Problems with FCPX

[palmazou]

Hi,
I'm editing a huge project; 2 hours long and 8 HD cameras.
Here's my config
-
- 1 Power Supply corsaire TX 650 w 80+

- 1 MB P8P67Mpro rev3 Asus - P8P67-M Pro (B3) - Carte-mère - micro ATX - Intel P67 - 1155 Socket - Version B3: Amazon.fr: Informatique

- 1 Processor Intel Xéon E3-1230 Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1230 (8M Cache, 3.20 GHz)

- 1 GC Gainward GTX 460 1 go Products :: Gainward GeForce® GTX 460 1024MB "GS"

- 4 x ram VIPER Patriot 4 go )

- 3 HDD 3To each 7200 T/m

In the beginning, everything worked well, but now that I have edited around 1 hour, I begin to have big problems, the computer hangs, my saves won't load, icons don't display in the timeline
I was in 10.0.5, then I updated the system to 10.8.2 and FCPX to 10.0.6 - but no solution so far
Any hint ?
Is my project too huge ? - should I cut it in half ?
Thanks
Alain

 

[SubXero]

2 Hours of HD video can be a bit much... depending of course on how much editing has gone into it. Even on a real mac, it is always recommended to break projects up into segments. It makes it so much easier to manage. Then .... the real reason to split things up. If you keep the entire project in one and the saved file becomes corrupted, you will have to start all over again This happened to me twice... before I listened to the advice I had been given. It makes a huge difference too as individual segments make use of the full potential of your resources making for a smoother work experience. After story-boarding, the very next step for me is to work out how many separate project files to use.

The mere fact that icons are not loading is an indication that you have used up all free system resources up to that point. No SSD will make any difference when you are out of physical memory. The SSD will only render a lot faster. But if you are out of physical memory, you will never completely render your project without having problems. Rendering will become so slow, that the potential of the SSD will become obsolete. You can bump your RAM up to 32GB and will be able to push things further, but working in one 2 hour long HD project file is always going to be problematic.

 

[Madusmaximus]

This is why this kind of project is usually left to something like the Mac Pro with its dual socket Xeons and gobs of RAM. As the chap above said, try splitting it up into smaller segments of say 30 mins each. If it's still struggling, split them up some more. It all depends on how it's been cut though. If you're using a lot of transitions and have some effects in there bright in from Motion or whatever then of course you may need to split it up based on complexity rather than time, or a combination of the two.

Oh, make sure you have a bunch of backups too every time you do any splits and stuff, the last thing you want is to split it and have it crap out on you half way through and lose the original project.

Good luck!

 

[dakotaht]

GTX 460 vs GTX 660Ti

Consider deleting the render files. I've never had a project that complex and I don't believe I'd tackle it in that manner. Perhaps editing sequences in compound groups, then insert groups on the timeline for a final render. 2 hours sounds like a heck of a wrangle. FCPX is sensitive to the state of the hard drives. There's a setting in system preferences under energy options to allow the machine to idle the hard disks. I always turn that option off.

A passing thought, FCPX saves the state of the project frequently, it might be thats the issue.

Good Luck!

Lockups in FCPX are a real issue. Thinking a faster, quicker, more RAM GPU might solve the lockup issues, I bought a 660Ti EVGA video card. After a week or so it started locking up with the infamous blue rectangles and a total lock in FCPX. Fought the machine for a couple days and reverted to my EVGA GTX460.

Startup parameters were:

PCIRootUID=0
GraphicsEnabler=Yes

and it ran for hours without a lockup.
10.8.2 and the current version of FCPX.

The machine has 32 gigs of Vengeance RAM with a 1600 XMP profile. Geekbench scores at 15300 (64 bit). No overclocking of the CPU.

Certainly appears that there's an issue with Nvidia cards and FCPX, thoughout my current Hackintosh journey I note that most issues are related to Nvidia and FCPX. Here's hoping 10.8.3 will fix a few more problems.

Examine the system log: minute issues such as a corrupt PNG file drives FCPX crazy. Also look for apps that simply lock.

Under Preferences: turned off Background Rendering and selected Better Performance for display. Seems to help with the lockups.