Aperture an the new 2013 Mac Pro

Hi folks,

I have not been on the board for a long time, I was just interested to read what the community was doing with the new Mac Pro. However, after seeing this article I had to say something, and for those who know me, it is always rather long-winded, but hopefully helpful.

I just read that Macworld article and found it to be INCREDIBLY inaccurate, most especially the part about RAM. As an engineer and programmer for 40 years, this kind of published misinformation makes me furious because it costs trusting users time and money chasing the wrong things. That was 100% wrong, and it is easy to prove this and see the reality for yourself. This way informed decisions about how a computer handles the work you are actually doing are easily made, with very small amounts of actual technical knowledge, and a couple of software tools that Apple provides on all systems for free: Activity Monitor and Terminal.

Trust me the #1 thing Aperture needs for maximum performance is RAM, and you all have the utility software on your Macs to prove this to yourself, no conjecture, no guessing, you can see it happening in real time. This free app is called Activity Monitor, and it is in your Utilities folder. With this tool you can easily see the RAM use of all apps and processes in your system, and you will see as you work on Aperture that it has a big desire for free system RAM.

First of all, let me make a blanket statement that all OS X machines will increase performance with more RAM is going to be true until you get to the VERY high end of RAM usage, over say 96GB RAM, and that is only possible in the Mac Pro in special cases. SOOOO...that means that every other Mac that is not a Mac Pro will only deliver its maximum possible performance with the maximum amount of RAM the system allows.

Why am a saying this with 100% certainty? Simple...stay with me here... to understand this fully, I need to introduce 2 UNIX terms, pageins and pageouts. I will show you where your Mac displays these figures, and as part of the very old school architecture of UNIX, these two numbers are kept by your system continuously, and only reset to zero when you restart your Mac. A pageout is when the operating system runs out of RAM for a current task, and the UNIX OS writes the current contents of a chunk of RAM to a tempoary "page" on disk to free up that RAM space. When the app needs that data it pagedout again, it will have to re-read that data from the pageout file on disk back into ram or "pagein" before it can use it again. Obviously, read/write access to RAM is orders of magnatude faster than disk access, even if that disk is an SSD. You can only avoid paging if your system always has sufficient free RAM for your apps to work with, and therefore never has to page or swap data from RAM to disk and back again.

Therefore, UNIX RAM usage methodology dictates if you can keep RAM pageouts to a mimimum. ideally zero, your CPUs are processing at maximum speed, limited only by I/O. Paged storage is also called virtual memory or VM by the UNIX system.

OK, fair enough, then do you have enough RAM to avoid this slowdown of paging memory? Simple to answer....open your Terminal app. When it opens, type the word top and hit Return. A verbose screen full of techincal items will appear, and the 6th line down shows status of Virtual Memory, labeled VM:. At the end of that line will be figures for number of pageins and pageouts. If your Pageouts are zero, congratulations your Mac is operating 100% in RAM (at least since your last reboot, as Pagein and pageout is reset at each system restart). Most likely, your Pageout count is a very large number. I now suggest restarting your Mac, when it reboots open Terminal again, type top and check the Pageout value to now be zero, then run Aperture for a while and type top and check the Pageouts again. Given my own systems, after using Aperture for an hour or so of regular array of tasks, I will see some Pageouts unless I am using one of the systems over 48GB. Then, I will see them if I am working with some of my medium format files or large film scans. The dead giveaway for a pageout is the beachball, btw...unless you are doing something else in the background, when you see a beachball in Aperture it is paging.

To see more details on actual RAM usage, I suggest you open Activity Monitor and keep it visible and look at the free RAM as you work with Aperture. Remember, being a UNIX system, the key performance element in all applications is avoiding pageouts.

From reading a lot of the questions here about the new Mac Pro configs, I figure I should write up my conclusions on where I stand with current configs.

I have to sign off now but I will tell you the sweet spot config for my work is 6 core, 64GB RAM (buy 12GB from Apple, buy the RAM from Datamem or OWC), 1TB storage. The GPU selection requires discussion to understand, but the cost difference between D300 and D500 is very small, and the 500 is Tahiti-based.

More to come later in the week, hope this helps.

KJ Doyle

"disk" space

The 1TB internal SSD is disproportionately expensive compared to a 512 GB internal SSD. When we ordered the new MacPro for fast image processing, we opted for the 512 GB SSD, but a 8TB external thunderbolt disk.

Performance tip: My Aperture library (with all preview images, thumbnails, database files) is on my SSD, too, and all RAWs sit on my secondary HD as referenced files. That gave a good performace boost, too.

Always enjoy your posts. I have had my nMP since late February. I had configured my order with input from the business desk specialist at the Apple Store. I told them my need would primarily be Aperture and Final Cut Pro X. They led me to order the 6 Core, with 1 TB drive, D500 graphics cards, and 32 GB of RAM. Very happy thus far. I may add third party RAM some day, but 32 is double what I was using on my Quad core rMBP.

Ernie

Hi Ernie!!

Glad to see a familiar name, and congrats on the nMP!!!

I have been away from work for a few months, and was not around to jump on the nMP at opening. Awaiting arrival of mine, so please allow me to live vicariously if you will for a bit.

Since you have been using this for a month or so, and I assume few if any restarts during that time, what is your current Pageout count? If zero or very low, 32GB RAM is perfect. If it is a big number, going to 64GB will significantly increase performance.

To get a current daily number, restart your Mac, then run a regular day of Aperture and look at the Pageouts when done. If it is still very low, than you are ok with the 32GB.

Also operating Aperture with Activity monitor open and looking at System RAM usage should speak volumes as well. You can readily see how certain behavior in Aperture causes it to grab more and more RAM....which is fine, of course, as long as what it is grabbing is actually free RAM and not causing paging to disk.

oh one more thing....bit off topic, but I add this as I have really been enjoying this product. A friend gave me a Das Keyboard for Mac as a gift recently, and OMG I love it. I can type so fast and effortlessly on this I cannot believe it. It is a mechanical keyboard, using German made Cherry MX Blue keyswitches, meaning it clicks when you hit the keys...but it is the feel that is truly amazing. I was always a fast typist as a kid, I just thought the years, arthritis and the like took that away. Nope...I can say with happy certainty that these stylish but numb, dead silent chicklet keyboards like Apple's and Logitech are the culprit. PLUS, the das has a nice high gloss piano black finish with matte keys that will look great with the Mac Pro. I have been telling everyone about this thing, and the folks at work cannot get over how much faster and better everyone types on this. My business partner loves the fact that I am overjoyed with a product that we did not have to argue about spending thousands for, lol. We offered a das for all the guys when they get their nMP, and they all said yes.

Anyway, I am getting called back to work, great to hear from you.

KJ Doyle

I played around with the entry model at the local Apple Store, and found it to be very quick. But I mostly tested with FCPX, and didn't look to see what, if any, test Library they had on it for Aperture.

There is no question but that my rMBP with 16 GB of RAM out performed my older Mac Pro with only 10 GB of RAM, (and the inability to install anything beyond 10.7.5) throughout the time they could use the same version of Aperture. And there is no question in my mind that the RAW files from my D800 are more intensively felt than full HD video, whether in Aperture or FCPX.

My pet theory is that the graphics memory is over whelmed by the D800 images, and that ordinary memory must be brought to bear, but is then not well managed.

I have configured my order for a new MP after consultation with the Busines Desk reps at the Apple Store, who checked their sources, and felt the 6 Core and standard graphics card would be all that I would need to run either Aperture or FCPX. Only if I were to want to do animation renderings, etc, would I need more than the 6 Core. But I did configure it with 32 GB of RAM, and the 1 TB flash drive. My status still says shipping in February -- I ordered it before Christmas.

I already am using TBolt drives with rMBP running Mavericks, and doing backups via clones to USB3 drives.

Ernie

As with any computer as much RAM and "disk" space as you can afford.

Hi Willi,

is your current Mac Pro already running with SSD drives? That was the best upgrade I could do to my MBP. Without SSD I had retired my MBP a long time ago.

As a new fully equipped Mac Pro is not a bargain for most of us, I'd definitely wait until Apple makes a clear statement, or some external testers have made a proper performance comparison of the various hardware options of the MP in reference to Aperture.

Nevertheless, if you have serious issues now and can't wait, I guess even the basic Mac Pro with sufficient HD space and RAM will be good enough for anything you do with Aperture.

Interesting about the keyboard. I am doing my primary typing tasks on my old MP, where I use wired keyboard with real keys, and clicks.

On the nMP, I am using a Bluetooth keyboard, and the Magic Trackpad. I like this for both editing in Aperture and FCPX

I concurr with Frank that monitoring memory management is a whole new ballgame in Mavericks, which I first switched to on my rMBP. I have seen no evidence of memory management issues on the nMP, and I was thinking just today that I don't remember if I have ever had a restart other than some software update that required it.

With FCPX, which has been especially optimized for use on the nMP, I have seen CPU usage go to at least 950%, via the use of the virtual cores and hardware cores -- this was during Importing of clips. With Aperture, I don't think I have seen more than 700%, and that while SmugInPro was rendering versions for uploading. Aperture, to my knowledge, has not received any tweaks for the nMP. CPU usuage during the stamping on large groups of images has only produced numbers in the 350% range.

I personnly think that the nMP is managing graphic memory much better with my giant images file from my Nikon D800. I suspect graphic memory was being overwhelmed when I was using my old MP and Lion with Aperture, and to some extent on my rMBP.

Ernie

Kirby,

Not enough experience data, yet. I think a 4 Core, based primarily on my experience with my rMBP Quad Core, would be enough for Aperture, only. But I still think the best graphics cards would be best for large Originals.

Both the rMBP and the nMP easily handle video in full form, and no need to use proxy media.

I think RAM is just as important, if not more so, for large images versus video.

For me, having the latest interface ports was extremely important. TBolt and USB3 are the way to go. I use TBolt drives as primaries, and USB3 as clone backup targets.

If I get a chance, I will try to duplicate a large import on both the rMBP and the nMP.

If I were to bet, I think the nMP will really come into its own with any new version of Aperture that might make an appearance, vs the benchmarks I have seen comparing an iMac and the nMP. And thus far, I have not seen Aperture tested that way.

Ernie

Should of ordered the 1TB SSD, they probably have more in stock!

8^)

I made this mistake with my iPhone, when I ordered the 64GB version. It was also a long, long long wait, and when I complained, I was told, that it would have been much quicker, if I had ordered the 32 GB model like everybody else 😀. Because there was not much demand for 64 GB models, there are not many of them produced.

This leads to the interesting question of what are the under-the-hood features of the new Aperture version that was promised to be enhanced for the new Mac Pro, as announced during the Mac Pro release event. What has been changed, what will be changed in future versions, and what will be the best hardware supported by Aperture. Has this "optimized for the Mac Pro" version been 3.5 already?

There isn't anything in the release notes about this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2518

That beeing said, I find my almost 4 years old Macbook Pro still sufficient to process my D800E RAW files. What are your requirements and expectations for the new Mac Pro that you wish to purchase, regarding performace. Esprecially what should it do better than any other current Mac that is available today?