Memory Issues with Final Cut Pro

Dave Perry · November 14th, 2005, 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lucinda Luvaas

What is the problem with 7 anyway? did Apple fix this yet?

No problem with QT 7. Most issues come from improperly maintained systems.

Lucinda Luvaas · July 12th, 2006, 12:13 AM

I recently purchased Final Cut Studio and have another memory issue. In the System Preferences where it say Memory Usage, Application: I'm not sure what to put. I've read if you put 100% you could drag the OS X memory and have to use Virtual Memory which will slow things down, so I'm wondering if I should start with 80% and see how it goes? I have two gigs of memory. Then where it says: Still Cache, I'm not sure what to put. I put 82% there and Thumbnail Cache is now: Disk: 8192K and Ram:700K. Is this right?

Chris Hocking · July 12th, 2006, 04:22 AM

One thing worth mentioning is that if you do decide to "cross-grade" to Final Cut Studio 5.1, you will need Tiger for the software to work.

However, I would personally recommened upgrading to Tiger and Final Cut Studio. After a clean install, I have had no problems with Tiger 10.4.7 nor QuickTime 7.1.2 on my eMac (hardly a beast of a machine!). Tiger adds some handy new features and Final Cut Pro 5.1.1 is a dream to drive. In my opinion, it's worth the money.

Note: You cannot buy a new version of Final Cut Pro 5.1 seperately - you must buy it as part of the Final Cut Studio suite. But as you already have an older version of Final Cut, the cross-grade deal is well worth it.

Boyd Ostroff · July 12th, 2006, 07:45 AM

Chris, people might want to wait another 3 weeks since Apple is supposed to release MacOSX 10.5 "Leopard" at the Worldwide Developers Conference on August 7. Now I'm not usually a fan of switching to the newest OS on the first day out of the gate, however if you upgrade to Tiger now then you would have to pay another $150 (or whatever) for Leopard down the road anyway. Who knows, the next version of FCP may require Leopard?

Lucinda: is there some reason why you're messing with those memory preferences? Unless you're trying to troubleshoot a specific problem I would leave them at whatever they default to. In about 5 years of working on FCP I have never touched those settings myself. I'm not 100% certain, but I don't think the settings will alter the amount of memory that OSX allocates to FCP, just the memory use inside the program.

If you're concerned about memory usage then fire up the activity monitor program (look in the utilities folder inside the applications folder). The pie chart in the lower right shows how much free memory you have. Look at the page ins/outs number which should be xxxx/yy. As long as xxxx is substantially larger than yy then you're fine. As yy gets larger then your machine begins "thrashing" - swapping pages in an out of disk. If yyyy gets as large as half of xxxx then you're probably running too many applications at the same time or need to add more RAM.

Arnie Schlissel · July 12th, 2006, 07:52 AM

"people might want to wait another 3 weeks since Apple is supposed to release MacOSX 10.5 "Leopard" at the Worldwide Developers Conference on August 7."

I'm not sure, but if I read the announcement properly, I think they're previewing Leopard, not releasing it. The release could be several months away.

Boyd Ostroff · July 12th, 2006, 08:06 AM

You may very well be right about that. If you need Tiger now then you have no choice but to buy it. But if you're just thinking about an overall upgrade strategy then consider waiting a few more weeks. With each new OSX release there are always a bunch of people upset that they just plunked down $150 for the previous version. In the past Apple hasn't offered any discount for people who recently bought the previous version, although they sometimes do offer a low-cost upgrade to people who purchase after the new version has been announced. If that's the case then it still might pay you to wait until August 7.

Lucinda Luvaas · July 12th, 2006, 01:47 PM

i have no interest in purchasing any newer version, quite happy with what I have. This is not an answer to my question....except the advice you gave me Boyd, thanks.

Greg Boston · July 12th, 2006, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arnie Schlissel

"people might want to wait another 3 weeks since Apple is supposed to release MacOSX 10.5 "Leopard" at the Worldwide Developers Conference on August 7."

I'm not sure, but if I read the announcement properly, I think they're previewing Leopard, not releasing it. The release could be several months away.

That's how I origiinally understood it, but Apple has a way of serving up stuff sooner than originally slated for release. Witness the release of the Intel Macs earlier this year and the Universal Binary release for ProApps somewhat ahead of schedule.

-gb-

July 12th, 2006, 12:13 AM	#17
Lucinda Luvaas Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 233	I recently purchased Final Cut Studio and have another memory issue. In the System Preferences where it say Memory Usage, Application: I'm not sure what to put. I've read if you put 100% you could drag the OS X memory and have to use Virtual Memory which will slow things down, so I'm wondering if I should start with 80% and see how it goes? I have two gigs of memory. Then where it says: Still Cache, I'm not sure what to put. I put 82% there and Thumbnail Cache is now: Disk: 8192K and Ram:700K. Is this right?

July 12th, 2006, 04:22 AM	#18
Chris Hocking Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 595	One thing worth mentioning is that if you do decide to "cross-grade" to Final Cut Studio 5.1, you will need Tiger for the software to work. However, I would personally recommened upgrading to Tiger and Final Cut Studio. After a clean install, I have had no problems with Tiger 10.4.7 nor QuickTime 7.1.2 on my eMac (hardly a beast of a machine!). Tiger adds some handy new features and Final Cut Pro 5.1.1 is a dream to drive. In my opinion, it's worth the money. Note: You cannot buy a new version of Final Cut Pro 5.1 seperately - you must buy it as part of the Final Cut Studio suite. But as you already have an older version of Final Cut, the cross-grade deal is well worth it.

July 12th, 2006, 07:45 AM	#19
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,787	Chris, people might want to wait another 3 weeks since Apple is supposed to release MacOSX 10.5 "Leopard" at the Worldwide Developers Conference on August 7. Now I'm not usually a fan of switching to the newest OS on the first day out of the gate, however if you upgrade to Tiger now then you would have to pay another $150 (or whatever) for Leopard down the road anyway. Who knows, the next version of FCP may require Leopard? Lucinda: is there some reason why you're messing with those memory preferences? Unless you're trying to troubleshoot a specific problem I would leave them at whatever they default to. In about 5 years of working on FCP I have never touched those settings myself. I'm not 100% certain, but I don't think the settings will alter the amount of memory that OSX allocates to FCP, just the memory use inside the program. If you're concerned about memory usage then fire up the activity monitor program (look in the utilities folder inside the applications folder). The pie chart in the lower right shows how much free memory you have. Look at the page ins/outs number which should be xxxx/yy. As long as xxxx is substantially larger than yy then you're fine. As yy gets larger then your machine begins "thrashing" - swapping pages in an out of disk. If yyyy gets as large as half of xxxx then you're probably running too many applications at the same time or need to add more RAM.

July 12th, 2006, 07:52 AM	#20
Arnie Schlissel Major Player Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: New York NY Posts: 322	"people might want to wait another 3 weeks since Apple is supposed to release MacOSX 10.5 "Leopard" at the Worldwide Developers Conference on August 7." I'm not sure, but if I read the announcement properly, I think they're previewing Leopard, not releasing it. The release could be several months away.

July 12th, 2006, 08:06 AM	#21
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,787	You may very well be right about that. If you need Tiger now then you have no choice but to buy it. But if you're just thinking about an overall upgrade strategy then consider waiting a few more weeks. With each new OSX release there are always a bunch of people upset that they just plunked down $150 for the previous version. In the past Apple hasn't offered any discount for people who recently bought the previous version, although they sometimes do offer a low-cost upgrade to people who purchase after the new version has been announced. If that's the case then it still might pay you to wait until August 7.

July 12th, 2006, 01:47 PM	#22
Lucinda Luvaas Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 233	i have no interest in purchasing any newer version, quite happy with what I have. This is not an answer to my question....except the advice you gave me Boyd, thanks.