FCP X creating 40GB of swap while rendering 15 mins of HD video!

Hi Tom yes you're right, sorry what I meant is that I'm exporting in AAC, original audio is uncompressed PCM 16bit/48kHZ strainght from my camera (AVCHD imported automatically through FCP X into my external hard drive where I have all my projects, a 7200rpm connected via firewire).

The problem is not obviously in the format to export audio, that is also one of the presets of FCP X and I used also countless times with Compressor.

I see this problem in countless topics on this and other forums, so must be something happening quite often. Whatever is the reason causing FCP X to take all that time and memory while rendering, it's anyway a very bad engineering decision to take out of control from the user the location of scratch disk for temp files and caches...it makes me wonder what they'll do with a new Logic X if and when it will be ever released to make it 'easier' for non professional but not suitable anymore for the pros.

Any idea about how to find a solution for this FCP X? I'm actually in the situation I have an edit done and no way to render it....

I have the feeling here everyone wants to show how good they (or Apple FCP X) are instead of helping to solve the problem..do I have to do the same? 🙂

I shoot video with in 25fps 1920x1080p, audio LPCM uncompressed 16bit/48kHz, I import everything in FCP X (as I always did with the same camera in iMovie and before with FCP Pro), files are imported automatically and they are ok, they play ok and they render pretty quickly if editing NOT in FCP X.

I edited my footage in FCP X, and I'm now trying to export it. I created two version of this project, one full resolution and the other one 720p for exporting then on streaming services. As I said all this process always worked well without FCP Pro, I produced a few commercial dvd videos this way (PAL and NTSC), and I'll need to export this as well in NTSC (but I have not much hope at the moment for it to be as easy as it was on FCP Pro).

Also I know very well the difference between SWAP and SCRATCH, I'm sorry I was not clear. I happen to be as well a system administrator and I can turn and twist any Linux or BSD no problem about that. I already tried countless times limiting that way FCP and its related processes but there's no way to do it via normal BSD commands as it probably belongs to the "Apple" closed part of the operations.

Anyway what I'm complaining about is that FCP X does not allow me to decide anymore what disk I want to use for its temporary files (like all pro software does), and it decides all by itself infact eating up all the available memory, and then going on obviously forcing the pager to create even 40 gb (!!) of swap files. I also tried as a test to disable the paging, FCP process just uses all the RAM and beyond, without limits, until obviously everything crashes (with paging disabled). Looks like that to "show off" they just let FCP X eating all resources without any consideration, something that not even the worse programming team would do (or at least not without giving the user a choice of balance).

To be clear, my system and FCP X is on my internal SSD drive, my projects and original footage are on an external firewire 7200rpm (Mac Extended Journaled) hard drive. In FCP Pro and all the other software I use I can decide where I want to temp files to be, and anyway they manage the system resource in an intelligent way. Even heavy sessions in my Pro Tools or Photoshop are coping normally, all because I decide where and how much of the system resources they can use.

About the countless topics about this, here it is: http://bit.ly/14bkLLs

Now the question is, is there anyone who found a solution to this instead of trying to show how superiors they are or how FCP X like everything Apple does is perfect and faultless? 🙂 It's pretty obvious that after the initial release Apple understood they needed to make it more Pro, but looks like it's still just an evolution of iMove more than an evolution of FCP Pro.

If they write that 8gb is ok, and if I can edit the same HD footage with other software without problem, solution cannot always be to buy more or more powerful Apple hardware but maybe to do better software by Apple?

Sorry I did not reply about lenght of my project and if I did not get your joke.

Yes actually exportin to NTSC is something I do resizing and converting with Compressor, or putting it into my NTSC settings project for Final Cut Pro. Now I'm not sure how I'll do with FCP Pro X...I'd still like to have the 1080 and 720 HD master of my project(s) first 🙂

Yes the video is exporting to H.264, while the original media is imported in Apple Intermediate Codec that always works quite well and fast in Final Cut Pro (not X) or even in iMovie.

Original edited footage is an interview of 45 minutes to be split in three parts from the master (it was already edited that way to render just one file). So I split it into three different parts/projects, each of them about 15 minutes, I hoped this would help but obviously nothing changed. Actually when I arrive at 10% of the render (10% of 15 minutes!) it already fills up 15gb if swap (or crashes my system filling 8gb of ram ruthlessy when I disabled or limited the paging).

I did lots of tests, including for example rendering the clips before exporting, and obviously the same identical problem happens when rendering clips before exporting to Master File..again at 10% it's already filling up all the internal disc of my Mac creating lots of problem with disc full (I can't say enough how poor is this decision of whoever engineered that software and dared enough to call it Final Cut, most of all Pro).

At the moment I did not spend my time sending any feedback I still have countless feedbacks on Logic since version 6 actually (I use it since version 3 and Emi was much better at support), they never care to respond so I was hoping to create finally a post with some definitive solution to this problem for everyone...and I still to come up with a solution here quickly 🙂 I still remember the only reply I received when sending my feedback (like tons of other users) about Waveburner and incorrect track points when exporting to DDP (a MAJOR problem for Pros working with discs manufacturers)..after 3 months they said the product was EOL, that's it (and the money I spent on it?). It's clear sadly that in the end Apple will stop all its Pro software and hardware and will create just iStuff and Macbooks Air(s) because it's where they make more money with minimal effort (and lots of cheap manufacturing in some poor places around the world).

Anyway tomorrow or Wednesday I'll receive 2x8gb modules of RAM and I'll see what are the results doubling my RAM, but I already saw several people who tried it and nothing changed (but it did for a few, and if so they shoud write in specs that for HD material at least 16gb are needed..but they would not sell many that way on App Store).

If you have any idea, I'm more than happy to experiment and report 🙂

Hi Tom,

thanks for your considerations about AIC, I personally found a good midway between quality, file size and speed for editing and exporting (I mean apart from FCP X problem!).

About conversion to NTSC yes I usually do it through Compressor, but on FCP Pro I remember I also find it good to create another version of the project specific for that format.

About swap file I know because from 20gb free when I saw disc full I immediately checked the swap files in /var/vm and it was where all the space was gone (I did after the first time several tests, up to 40gb free and just after reboot and FCP X only program open). To double check I also closed FCP X and waited (without doing anything else): most of the swap files obviously disappeared in a few minutes. I can send you a screenshot of the list of files in /var/vm but trust me I konw where to see 🙂

When I did my test disabiling the paging, I saw the FCP X process eating up all the physical ram like crazy till it crashed the whole system...I still wonder how it's possible anyone thought this means optimization or speeding up things..

Ok,

received today my 16gb RAM upgrade, installed and tested, all works ok, and I have about 30gb free on my SSD internal hard drive (500gb total), plus a couple of terabytes free on my external 7200rpm firewire disc where the project AND the clips are stored.

FCP X only software running. I start it, no swap used, about 14gb of RAM are free to use. I launch Activity Monitor as well to monitor the RAM usage.

I start rendering (can be rendering of the clips or export to Master File, same behaviour), physical RAM quickly gets filled up to max (in about 3 minutes), swap starts kicking in, suddenly the physical RAM used drops and I have 7GB of Inactive Ram. In the meantime swap keeps going quickly.

After a minute this does not change, so I run a 'purge' command to force the Inactive Ram to be free and reused by FCP X, nothing, more times, nothing, swap keeps going on. After 15 minutes it's about 20GB of swap and counting, RAM is stuck to 7GB used and 7GB Inactive Ram (the rest if for the system), so there's no free physical RAM and swap continues growing.

Before disk is full I stop the render, swap stops growing, but the 7GB of Inactive Ram are still there even running 'purge' command again (without rendering going).

I quit FCP X and immediately the 7GB of Inactive RAM become free Ram and available again to use, and swap starts reducing and all is back to normal.

If some of the clever programmers of FCP X are here, should be clear like the sun that some of you should just be fired, because reading a bit on the internet you'll see that it happens to everyone working with anything more serious than an iPhone video of 3 minutes, and FCP X clearly has some BUG and BIG problems handling large amounts of Ram quickly and releasing/reusing it in the correct way. Instead it does not care because it's less complicated if you make the user buy more powerful hardware so you don't care about code optimisation.

So 16gb of Ram, FCP X eats them all, then half of them are stuck to Inactive till FCP X is closed (very useful). The rendering goes on filling all the VM beyond any reasonable limit, without possibility for me to decide that I want it to use a scratch disk for all caching and be lighter on RAM. I used to laugh at reviewers calling themselves Pro and saying that "finally" FCP X don't use the complicated/old concept of scratch disk...now I'm not laughing anymore, they're just as incompetent.

And now is time to ask for money back and let other customers know about this and not trash their money if they are Pros...Adobe sadly is now much better software house for any Pros out there.

Yes I'll report to feedback as soon as I go back to my studio, I'm sure already that like it happened in the past for other 'Apple Pro' apps they'll never reply with a solution and they'll never admit the problem (just to be clear, I'm endorser and beta tester for a few pro audio software houses so I'm available to shed more light on this).

And yes what I'm saying here is: unless you edit amateur short and/or low resolution video, or unless you have insane machines just to run software badly engineered, DO NOT BUY FCP X.

There's no solution to the countless (try counting them..) sites and blogs and forums saying FCP X will put down your system (eating all resources) when rendering your project after hours of editing, and you'll never be able to render and use your work.

Yes I did it as well for a 5 minutes video, lots of difficulties and had to free 40gb of internal disk for the swap...but anything longer and..bam!

I personally know a few studios, the ones that are not on Adobe or Avid use still FCP Pro 7...and I'm sure there are others using FCP X, if you get a machine with 256GB of Ram and 500GB of free SSD space on your internal hard drive...sure...but it's like needing to kill a mosquito with a bomb..it means the worse and most amateur code engineering: do not optimise and write bad code that needs incredibly over powered hardware to run smoothly (something very common today).

I don't think it's casual that on most of the internet there are articles about Apple trying to 'buy back' Pros after the release of FCP X..they were even forced to put back FCP 7...they added a few things with updates to X (multicam etc.) but basically at core it remains just a more powerful version of iMovie, and quite overpriced.

As I said, for anyone looking for a solution to Final Cut Pro X spinning wheel, crash, freeze, eating all resources during rendering: give up, ask money back and look somewhere else.

Let's hope they'll not ruin Logic in the same way.