Older Mac Pro users beware of Mountain Lion upgrade

Question

Older Mac Pro users beware of Mountain Lion upgrade

I work at a company where we have 6 edit suites. Five of those suites are still running Mac Pros; three of them are Early 2008 models, two are Early 2009 models. All of these suites have 30" monitors in them running at 2560 x 1600 resolution. The other suite has a new 27" iMac. All but one of the Mac Pros have their original graphics cards.

When Mountain Lion first came out, I upgraded my Mac mini at home that has FCP7 and FCPX installed on it. Both applications ran fine and I was able to edit a project in FCPX with no problem. A co-worker who works remotely on a 27" iMac had also upgraded his machine and experienced no issues.

Seeing no issues with the ability to run FCP7 under Mountain Lion, I proceeded with upgrading the MacPro suites at our office. After an initial test on one machine to confirm that FCP7 would load and launch projects, I proceeded to upgrade the remaining suites. It soon became apparent after other editors began to use their computers that FCP6 and 7 were affected by the upgrade to Mountain Lion.

While the programs still work fine, one fundamental change that Apple has made in Mountain Lion is to push more of the responsibility for displaying the image on the computer monitor to the GPU of the graphics card. Previously these responsibilities were shared with the CPU. Therefore, if you have an older graphics card (even if it is fully compatible with FCPX, as ours are), FCP6/7 has a difficult time playing back 1080 video in the Canvas window (at any size), without breaking up when there is some degree of movement in the video image.The screen cannot refresh quickly enough to draw the video image without showing horizontal banding and some minor digital garbage.

Rest assured that the render files are clean and the output file will be fine. Once exported, a self-contained .mov file will playback fine in Quicktime, showing no banding where there previously was banding when viewed in FCP. This is an issue with display only. If you can live with it, fine. But it is rather distracting while editing.

I attempted to downgrade one of the Mac Pros to Lion earlier today. While I was able to successfully downgrade (not with a clean install, but another method), both FCP7 and FCPX would no longer launch because they were confused about which version of the OS was running. Using FCS Remover, I deleted both FCP7 and X, then reinstalled FCP7. Still no luck with launching FCP7. I finally decided to reinstall Mountain Lion for the time-being. FCP7 now launches again.

Just a warning to those considering upgrading that you may experience performance issues with FCP6/7 if you are using an older Mac Pro and trying to edit 1080 footage. You may have to upgrade your graphics card to achieve best performance.

Posted on Aug 29, 2012 7:08 PM

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Answer 1

Shane Ross

Level 8

43,110 points

Aug 29, 2012 7:23 PM in response to Christian Castagna1

This begs the question, "why did you upgrade working systems?"

Why did you upgrade to Mountain Lion? What reason do you have to go to the new OS, other than it's the latest OS?

NEVER mess with a working system. Unless the new OS gives you something that you are in vital need of, it is a good idea NOT to upgrade...to stick with what you have, with what works. Especially if you use those systems to earn a living. I know many places that are running Avid software on computers running OS9. Because they work...and do what they need to do. The new OS doesn't help...it actually hurts.

I finally installed LION on a new hard drive for my 2008 Mac Pro. Why? Because I wanted to run Avid Symphony 6. That requires Lion in order to work properly. So my had was forced. FCP 7 works great under Snow Leopard...in fact, I have a drive with FCP 7 running that OS. I won't upgrade that as I don't need to. It works.

Don't upgrade just because you can.

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Answer 2

Shane Ross

Level 8

43,110 points

Aug 29, 2012 7:25 PM in response to Shane Ross

And the only way to really "downgrade" the OS is a new, fresh, clean install. Back up your data, erase the drive, install the OS fresh...then your apps. That is the ONLY way if you want to ensure yourself of a good, working system.

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Answer 3

Aug 30, 2012 5:22 AM in response to Shane Ross

Thanks, Shane. Didn't need the tongue lashing, just offering some advice. Appreciate yours.

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Answer 4

Aug 30, 2012 7:38 AM in response to Christian Castagna1

You should always clone your startup drive before doing any upgrade or update. If you've done this, you can quickly restore your system to it's previous state if things go south.

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2494

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Answer 5

Aug 30, 2012 8:04 PM in response to Michael Grenadier

Is there a graphics card in which this does not occur? I'm having same issue ...

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Answer 6

Aug 30, 2012 8:12 PM in response to Christian Castagna1

Is there a graphics card in which this does not occur? I'm having same issue ...

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Answer 7

Aug 31, 2012 7:34 AM in response to Christopher Sims

Yes, we previously we had purchased an ATI Radeon 5770 to enable use of FCPX, and 1080 video plays fine through that in both Early 2008 and Early 2009 models, although it is not fully compatible with those computers. Technically it is only compatible with Mid 2010 Mac Pros. It is unclear if there is a card that is fully compatible with Early 2008 computers and FCPX at this point.

We have noticed some small pixelation around the edges of icons with the 5770 in an Early 2008, but that is intermittent and goes away with a restart. We have not noticed any issues in the Early 2009. We have also just purchased a Radeon 5870 and will be testing that in Early 2008 models to see if the same pixelation issue happens. We will install that card eventually in an Early 2009 computer because it is fully compatible with that machine.

If nothing else, hopefully these graphics cards buy us a couple more years with our Mac Pros.

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Answer 8

Sep 1, 2012 12:30 PM in response to Christian Castagna1

I just ordered the 5870, I'll keep the thread posted on my findings with that card. Hopefully we can find a card that doesnt have banding. Because even my brand new MacBook Pro creates banding on video playing through FCP 7. Fingers crossed! New card arrives September 6.

There is always the option of going with the insane modded cards by this guy on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/macvidcards/m.html?hash=item35b9dccf42&item=230751522626 &pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&rt=nc&_trksid=p4340.l2562

BareFeats has done numerous tests with this guys cards and they are pretty insane. They are not plug and play but once you get them dialed, your machine screams, especially with Graphic card intensive tasks in AE etc...

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Answer 9

RatVega™

Level 4

2,005 points

Sep 1, 2012 2:29 PM in response to Christian Castagna1

Christian Castagna1 wrote:

Yes, we previously we had purchased an ATI Radeon 5770 to enable use of FCPX, and 1080 video plays fine through that in both Early 2008 and Early 2009 models, although it is not fully compatible with those computers. Technically it is only compatible with Mid 2010 Mac Pros. It is unclear if there is a card that is fully compatible with Early 2008 computers and FCPX at this point.

We have noticed some small pixelation around the edges of icons with the 5770 in an Early 2008, but that is intermittent and goes away with a restart. We have not noticed any issues in the Early 2009. We have also just purchased a Radeon 5870 and will be testing that in Early 2008 models to see if the same pixelation issue happens. We will install that card eventually in an Early 2009 computer because it is fully compatible with that machine.

If nothing else, hopefully these graphics cards buy us a couple more years with our Mac Pros.

Can you explain a little more about this please... My primary system is a 2008 8X 3.2GHz system with a ATI Radeon 5770 and I have it running two 27" Samsung monitors and a 37" HDTV (all 1080p) on FCS3. None of the displays have any artifacts under any conditions. What are the compatibility issues? If I'm doing a no-no, I want to know before my next big project...

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Answer 10

Sep 3, 2012 4:45 AM in response to RatVega™

I'm not at work, so don' t have all the specs for that particular machine, but the issues we have experienced with the 5770 are intermittent. Our card is driving a 30" Apple Cinema display connected to an Early 2008. Occassionally, usually when the computer has first booted up, around the edges of the icons you can see small dots (almost like really heavy JPEG compression) around the edges of icons on the desktop, in the dock, etc. When an application launches, these dots can also be seen around the edges of windows. The dots appear within the FCP interface, too. However, nothing is affecting the video itself in FCP7, just the display. Again, a restart has always solved the issue for us and it may be several weeks before it happens again.

The 5770 will handle the playback of 1080 media in FCP7 without banding in Mountain Lion, so solves the issues I described above. When the 5870 comes in, we'll be testing to see if the dots appear with that card as well, since the 5870 is not fully compatible with the Early 2008. It has been built for Early 2009 or Mid 2010 Mac Pros.

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Answer 11

RatVega™

Level 4

2,005 points

Sep 3, 2012 10:43 AM in response to Christian Castagna1

I believe the "party line" from the mothership is that the 5770 is for 2010 and later only. Apple has frequently done this because it encourages some users to buy new systems rather than "chance" an upgrade, and because they would be obligated to do extensive evaluation of all potential conversions in order to satisfy their liability lawyers.

In fact there are hundreds of reports of complete functionality in 2006 Mac Pro and later from vendors and individuals including some in the comments section of the Apple Store 5770 questions and answers section. A great deal of the confusion surrounding the board has to do with the mini DisplayPort adapters and 3-monitor operation.

Looking at the issues you're having at your workplace, my guess is that something other than the 5770 is causing the problem since it has been my experience that graphics boards seldom develop sporatic errors that are fixed by a reboot.

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Answer 12

Sep 6, 2012 1:10 PM in response to RatVega™

Confirmed ... just installed the Radeon 5870 Graphics card ... top of the line for Mac Pro ... and same exact banding issues as the 5770. APPLE ... please advise.

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Answer 13

Shane Ross

Level 8

43,110 points

Sep 6, 2012 1:12 PM in response to Christopher Sims

Apple isn't here. THese are their forums, but only users frequent them. And the Apple Moderators know nothing about the topic.

Sorry, Apple doesn't listen here.

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Answer 14

Sep 6, 2012 1:15 PM in response to Shane Ross

Apple claims their engineers follow high topic forum discussions.

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Answer 15

Shane Ross

Level 8

43,110 points

Sep 6, 2012 1:18 PM in response to Christopher Sims

If they do, they don't respond. In all my years of being here (over 8) I have never seen anyone from Apple respond. Unless it was a Moderator warning people of inappropraite posting.

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