Final Cut Studio 2 Graphics Requirements?

well the thing is, express will work, but some of the extra’s like motion included in studio will probably have a hard time running on an iMac, i haven’t tested this though, but i’m guessing it will need a real life size video card instead of just an onboard..will you really be needing the additions of studio ?

Motion is one of the primary reasons I want it. And, after seeing what Color can do, that too. But if a Mac Pro is the only one that can do it, it’s just too expensive. And personally, I think the Mac Pro is just ugly. The laptop line looks good, and the Mac Mini and iMac are awesome, but a Mac Pro just looks too much like everything else out there. And I switched from a computer tower very intentionally. I don’t want to go back to a tower. So yeah, I’ll probably just stick with my MacBook and get Final Cut Express. It’ll support everything in that except some filters because I have a GMA graphics thing. The built-in Intel graphics…..

ugly? how can you call it ugly ? have you ever opened one up? i always get a bulge in my pants just looking and thinking about it, anyway, it’s either one way or the other, power or prestige, well, i mean, you can’t have an SUV that drivers 30:1, some things are just about making a compromise, if you really want to run the studio software, then get the pro

Yes, that is pretty sage advice from bmhit…if you’re trying to do anything beyond straight editing, then a Mac Pro is going to be the most desirable option.

I attended a day-long workshop offered by Apple last April, for Final Cut Studio 2. We used MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz DP, with 2GB RAM, and 300 GB hard drives, and we did Final Cut Pro, Motion (with some difficulty and very slow response in rendering more than 3–4 layers of effects), Soundtrack Pro (had no problems), and DVD Studio Pro (very slow render “baking” time for DVDs).

As you may already know, Motion is very graphic and memory intensive; the rep their was one of the programmer leads for Motion (as it turns out he’s a former After Effects Guru), and he mentions that if you want to run Motion and Color professionally, you really need the top ATI or Nvidia rated for HD, plus 16GB of RAM (of course the price has come way down on the 2GB sticks), but at the time, it was a $12,000 proposition (Mac Pro, memory, storage, Cinema Display, etc.). Uncompressed HD editing (online) will also require very fast storage via an external dual fibre-channel RAID (i.e. RAID 50 off an Xserve side cart)...

While I have seen MBP running Motion, I can say that if you’re trying to do this for a living, the time lost in slow renders and limitations in # of plugs will probably make the MBP not really a viable solution unless you’re using it as a cuts-only, proofing “travel” rig; otherwise, perhaps wait a month or so for the new releases (Montevinas with faster front-side bus and 4GB max RAM); those may also come with USB 3, which all around are specs worthy of entry-level HD editing (offline).

To get a good idea of what other pros are doing on various setups, check out websites/forums for Final Cut Pro, such as L.A. Final Cut Pro User Group (LAFCPUG.org) or 2-pop.com, etc. Good luck with that.

I’m thinking I’ll get Final Cut Express for now. Work with it and get the hang of it.

Have you heard of Snow Leopard? It was announced as the next version of Mac OS X at WWDC. I’ve heard that it’s supposed to come out summer 2009. It won’t add many, if any, new features, but it’ll make Macs able to be total powerhouses in terms of Tech Specifications. I read from apple.com that it could support 16TB of RAM. I looked at it several times, and I kinda hope it’s a typo because that’s too much! If they go up that high, then I should think prices would have to go down significantly for everything. Hopefully that’ll happen and I’ll be able to get a Snow Leopard iMac or MacBook Pro with built in stuff way beyond what Final Cut Studio 2 requires. Just a thought, since most of Snow Leopard is still a secret, but hopefully I’ll be able to take that route. Maybe I’ll get Final Cut Express this week. Does anyone know what filters won’t work with an Intel built in GMA graphics thing?

well, a GMA is not very powerfulll, so don’t expect too much from it, also not in terms of fast rendering..

what i don’t understand is…if snow leopard, which is intel only, that’s the big secret, will be able to support up to 16tb of RAM, why the prices of RAM should go down ?, i mean, if i built a harbor where you can place a boat twice the size of todays largest cruiseship, should everyone start building that big boat ? and besides, the application should also be able to adress all that space, it’s like a Ferrari stuck in a trafic jam, yeah its fast, but totally unusable…

I’m thinking they’ll utilize it. And I wouldn’t expect them to make all their Macs that much more powerful and require people to pay for it. But no one (that’s allowed to talk) knows much about Snow Leopard. Like everything else Apple: it’ll be interesting to find out.

well, the current mac pro’s support up to 32 gigs, but the best setup is 16 gigs really, so why would they boost it ? snow leopard is already a lot faster because of the intel only, how would you think they’d boost it ? i can’t see apple suddenly putting up to 8 gigs in the iMac’s really

I really don’t have any idea. I do believe it’s a strange thing for Apple to do. It does seem like too much. But normally they know what they’re doing. I honestly don’t know what they have planned. I just hope that it makes what’s now considered “more RAM” will be “standard RAM” in all Macs for the starting price. And then “enormous amounts of RAM” will be possible if you choose to pay more. Just a thought. I hope that happens, and I hope Blu-Ray finally starts being built-into Macs, even if they do just make it a customized Mac feature. They should have gotten it by now…. By WWDC, Blu-Ray was the official format of the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. I figured Apple was waiting until there was an official next generation format, but we still don’t have it…..

but have they announced they will place more ram in the machines ? just because they can doesn

I think we’re all talking about the same thing…current iMac tops out at 4GB but stick ships with 1GB (or 2GB with the extreme/high end package)...I think that if the next iMac tops out at 8GB then it will likely ship with 2GB as the default configuration (2×1GB sticks of course, making you gave to swap them out for anything above 3GB total)...4 bays versus the current two.

edit: nvm

http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

That’s what I’m talking about. Read the part under 64-bit. That’s what I had in mind. I figured that if they’re going to push massive amounts of RAM in people’s faces, they’d have to lower prices for it to catch on… But who really knows but good ole Steve….

yeah but, just because they can doesn’t mean they will, what does a consumer need with 1tb of ram, let alone 16tb of ram ? and since when does apple have control over the RAM price ? it’s still a pretty fixed price really

i don’t think you quite get it, sure, maybe we’ll get a small ram increase, so like an 8gb tops for the new models, but do you have any idea how to put 16tb of ram into a current macpro ? it has 8 slots, so unless they create 2tb DIMM’s it’s never gonna be able to go that far, and then again, will the apps be able to use it ? will you get an advantage out of it ?

10.5 can run up to 32gb’s, and even that is more than enough, and more than in current imacs and macbooks, so how will the higher usable memory be of any effect ?

i still don’t really comprehend where this idea spawned from…

i didn’t know 10.5 could support up to 32GB. I thought they were like, maxing it out… if 10.5 can only go up to 32GB, then that changes everything. I don’t really see a reason for snow leopard either, then.

*i agree with you now.

haha ok, i thought you knew, well then, that’s that :)

…so….ordered that mac pro yet ? i had 2 orders for a macpro today, seems like it’s macpro time of the year

Not yet. I talked to another person that works with Apple at the Apple online store. He said it will work on a MacBook Pro and an iMac. He said he’s sure, and he might have even said from experience. But he did tell me there were certain things I should get with it for it to work properly. He said I needed to get 4GB of RAM, and an 8800 GT graphics card for it to work properly. So that’s what I’m going to try to get. I seriously do not want a tower. I literally don’t have place for it. I have a computer desk really built for an all in one, and doesn’t really have a place for a tower. I just use my MacBook here. I plan on moving the MacBook somewhere else and putting the iMac here when I order it. Now it’s a matter of getting my dad to pay for it. Haha. He’s getting close to doing it, so hopefully I’ll get it soon. Not sure which I’m more excited for: Final Cut Studio 2, or Spore! Haha! (I don’t have too great of a camera, so I’ll probably make that a requirement of customers. They’ll have to provide the camera. After I spend all my dad’s money for the iMac and Final Cut Studio 2, and buy Spore, I’ll be saving for an AVCHD camcorder with with a hard drive.)

From that article it seems to be whole new architecture for data crunching, where the concept is that the OS recognizes multi-core processing for all applications; the “repurposing” of GPUs into the multi-core architecture means that rather than relying on multiple-machine render farms, a single machine with multiple Graphics cards will be able to take advantage of multi-core processing; also, Terabytes of RAM would mean that a machine that never fully powers down could load the OS, plus high memory apps into RAM completely, where they would continue to reside wholly in RAM; under current architecture, the OS and apps are only used in part by RAM for immediate system tasks, while the majority of services are stored on the hard disk, readily accessible by way of “virtual memory.”. Snow Leopard hints at the idea of doing away with hard-disk based virtual memory, thus the theoretical high RAM requirements.

Apple does not set the price for RAM (I never buy heir RAM anyways), but perhaps a new enclosure and Motherboard/Daughterboard are in the works; it’s conceivable as well that there may be “fixed RAM” boards that may be configured as PCIe cards, for example, a 4TB board (there are pro-level boards foR u compressed HD workflow that already exist in that config).