FCPX/Motion performance with gtx670 on 10.8.2

[xcalout]

Hi all

Recently I've built my first hackintosh:

GA-Z77X-UD5H
intel i2700k
asus gtx670
32GB ram

So far it works great and problem free… with the exception of FCPX 10.0.7 and Motion 5.0.6, where I'm noticing much worse performance than on my 2011 macbook pro (i7 2GHz, 8GB ram and Ati6490) running on SL 10.6.8. An example - on my macbook a simple Motion 5 project, with a 1080p 50fps h264 video clip on the timeline plays at around 15fps. Switching playback render resolution to half, I get smooth 50 fps. On my hackintosh I get 8-12fps no matter what resolution setting I have selected. Other example is Swarm composition that is shipped with Motion. Swarm-Open plays at 20fps on my mackbook, and only 14fps on hackintosh. The only exception I've noticed, where my hackintosh is faster than macbook is in Atmospheric composition, where mbp plays at 20fps, and hackintosh at smooth 30fps. In FCPX I also see that my hackintosh is performing much worse than macbook, which is very surprising to me, as the hardware of my PC is much more powerfull. I have OpenCL setup and running on my hackintosh, and in Luxmark2 my "fake mac pro" destroys mackbook in all test (CPU/GPU). I got a feeling than FCPX and Motion do not like gtx670, and do not use it to speed up rendering. Cannot confirm it, as I could not find any working GPU monitor, that could show GPU utilization, while running Motion or FCPX. Apple support site (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4664) does not list GTX670 as compatible, so I'm wondering if these two programs do not only check opencl availability but also GPU chip. Anyone out there having nvidia gtx660/670/680 having the same issue ? Does anyone know if and how to improve fcpx/motion performance, or how to further debug this issue? How many fps do you guys get with those standard Motion compositions on your hackintosh machines? Dunno maybe it's just that FCPX/Motion work much slower on Mountain Lion compared to Snow Leopard ?

cheers

 

[Tec Junkie]

My brother has a macbook pro better spec than yours and we did a render comparison in FCPX a few months ago and with exactly the same settings and the same file and same effect we tested it against my hack (i7 950 4.2ghz, 12 gig ram, gigabyte gtx670), my hack was 25-35 percent faster and that was only on a short clip. So i would say the gtx 670 works perfect in fact i know it does because i also use it with after effects (Ray-trace mode) and Adobe premier its quite simply amazing, the Gigabyte gtx670 works perfect in my hackintosh.

 

[xcalout]

Yeah, I think it's not GTX that is the problem here in my case. On my macbook even if I disable discrete graphics (ATI) and switch to integrated graphic chip (intel hd 3000) using gfxcardstatus app, I still get much better performance than on my hackintosh. So even if in both cases gfx card is not used to accelerate processing and fcpx/motion uses only cpu, I should be getting _at_minimum_ the same performance on both setups. I'm guessing it's just fcpx/motion acting up for some reason on my hackintosh, and it's not a hardware issue (since other software I use, works perfect and much faster than on my macbook).

BTW Tec Junkie, on what OSX versions did you and your brother made the tests ? Was it mountain lion on both computers ?


cheers

 

[Tec Junkie]

Yeah, I think it's not GTX that is the problem here in my case. On my macbook even if I disable discrete graphics (ATI) and switch to integrated graphic chip (intel hd 3000) using gfxcardstatus app, I still get much better performance than on my hackintosh. So even if in both cases gfx card is not used to accelerate processing and fcpx/motion uses only cpu, I should be getting _at_minimum_ the same performance on both setups. I'm guessing it's just fcpx/motion acting up for some reason on my hackintosh, and it's not a hardware issue (since other software I use, works perfect and much faster than on my macbook).

BTW Tec Junkie, on what OSX versions did you and your brother made the tests ? Was it mountain lion on both computers ?


cheers

Hi, he was running lion and i was on mountain lion and his macbook pro is the late 2011 i7 2.2ghz and 8gig of ram, stay tuned to this thread because we are going to try this test again.

 

[Solidww]

There is a known issue with FCPX and GTX600 cards. For some reason they just don't perform well together.

To add another oddity. When I had a 660Ti, I never had any issues with FCPX or Motion 5 running slow. There is a thread here where a few people have discussed this issue and some have given a lot of advice on fixing this problem.

The only thing I can add now is are you using GraphicsEnabler=no?

 

[xcalout]

Hi, he was running lion and i was on mountain lion and his macbook pro is the late 2011 i7 2.2ghz and 8gig of ram, stay tuned to this thread because we are going to try this test again.

So... have you run the tests? I'm curious about what kind of performance you guys are getting on your hackintoshes in fcpx/motion.

There is a known issue with FCPX and GTX600 cards. For some reason they just don't perform well together.

Well it seems some of the problems with fcpx & nvidia are actually fcpx fault (see: http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/new...-inch-imac-might-be-having-problems-with-fcpx ). I'm not getting any freezes, but then again it might be because fcpx does not use my gfx card at all (hence general slowness of final cut / motion).

The only thing I can add now is are you using GraphicsEnabler=no?

Ofcourse.


cheers

 

[Cfreak]

Have you:

Tested your OpenCL performance using Luxmark?
This also tells you that OpenCL is running and how well.

Your single point performance using Cuda-Z?
My GTX 470 gets single point: 1100 Gflops/Sec (or some term that starts with G) when it's cranked up no matter in my Hack or my real MacPro 3,1. The My hack has better power management for the GTX 470 than my real MacPro 3,1 does. The CustoMac i7 leaves it idle at 770 Gflops until it's needed, then cranks it upto 100 during Luxmark. You can see the voltage difference in Multibeast's "HWMonitor -great utility btw).

-My GTX 470 is an OOB PC card.


There is also a helpful little app called "atMonitor" which can show CPU & GPU usage in % and GPU temp. It works better on a real mac than on a Hack, but, it shows even more on the hack than on a real MacPro using a PC graphics card.

Disclosure: I used to edit on FCP7 and have been disappointed with FCPX and find it's performance with naitive codecs lacking. I researched heavily how to keep using my real MacPro 3,1 and use FCPX. The results (long render times, only 30% faster than on my MBP laptop) have not been great. I built the CustoMac Pro to see if it improved (and it has by ca. 250% which is decent), but, I don't like the interface much and will try Adobe PPro with Cuda acceleration next week).


My observation was on all 3 of my systems:
2009 17" MBP, weak 9600GT GPU, (10.7.5 OpenCL works and my LuxMark score is a measly 45)
2008 MacPro 3,1 with GTX 470, (10.7.5 OpenCL enabled. Luxmark 980)
2013 CustoMac Pro, i7, same GTX 470 (10.8.2 Open CL enabled (by defat I think), Luxmark ca.980)

Lumark score based on the default simple scene "Sala" using only the GPU.

I have also read somewhere that the OpenCL implementation in Nvidia cards is not mature yet, or something like that. This pushes Mac owners in to ATI cards and that closes the door to Adobe cuda acelleration. I wanted to keep that door open any way I could.

Nvidia seems to be combatting this Apple/ATI bond by releasing Mac specific drivers days after each OSX release (last year in Lion before ML) and now it seems Mac has decided to bundle the drivers in 10.8 probably to support the only high end iMac with the GTX675M/680M option.

FCPX, despite requiring a strong GPU, according to atMonitor uses only 25-50% of it's potential during renders and exports. What FCPX needs to perform is a very strong CPU. The effect is that FCPX performs poorly on anything except the lastest, expensive iMacs, MBP with an ATI GPU. Notice on the BTO iMac page only the most expensive iMac comes with an Nvidia GPU (and costs ca. $2300). Is this the cost of admission for a Mac user to jump ship to Adobe?

If any of this sounds like marketing, or planned obsolescence, it probably is and new iMac sales probably subsidize the $299 (cheap) FCPX price tag.

In my lose render test between my C2Duo MBP from 2009 (with SSD) and my i7 Customac (with SSD), the timeline renders felt ca. 250% faster. Honestly I was expecting more, so I think it's time for me to start checking out Adobe PrPro. It's more like FCP7 anyway. Glad I kept the cuda door open! Choice is good, Thank you TonyMac!

 

[xcalout]

Have you:

Tested your OpenCL performance using Luxmark?

Yup... Like I wrote in my first post, in Luxmark my hackintosh "destroys" MacBook (Sala test does not even run on ati based macbook). On hackintosh I get 1069 points in Luxmark2 (Sala, GPU only).

Your single point performance using Cuda-Z?

I don't have CUDA installed (none of the apps I have installed uses that, so I have not installed it).

There is also a helpful little app called "atMonitor" which can show CPU & GPU usage in % and GPU temp. It works better on a real mac than on a Hack, but, it shows even more on the hack than on a real MacPro using a PC graphics card.

Yes, I tried atMonitor, but I find this app very unreliable. Current version does show GPU usage anymore, and the older version that provides that info crashes after a second on my hackintosh (I guess it might not like FakeSMC), and on my macbook it always shows 0% GPU usage (even if GPU is clearly used).

Disclosure: I used to edit on FCP7 and have been disappointed with FCPX and find it's performance with naitive codecs lacking.

Haha... yeah I know what you mean. I mostly use Sony Vegas 11 on windows, and it's performance just kicks FCPX ass. I also find FCPX ui broken (literally no ways to customize the layout). But... I totally dig FCPX color correctors (so freaking fast to work with - secondary color correction is so much more user friendly than in Vegas) and it's semi integration with Motion5 (still pity both of these are not a single app). I tried Premiere + After Effects, but it's too expensive combo for me, and although AE is way more powerful it's also way too much complicated for me (feature set of Motion is sufficient to me).

Anyway, after doing some research it seems, that FCPX does not like nvidia too much, and even new iMac (with nvidia gpu) users are complaining about FCPX slowdowns and freezes. So for the time being, I'm going to wait for 10.8.3 and next FCPX build (which is supposed to resolve some issues with nvidia gpus) and use final cut/motion on my macbook.

cheers

 

[Tswab]

I would be really curious of how to boost fcpx rendering times.

i7-3770K
GTX 670
and running off an SSD.


Ted