MP 7,1 UI Performance in FCP X is seriously impressive vs Premiere!

[chfilm]

Hey,

just wanted to report, one of the big reasons why I wanted the new mac pro was the laggy UI rendering across all Adobe Apps on my dual 5k Displays. You can imagine my disappointment when I found that not just in Lightroom, but also in Premiere, scrolling through a full timeline is still laggy as hell.
It got better, yes, but maybe by 30-40% but still absolutely stuttering.

Then I went to open the latest version of FCPX which is optimized for the new machine, and OH MY GOD it is SO fast! If I consider I had an afterburner card installed ... but even without it, on a single Vega II, the entire UI is so smooth, everything feels super snappy and responsive, just how it should be.

Damn if only not none of my clients would use FCP, I would seriously reconsider a switch. Working like this is what I dreamed of when I got this machine..

 

[bxs]

Hey,

just wanted to report, one of the big reasons why I wanted the new mac pro was the laggy UI rendering across all Adobe Apps on my dual 5k Displays. You can imagine my disappointment when I found that not just in Lightroom, but also in Premiere, scrolling through a full timeline is still laggy as hell.
It got better, yes, but maybe by 30-40% but still absolutely stuttering.

Then I went to open the latest version of FCPX which is optimized for the new machine, and OH MY GOD it is SO fast! If I consider I had an afterburner card installed ... but even without it, on a single Vega II, the entire UI is so smooth, everything feels super snappy and responsive, just how it should be.

Damn if only not none of my clients would use FCP, I would seriously reconsider a switch. Working like this is what I dreamed of when I got this machine..

Hmmmm, I'm in the same boat.... we are using Adobe exclusively even though we have FCP X installed... but hired freelancers will simply not touch it. Just hope Adobe gets their finger out pronto and work on competing/matching with the FCP X experience you've described.

We do have the Afterburner with our MP7,1 order.... so it will be interesting to see if that in some way benefits the Adobe software.

 

[chfilm]

Hmmmm, I'm in the same boat.... we are using Adobe exclusively even though we have FCP X installed... but hired freelancers will simply not touch it. Just hope Adobe gets their finger out pronto and work on competing/matching with the FCP X experience you've described.

We do have the Afterburner with our MP7,1 order.... so it will be interesting to see if that in some way benefits the Adobe software.

Please let us know! When are you gonna receive your machine?
I'm gonna go to the Apple store on friday to check out their machine with AB installed, but I guess they won't have Adobe, so it's gonna be pointless.

 

[bxs]

Please let us know! When are you gonna receive your machine?
I'm gonna go to the Apple store on friday to check out their machine with AB installed, but I guess they won't have Adobe, so it's gonna be pointless.

We receive our MP7,1 Feb 7-13 sometime..... You'd think it would be delivered faster having wheels.

 

[OkiRun]

Jan. 2nd please come soon!

I'm going to order over the phone to ensure that my business discount is properly applied. Plus, I have to use a bank transfer method as credit cards based in the USA are not allowed for Apple purchases in other countries.

 

[Average Pro]

Jan. 2nd please come soon!

I'm going to order over the phone to ensure that my business discount is properly applied. Plus, I have to use a bank transfer method as credit cards based in the USA are not allowed for Apple purchases in other countries.

Okee,
Bummer about the credit card not working. What country are you in? I've utilized my US credit card at the Japan, Korea, Switzerland, and Germany Apple stores to make purchases (also either Czech, Austria or Hungary). The one thing I liked about the Asian countries is that the price quoted was the entire price (tax already included).

 

[OkiRun]

Okee,
Bummer about the credit card not working. What country are you in? I've utilized my US credit card at the Japan, Korea, Switzerland, and Germany Apple stores to make purchases (also either Czech, Austria or Hungary). The one thing I liked about the Asian countries is that the price quoted was the entire price (tax already included).

Yes - I can go my local apple store and purchase using a USA linked credit card. However, this apple store doesn't take orders. Therefore, its either online (won't take USA credit card in Japan) or on phone (won't take USA credit card in Japan). Back to a bank transfer.

 

[goMac]

The Adobe apps are all garbage. They really don’t care about UI performance or usability. They’ve been using a lot of web technologies for UI.

Photoshop is a train wreck these days. Ever since Creative Cloud, Adobe has taken one of the best Mac application experiences and run them into the ground.

 

[OkiRun]

The Adobe apps are all garbage. They really don’t care about UI performance or usability. They’ve been using a lot of web technologies for UI.

Photoshop is a train wreck these days. Ever since Creative Cloud, Adobe has taken one of the best Mac application experiences and run them into the ground.

Apple needs to have a grand stand regalia for the next update to FCPX with some major editors, directors, TV studio personnel from major networks, etc. to at least in a PR sense, bring it back to the professional level of recognition. So many switched to PP years ago. I'm still fighting clients on this.

 

[chfilm]

Apple needs to have a grand stand regalia for the next update to FCPX with some major editors, directors, TV studio personnel from major networks, etc. to at least in a PR sense, bring it back to the professional level of recognition. So many switched to PP years ago. I'm still fighting clients on this.

Would be great if they'd do that. There's a window of opportunity here, since many people are talking about switching to Davinci resolve from Premiere, because of all the bugs and bad performance.. but even though Resolve is great, it's still a Rip Off of FCPX in terms of editing.

 

[Snow Tiger]

Hey,

just wanted to report, one of the big reasons why I wanted the new mac pro was the laggy UI rendering across all Adobe Apps on my dual 5k Displays. You can imagine my disappointment when I found that not just in Lightroom, but also in Premiere, scrolling through a full timeline is still laggy as hell.
It got better, yes, but maybe by 30-40% but still absolutely stuttering.

Then I went to open the latest version of FCPX which is optimized for the new machine, and OH MY GOD it is SO fast! If I consider I had an afterburner card installed ... but even without it, on a single Vega II, the entire UI is so smooth, everything feels super snappy and responsive, just how it should be.

Damn if only not none of my clients would use FCP, I would seriously reconsider a switch. Working like this is what I dreamed of when I got this machine..

In the old days , didn't the second CPU in a Dual CPU Mac assist with skimming the timelines ? I seem to recall FCPX ran smoother with dual CPU . Today , there is no such choice . All Apple products have just a single CPU .

 

[chfilm]

In the old days , didn't the second CPU in a Dual CPU Mac assist with skimming the timelines ? I seem to recall FCPX ran smoother with dual CPU . Today , there is no such choice . All Apple products have just a single CPU .

Hm i don’t remember those days, but I think today the GPU takes on that role.

 

[motulist]

Vs. Premiere? Well sure. Premiere is hot garbage. Try DaVinci Resolve.

 

[chfilm]

Vs. Premiere? Well sure. Premiere is hot garbage. Try DaVinci Resolve.

Well the same applies for Resolve as for FCP, Clients don’t have it installed or don’t want to work with it in editing because their uneducated in house editors can’t take over projects from anything else than premiere sadly.

 

[motulist]

Well the same applies for Resolve as for FCP, Clients don’t have it installed or don’t want to work with it in editing because their uneducated in house editors can’t take over projects from anything else than premiere sadly.

DaVinci Resolve has a very full featured free version, maybe that could make it easy to convince them to at least try it out.

 

[goMac]

In the old days , didn't the second CPU in a Dual CPU Mac assist with skimming the timelines ? I seem to recall FCPX ran smoother with dual CPU . Today , there is no such choice . All Apple products have just a single CPU .

It likely was that if you had two CPU cores. These days you don’t need to have a second CPU to have two physical cores.

 

[bsbeamer]

Apple’s own software that had a specific release update to support the upcoming MacPro7,1 performs “better” than software that is not yet certified for MacPro7,1? Shocking.

On top of that, not a single MP7,1 GPU is certified by Avid, Adobe, Autodesk, or Blackmagic. RED barely pushed out their METAL update for R3D before MP7,1 release and they worked on the pre-release hardware. AVID still isn’t even certified for Catalina and they had pre-release access.

Give it time and wait until at least 10.15.3 to start these comparisons.

 

[chfilm]

Apple’s own software that had a specific release update to support the upcoming MacPro7,1 performs “better” than software that is not yet certified for MacPro7,1? Shocking.

On top of that, not a single MP7,1 GPU is certified by Avid, Adobe, Autodesk, or Blackmagic. RED barely pushed out their METAL update for R3D before MP7,1 release and they worked on the pre-release hardware. AVID still isn’t even certified for Catalina and they had pre-release access.

Give it time and wait until at least 10.15.3 to start these comparisons.

As if adobe is gonna optimize it so groundbreakingly after they neglected the old Mac Pro for 6 years...

 

[zoomp]

Those “uneducated” editors prefer to prioritize collaboration between departments over “Uber self performance”. They focus on total production time, not their own.

Nowadays, this is the state of communication between said NLE and rest of post production:

Avid - Talks well with others (PT, Resolve, Baselight)
Première - talks OK with others (PT +-, resolve ok, baselight ok) it has viable workarounds for sound.
Resolve - good to go directly to finish (on its own) but still has perks with ProTools
FCPX - although there are third party solutions, they all are not really practical. Exports to PT means sometimes hundreds of channels etc

 

[chrono1081]

Hey,

just wanted to report, one of the big reasons why I wanted the new mac pro was the laggy UI rendering across all Adobe Apps on my dual 5k Displays. You can imagine my disappointment when I found that not just in Lightroom, but also in Premiere, scrolling through a full timeline is still laggy as hell.
It got better, yes, but maybe by 30-40% but still absolutely stuttering.

Then I went to open the latest version of FCPX which is optimized for the new machine, and OH MY GOD it is SO fast! If I consider I had an afterburner card installed ... but even without it, on a single Vega II, the entire UI is so smooth, everything feels super snappy and responsive, just how it should be.

Damn if only not none of my clients would use FCP, I would seriously reconsider a switch. Working like this is what I dreamed of when I got this machine..

Adobe has been going downhill in this regard for YEARS. Honestly ever since CS2 IMO (CS4 and CS6 re-improved things briefly but that's about it.)

I've migrated away from Adobe products and the only two things I miss are After Effects (Motion fills a lot of the void nicely though) and a very specific blur filter in Photoshop that lets me drive a lens blur with a 32 bit depth map. This is super useful for 3D work.

 

[MaxYuryev]

I wouldn’t expect an major performance improvements at least for another year if ever. In early 2014 I sold my overclocked watercooled custom PC with the best graphics card on the market for a trashcan Mac Pro which was about half the performance overall because of how horrible the 4K editing experience was in Premiere which I had been using for 1080P work for about 5 years.

Switching to an “underpowered” Mac and FCX made a massive difference and saved me hours per video edit. I have tracked performance on my YT channel over the years and some things have gotten better but most haven’t.

I figured Adobe would make some big improvements after they started charging monthly (which I still pay for) but not really. They added a lot of features, some of which are really cool but as far as performance they’ve only been plugging some holes here and there but most of the software code is very old.

Apple ditched FC7 and started from scratch for FCX and Resolve re-wrote their whole engine when they jumped from 12.5 to 14 and had massive improvements in smoothness and have still been optimizing ever since, and now in some ways beating out FCX.

For example, using the new MacBook Pro it takes 8 seconds to stabilize a 20 second 4K clip on FCX, it takes 18 seconds in resolve and in premiere takes 4 min. Both FCX and Resolve rely heavily on graphics where Ppro is still using just one core of the CPU just like it was when the code was written who knows when (possibly 10 years ago)

Another horrible thing that they can’t fix without re-writing code is how the main engine works for the timeline. Not only are there effects that have still not been updated with GPU acceleration, but if you add one of those outdated CPU only effects onto a clip or heaven forbid an adjustment layer with lots of clips, every other effect that is also there drops it’s GPU acceleration and is CPU rendered only...

Exporting the same 5 min project (where all the effects are accelerated) takes 3 min in FCX and Resolve and 7 min in Premiere using the same settings, and that’s with Premiere 2020 which finally properly utilizes Metal and Intels Quicksync. Just 2 months ago that time would be more like 13min.

I know you guys are talking about playback, so how about when I edit 4K Canon cinema raw files.

FCX and resolve can play back perfectly at 24 or 30fps (FCX can almost do 60, at 54fps) this is at full resolution 4K where Premiere can only play back at 11FPS with the latest updates.

Resolve has made huge improvements and so many of their users just have the free version and the paid is just $299 like FCX with free updates. I pay $52 per month for the full Adobe suite but I think paying for Premiere only is over $300 a year.

Like I said earlier, I really hoped monthly income would help Adobe finally improve these apps but after 3 years or so, nope not much. People are still complaining how laggy Lightrooms UI is even with the new Mac Pro.

Instead Adobe is really focusing on mobile apps and adding in new features in their current apps some of which are really cool but no on really asked for that. Everyone has been complaining about performance and stability for years...

(Sorry for mistakes, I’m writing quickly on a smartphone)

 

[chfilm]

I wouldn’t expect an major performance improvements at least for another year if ever. In early 2014 I sold my overclocked watercooled custom PC with the best graphics card on the market for a trashcan Mac Pro which was about half the performance overall because of how horrible the 4K editing experience was in Premiere which I had been using for 1080P work for about 5 years.

Switching to an “underpowered” Mac and FCX made a massive difference and saved me hours per video edit. I have tracked performance on my YT channel over the years and some things have gotten better but most haven’t.

I figured Adobe would make some big improvements after they started charging monthly (which I still pay for) but not really. They added a lot of features, some of which are really cool but as far as performance they’ve only been plugging some holes here and there but most of the software code is very old.

Apple ditched FC7 and started from scratch for FCX and Resolve re-wrote their whole engine when they jumped from 12.5 to 14 and had massive improvements in smoothness and have still been optimizing ever since, and now in some ways beating out FCX.

For example, using the new MacBook Pro it takes 8 seconds to stabilize a 20 second 4K clip on FCX, it takes 18 seconds in resolve and in premiere takes 4 min. Both FCX and Resolve rely heavily on graphics where Ppro is still using just one core of the CPU just like it was when the code was written who knows when (possibly 10 years ago)

Another horrible thing that they can’t fix without re-writing code is how the main engine works for the timeline. Not only are there effects that have still not been updated with GPU acceleration, but if you add one of those outdated CPU only effects onto a clip or heaven forbid an adjustment layer with lots of clips, every other effect that is also there drops it’s GPU acceleration and is CPU rendered only...

Exporting the same 5 min project (where all the effects are accelerated) takes 3 min in FCX and Resolve and 7 min in Premiere using the same settings, and that’s with Premiere 2020 which finally properly utilizes Metal and Intels Quicksync. Just 2 months ago that time would be more like 13min.

I know you guys are talking about playback, so how about when I edit 4K Canon cinema raw files.

FCX and resolve can play back perfectly at 24 or 30fps (FCX can almost do 60, at 54fps) this is at full resolution 4K where Premiere can only play back at 11FPS with the latest updates.

Resolve has made huge improvements and so many of their users just have the free version and the paid is just $299 like FCX with free updates. I pay $52 per month for the full Adobe suite but I think paying for Premiere only is over $300 a year.

Like I said earlier, I really hoped monthly income would help Adobe finally improve these apps but after 3 years or so, nope not much. People are still complaining how laggy Lightrooms UI is even with the new Mac Pro.

Instead Adobe is really focusing on mobile apps and adding in new features in their current apps some of which are really cool but no on really asked for that. Everyone has been complaining about performance and stability for years...

(Sorry for mistakes, I’m writing quickly on a smartphone)

Yes, yes, yes! Horrible.
I'm preparing for tomorrow's visit at the Apple Store / Afterburner test, and am transcoding the same four files (Prores 4k, ProRes 2k, GoPro and Sony AVC MXF) to Prores 422 HQ and h264. Maybe these results are gonna improve if Adobe releases an update that better leverages the new mac pro, but I doubt it. CPU usage is extremely low in media encoder right now for Prores->ProRes conversion and it takes AGES.

Interestingly, for H264 encoding, it's not quite as bad, Media encoder leverages more CPU/GPU in that scenario but still, for the simple ProRes conversion, omg.

Here are my results. Gonna add the AB results tomorrow:

It's really depressing and makes me wanna switch editing software for real this time. Just don't know how to convince clients of it..

 

[xnsys]

The Adobe apps are all garbage. They really don’t care about UI performance or usability. They’ve been using a lot of web technologies for UI.

Photoshop is a train wreck these days. Ever since Creative Cloud, Adobe has taken one of the best Mac application experiences and run them into the ground.

I agree - but the problem is that they have cornered the market - what alternative is there that is as good as PhotoShop with the features, and can handle and open PSD files?

 

[fuchsdh]

Apple needs to have a grand stand regalia for the next update to FCPX with some major editors, directors, TV studio personnel from major networks, etc. to at least in a PR sense, bring it back to the professional level of recognition. So many switched to PP years ago. I'm still fighting clients on this.

I think the larger problem is Adobe is crap…. but a) it’s cross-platform crap, and more importantly, b) it’s interconnected crap. Motion ain’t a competitor with After Effects, and there’s no vector or raster image editors Apple’s producing.

Adobe sold people on being able to be the whole widget, and while there are parts of that widget that aren’t that great anymore, and come out to be much more expensive on a subscription basis than Apple (even if you start factoring in the price difference for the hardware) it’s still a platform agnostic ecosystem that you can get multi-discipline teams working on.

Apple can make some serious inroads again if they maintain their pro focus and don't let it waver like before, but I don't think it aligns with their broader business goals as software is now a method of selling hardware and services.

A generation of people my age or older got taught on Final Cut Pro in college and that informed our preferences; until you can get that kind of mindshare back with the young-ins I don't see it happening.

(The old people are by and large a lost cause; I witnessed the cluster that was a bunch of old editors upgrading to the newest version of Avid. Though Apple bungled its rollout terribly—they should have sold FCPX as a beta, and kept FCP7 around and supported a bit longer—there were some people who were never going to buy into the paradigm shift with how it approached editing.)

 

[tommy chen]

is that right?