No GPU acceleration: MacOS 10.12.3 + FCPX 10.3 + AMD R9 280x

[Husta]

Hi there,

I just noticed that my setup can obviously not make any use of GPU acceleration even though I have used known to work components. My Setup is:

HW:
Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H
Intel i7 3770K
Sapphire AMD R9 280x
SW:
MacOS Sierra 10.12.3
FCPX 10.3

Exporting video with FCPX literaly takes ages. In order to verify that the dGPU was used i had a look to the dGPU temperature during an export and realised that the temperature would stay at its idle temperature of 47°C. There was not a single rise in temperature while exporting.

I tried using the BruceX benchmark for FCPX next and it took 35sec to export the 10sec clip. When searching the web this should be more like 9-10sec when the dGPU was used. However there seem to be many people experiencing this problem with Sierra 10.12.3 and FCPX 10.3. Some of them reported that there export speeds with BruceX have dropped from 9sec to 30-30sec after the last FCPX update.

I tried to downgrade FCPX 10.3 to 10.2.2 and was able to enhance the encoding speed from 35sec -> 25sec. However that does not satisfy either since the GPU agains does not seem to use GPU acceleration (temp stays the same).

On Apples Website it looks like they have ditched support for the R9 280x with Sierra:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202239

Does anyone else have these problems? Any idea what I could do about it?
Thank you very much in advance

Cheers!
Thomas

 

[cuiper]

Hi there,

I just noticed that my setup can obviously not make any use of GPU acceleration even though I have used known to work components. My Setup is:

HW:
Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H
Intel i7 3770K
Sapphire AMD R9 280x
SW:
MacOS Sierra 10.12.3
FCPX 10.3

Exporting video with FCPX literaly takes ages. In order to verify that the dGPU was used i had a look to the dGPU temperature during an export and realised that the temperature would stay at its idle temperature of 47°C. There was not a single rise in temperature while exporting.

I tried using the BruceX benchmark for FCPX next and it took 35sec to export the 10sec clip. When searching the web this should be more like 9-10sec when the dGPU was used. However there seem to be many people experiencing this problem with Sierra 10.12.3 and FCPX 10.3. Some of them reported that there export speeds with BruceX have dropped from 9sec to 30-30sec after the last FCPX update.

I tried to downgrade FCPX 10.3 to 10.2.2 and was able to enhance the encoding speed from 35sec -> 25sec. However that does not satisfy either since the GPU agains does not seem to use GPU acceleration (temp stays the same).

On Apples Website it looks like they have ditched support for the R9 280x with Sierra:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202239

Does anyone else have these problems? Any idea what I could do about it?
Thank you very much in advance

Cheers!
Thomas

GPU acceleration is used only when effects are applied. That's what BruceX is testing. If your timeline has a bunch of clips and you export it, FCPX is only CPU bound.

 

[Husta]

Hi cuiper,

I have tried to apply verious filter effects to my timeline so that the GPU acceleration would kick in, however the situation stays the same: Once I start exporting the project to H.264 the GPU seems to stay at idle. Is there a safe way to tell if the GPU is used for rendering? Right now I can only have a look at the GPU temperature which stays absolutely the same as in idle state whereas the CPU temperature quickly begins to rise once rendering is initiated.

I have solely build the Hackintosh for video rendering purposes and it would be catastrophic if now the GPU acceleration does not work. (BTW: I have two R9 280x cards which are supposed to run in crossfire. However only one card ist installed now until I sort out the problems)

My current BurceX result is: 33sec (i7 3770K, 1x R9 280x). Is this rendering time okay or too slow? I've read somewhere esle that it should be more like 8-9sec.