MP 7,1 UPDATE - 16c 7.1 maxed out CPU usage

[Rr697]

UPDATE: 10.15.3 Resolved the CPU usage! Now during rendering the CPU is at 45% usage.....I wonder what was going on!

I was under the impression that the CPU would be at a minimal load during rendering on FCPX with the metal engine. All 16 cores are running at 99% usage during rendering on FCPX. I feel like something is wrong. My 2015 iMac 5K(max config) with Catalina and the latest FCPX had the CPU at ~25% usage. This makes me feel like something is wrong...or 16 cores wasn't enough. Please advise

7.1
16 Core
96GB apple Ram
Radeon Pro Vega II
FCPX 10.4.8
Catalina 10.15.2

 

[jasonmvp]

You really didn't give us enough to go by, here. What's your source material? What are you exporting to? Resolution, frame rate, bit rate, etc?

 

[Rr697]

You really didn't give us enough to go by, here. What's your source material? What are you exporting to? Resolution, frame rate, bit rate, etc?

24fps 4K 8 Bit Footage from Sony A7RIII with 1 lut. Rendering the lut on the footage had the CPU maxed out. Exporting that same footage the CPU is at 4% usage.

 

[IanK MacPro]

I was under the impression that the CPU would be at a minimal load during rendering on FCPX with the metal engine. All 16 cores are running at 99% usage during rendering on FCPX. I feel like something is wrong. My 2015 iMac Pro with Catalina and the latest FCPX had the CPU at ~25% usage. This makes me feel like something is wrong...or 16 cores wasn't enough. Please advise

7.1
16 Core
96GB apple Ram
Radeon Pro Vega II
FCPX 10.4.8
Catalina 10.15.2

I think I’m seeing a similar thing on my old 5.1.

Today I upgraded from a RX580 to a Radeon VII, and my FCPX and Motion performance has hardly improved?

See here

I realise if I were editing pure video clips with no effects/LUT’s that there would be minimal gain but with apples new updates to use METAL to do all the heavy lifting with effect rendering etc, I was expecting a decent gain.

It seems FCPX and co are still heavily limited by CPU power? 🤔

 

[deconstruct60]

24fps 4K 8 Bit Footage from Sony A7RIII with 1 lut. Rendering the lut on the footage had the CPU maxed out. Exporting that same footage the CPU is at 4% usage.

Has Apple assigned codec decoding to Metal? If your source material is being decoded/uncompressed by the CPU then it will consume CPU resources. The adjustments to the decoded material could be done by Metal but you have to prime the pump to get something to adjust.

I suspect that the decoder is a plug-in ( possibly from Sony) and that hasn't been "super Metalized".

FCPX isn't Metal top to bottom on all paths.

P.S. in some contexts FCPX nominally punts H.264 work to Quick Sync and that works for most Macs. In Mac Pro case, they have 'dropped the ball' due to it not being like the rest of the Mac line up.

 

[Snow Tiger]

I was under the impression that the CPU would be at a minimal load during rendering on FCPX with the metal engine. All 16 cores are running at 99% usage during rendering on FCPX. I feel like something is wrong. My 2015 iMac Pro with Catalina and the latest FCPX had the CPU at ~25% usage. This makes me feel like something is wrong...or 16 cores wasn't enough. Please advise

7.1
16 Core
96GB apple Ram
Radeon Pro Vega II
FCPX 10.4.8
Catalina 10.15.2

Install a copy of iSTAT Menus 6 on your Mac and observe the horizontal thermometer of GPU percentage usage during whatever operation you are using . It'll also tell you how many Watts your GPU is actively consuming .

This will give you an idea if your Mac is really using its GPU or CPU . It might be you are not really using your GPU at all ... and the CPU has taken over to do the job .

 

[Rr697]

Install a copy of iSTAT Menus 6 on your Mac and observe the horizontal thermometer of GPU percentage usage during whatever operation you are using . It'll also tell you how many Watts your GPU is actively consuming .

This will give you an idea if your Mac is really using its GPU or CPU . It might be you are not really using your GPU at all ... and the CPU has taken over to do the job .

I have iStat installed that's what I was looking at and double checked with activity monitor. My new machine is 3.5x as fast on FCPX VS. my old machine however I'm surprised to see the CPU maxed out. When I downloaded Catalina and the new FCPX on my old iMac the cpu usage dropped a lot. All my research had led me to believe my 16 core CPU would be barley moving with this new machine. Is 16 Core not enough for simple 8 bit Sony footage?

iStat shows 99% CPU usage and 25% Radeon Pro VII usage on render sensor is 22C or 71F

 

[Theophilos]

Could it be because the video from a Sony A7RIII uses H.264/5? Even with the raw power of the Mac Pro, there is no Intel Quicksync decoding as there is with Core iX chips. Even the Apple T2 chip doesn't seem to help much with H.264/5. If you were shooting in ProRes/ProRes RAW, things might be different and the Afterburner card would help significantly.

Another option that comes to mind is your GPU is not performing as it should. The CPU shouldn't be shouldering all of this load with that GPU.

 

[deconstruct60]

I have iStat installed that's what I was looking at and double checked with activity monitor. My new machine is 3.5x as fast on FCPX VS. my old machine however I'm surprised to see the CPU maxed out. When I downloaded Catalina and the new FCPX on my old iMac the cpu usage dropped a lot. All my research had led me to believe my 16 core CPU would be barley moving with this new machine. Is 16 Core not enough for simple 8 bit Sony footage?
...

An iMac has an Intel integrated GPU. That iGPU has a fixed function logic inside of it to process H.264 video. FCPX using that. The CPU package was being loaded. It just wasn't the x86 cores that were being loaded. if have access to the temp measurement of the CPU package that ahould have risen ( not crazy high but higher than when not doing much on the CPU). The iGPU in the package was consuming the additional power. ( but way more effective performance/power than either a CPU or GPU could do. ). I'm not sure if the Quick Sync usage would show up on the GPU meter for the iGPU (or that it too is just measuring GPU core activity).

The Mac Pro 2019 has no Intel GPU. And Apple (and/or AMD) does a pretty poor just of using the fixed hardware decoders present in the AMD GPU that are there.
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. My 2015 iMac Pro with Catalina and the latest FCPX had the CPU at ~25% usage. ...

The iMac Pro only arrived in Dec 2017. If you have a 2015 model it isn't an iMac Pro. It may have been the most expensive iMac model in 2015, but it isn't an iMac Pro model.

An iMac Pro 2017 model would have run into the same lack of an Intel iGPU (and therefore Quick Sync) buzzsaw. (and Mac Pro 2013 and 2009-2012 models before that ).



P.S. if have deep need for additional CPU workload headroom in downstream processing than can convert this to high quality ProRes option and work with that. The decode for that is optimzed for with FCPX.

 

[jasonmvp]

24fps 4K 8 Bit Footage from Sony A7RIII with 1 lut. Rendering the lut on the footage had the CPU maxed out. Exporting that same footage the CPU is at 4% usage.

I have an identical machine to you and I never see my CPU hit 100% using FCPX. Not with h.264 or h.265 4K/60 source material. I'm not using any LUTs however, and that may be the main difference.

Have you run through any Geekbench tests with your system to see if they line up with other identically configured machines? Something seems... off. Your machine shouldn't be struggling with what you're working with.

 

[Rr697]

Ok so I have 2 pics, one is during rendering Sony A7R3 8 bit .mp4 files 4K 24fps. The other pic is exporting the footage.....why is the GPU not picking up the slack during render? Render export

 

[Rr697]

anyone? CPU is maxxed on "easy" footage during FCPX render with the 16 Core and Radeon Pro II

 

[profdraper]

My impressions: Catalina is buggy & needs updating: 10.15.3 coming soon & I would imagine this will include directly addressing the needs of the MP 7,1. Otherwise, I suspect other software /drivers need to catch up too. Like the OP, I've found FCPX performance to be ho hum; in the case of DaVinci Resolve, better. In the cases of DAWs, fantastic & as expected but then they do not rely on GPU.

My own tests and observations: the Vega II driver needs updating, and perhaps the firmware as well (presently reads '0.0'). Ditto a FCPX update to suit & which would ship with or after 10.15.3 I imagine.

The rather wonderful but GPU-intensive Neat Video does not recognise the Vega at all, reverts back to CPUs only. In my experience this is also unusual given Neat's configuration & customisation tools. Re Some of the stats apps (iStats, Intel Power Gadget, TG Pro etc) again, would seem they need updates in terms of accurately reading the MP 7,1.

So, waiting for 10.15.3 and what that brings for the other bits and pieces, that also has often been the case in the past for new Apple hardware. For now, yes, the system & softwares do not seem to be fully leveraging the GPU (makes me wonder about all those pre-release fanboy reviews; not really marrying with my experience here to date).

 

[Theophilos]

Just to add to the voice of the OP, I decided to work on my child's performance from a Sony A6500 (which uses the same codec as the A7R3) in FCP X using my new 2019 Mac Pro with 16c, 384 GB RAM, and the Vega II. Also, I should note the project and footage is on a Sonnet 4x4 with 4 x 1 TB 970 Evo Plus drives in RAID 0.

I didn't find performance much different than when using my 2013 Mac Pro with the footage on a TB2 drive. Final Cut also throttles my CPU to 100% while rendering. There is a slight bit of stuttering when scrubbing through unrendered color corrected footage in the timeline.

FYI. the footage was shot at 4K/23.98 FPS at Rec. 709.

 

[bxs]

I was under the impression that the CPU would be at a minimal load during rendering on FCPX with the metal engine. All 16 cores are running at 99% usage during rendering on FCPX. I feel like something is wrong. My 2015 iMac Pro with Catalina and the latest FCPX had the CPU at ~25% usage. This makes me feel like something is wrong...or 16 cores wasn't enough. Please advise

7.1
16 Core
96GB apple Ram
Radeon Pro Vega II
FCPX 10.4.8
Catalina 10.15.2

If you still have your 2015 iMac (iMac Pro ?????) then run the same video project on it and record the elapsed time for finding the project and compare that with what you are seeing doing the same project on your MP7,1.

It would be interesting for you to post the difference in the two elapsed time for this two cases, regardless of the MP7,1's high CPU use compared to the 25% CPU use on your 2015 iMac.

Ultimately it's the improved productivity that you want presumably with the new MP7,1.

 

[Rr697]

If you still have your 2015 iMac (iMac Pro ?????) then run the same video project on it and record the elapsed time for finding the project and compare that with what you are seeing doing the same project on your MP7,1.

It would be interesting for you to post the difference in the two elapsed time for this two cases, regardless of the MP7,1's high CPU use compared to the 25% CPU use on your 2015 iMac.

Ultimately it's the improved productivity that you want presumably with the new MP7,1.

I typed in error (iMac pro) I had previous to the 7.1 a maxed out 2015 iMac 5k..... anyways the rendering and working time has increased 350% over my 2015 iMac 5k and time is money to me! I’m very very happy with the 7.1, I’m just confused why the CPU is maxed out during rendering such “easy” footage and if I should have bought a higher core count 7.1. I was under the impression metal was mostly GPU intensive and I have this badass GPU that is barley doing anything

 

[MaxYuryev]

What Setting are you rendering out to? Faster encode? Or better quality. Better quality will be a CPU export and faster encode will be GPU encoding. If not give me some more info on what your exporting to.
I work a lot with this footage on my Macs including Mac Pro.

 

[Rr697]

What Setting are you rendering out to? Faster encode? Or better quality. Better quality will be a CPU export and faster encode will be GPU encoding. If not give me some more info on what your exporting to.
I work a lot with this footage on my Macs including Mac Pro.

Max, the CPU at 99% useage happens during rendering while working on the project. While exporting I use “Best Quality” and the CPU is at nothing maybe 5% useage. The GPU on render or exporting is never above 35% useage. This is with Sony A7R3 4k MP4 8 bit footage. Im just shocked the CPU useage is so high after watching all these YouTube videos and everyone being hyped on the Metal change I dont get why my 16 core CPU is maxed out during render on this “simple” this footage. I will be purchasing the RED Komodo when its out and that will be 6K Raw footage, it makes me think is the 16 core really up to the task?

 

[Korican100]

Just to add to the voice of the OP, I decided to work on my child's performance from a Sony A6500 (which uses the same codec as the A7R3) in FCP X using my new 2019 Mac Pro with 16c, 384 GB RAM, and the Vega II. Also, I should note the project and footage is on a Sonnet 4x4 with 4 x 1 TB 970 Evo Plus drives in RAID 0.

I didn't find performance much different than when using my 2013 Mac Pro with the footage on a TB2 drive. Final Cut also throttles my CPU to 100% while rendering. There is a slight bit of stuttering when scrubbing through unrendered color corrected footage in the timeline.

FYI. the footage was shot at 4K/23.98 FPS at Rec. 709.

this is very sad to hear. Do you have background rendering enabled? And if so, you are saying the performance is the same before and after?

Applying luts and effects to native footage was my number one reason to upgrading my machine to the 7,1 over my trashcan. So hearing its the same rendering time is a bummer

 

[Rr697]

this is very sad to hear. Do you have background rendering enabled? And if so, you are saying the performance is the same before and after?

Applying luts and effects to native footage was my number one reason to upgrading my machine to the 7,1 over my trashcan. So hearing its the same rendering time is a bummer

Background render is on but as soon as it starts rendering the CPU useage is at 99%. And no my 7.1 is 350% faster rendering and exporting than my fully spec’d out Late 2015 iMac. The issue I have is that I thought Metal was GPU intensive so why is it using 99% of the CPU while this is rendering

 

[bxs]

Background render is on but as soon as it starts rendering the CPU useage is at 99%. And no my 7.1 is 350% faster rendering and exporting than my fully spec’d out Late 2015 iMac. The issue I have is that I thought Metal was GPU intensive so why is it using 99% of the CPU while this is rendering

Have you contacted Apple's FCPX help desk and asked them about your observations ? If not, I would suggest you do so to find out if they have an understandable answer for you about this issue.

 

[Rr697]

UPDATE: 10.15.3 Resolved the CPU usage! now during rendering the CPU is at 45% usage..... I wonder what was going on!