you to clear your RAM when it gets used up. It fixed ALL of my problems with Final Cut Pro X. I had to restart my computer every 20 min because FCPX would gobble up all the RAM and make the computer turn into molasses.

I went ahead and paid $1 to get "Free Memory PRO" which will clear your memory automatically based on an amount of free memory that you would like it to keep, which you can set up in the preferences. Give it a shot and see if it works for you!

I used that but I had to close FCPX before each time before 80-90% of RAM usage. With the pro app do you need to exit FCPX?

I hope that OSX Mavericks new way to manage CPU and RAM would solve the problem. It's really frustrating.