FCS2 on G5

[SashkaMish]

Did anyone try FCS2 on Macintosh G5?
I wonder if this upgrade is worth the money as I have three G5s which are working with FCS1 with no problems.
But, yesterday I've attended a presentation of FCS2 and Color looks impressive enough to buy the whole suite just to get it.
Also, I asked the guy who was presenting FCS2 about his setup and when he said that it was 8-core with 8Gb of memory my enthusiasm washed down a bit. If I will have to buy a whole new hardware just to run Color and ProRes then it is just not worth it.

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

Did anyone try FCS2 on Macintosh G5?

...the box is on my desk, waiting for me to finish what I am doing before I install...

[David Battistella]

Hey,

the answer to this is right on the Apple website. here:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs.html


David

[SashkaMish]

Hey,

the answer to this is right on the Apple website. here:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs.html


David

I know all the theoretical details but there is a difference between software working on minimum requirement computers and working on a computer that can be used for work.
I really wouldn't like to kill my perfectly nice FCS1 setup for a barely working FCS2 whatever the advantages are.
So, all reports about FCS2 on G5 are welcome.

[Charles Perkins]

did you go to the final cut studio tour in london?

i was there also. The color demo was awesome! and the motion 3d stuff is also amazing.

I cant wait to get my Macpro and get to work on it.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

All working here on a G5 quad. I haven't had much time to dig into Color -- just installed it all about 12 hours ago. But it seems a bit sluggish compared to what was shown in their demo video. Granted, they were running on a 3GHz (quad or 8 core) Mac Pro with X1900XT video card. I'm running a G5 Quad with 8GB RAM and FX4500 video. The FX4500 is a dinosaur compared to the X1900 when it comes to shader and texel performance, this is why Apple recommends the X1900XT video card.

[SashkaMish]

did you go to the final cut studio tour in london?

i was there also. The color demo was awesome! and the motion 3d stuff is also amazing.

I cant wait to get my Macpro and get to work on it.

Nope. Zagreb, Croatia.
Color demo is very interesting, but I have to say that I was unimpressed with Motion. Looks to me that it is all looks and did not see much of use. It is far beyond what I expected when rumors came from Apple that Motion should become new Shake.

[SashkaMish]

All working here on a G5 quad. I haven't had much time to dig into Color -- just installed it all about 12 hours ago. But it seems a bit sluggish compared to what was shown in their demo video. Granted, they were running on a 3GHz (quad or 8 core) Mac Pro with X1900XT video card. I'm running a G5 Quad with 8GB RAM and FX4500 video. The FX4500 is a dinosaur compared to the X1900 when it comes to shader and texel performance, this is why Apple recommends the X1900XT video card.

Thanks for info.
I have a feeling that I will buy FCS2 as it is not such a problem. But I also have a feeling that I will not use it much.
Is there any info on possibility of dual system (FCS1 and FCS2) on same computer? Could be nice to have speed of FCP5 for editing and Color for final touch.
Well, it seems that I will have to try it.

[Chris Armstrong]

Just got FCS2 running on a dual G5 2.7 with Kona 2 and Nvidia 6800 Ultra DDL. ProRes runs great in everything except the 1080 Kona 10bit output. Unfortunately that's too much to handle smoothly. (Will run fine if the Kona is not outputting).

Color on the other hand is a different story... Color has "some issues" with Nvidia cards apparently. I can only run Color in 8 bit mode and it gets like 8 fps. From what I've read though, this is entirely an Nvidia card issue and it should/would run smoothly on an ATI card.

[Poi Boy]

I had the beta version of color running on my 17" mac book pro; I was really surprised Monday when my official upgrade came that it won't run on my dual 2.5 G5 ! bummer, guess I have to spend more money.
Aloha
-A

[C.H.Haskell]

I am running FCS2 on my G5 now, so far so good! I just dropped the smoothcam filter on my some of my stock footage shots that were really shaky do to heavy winds, WOw...very impressed how it cleaned it up perfectly!

Running it on my Mac Book pro as well and have not ran into any issues yet but I am sure it will bog it down…we shall see. Will update more soon.

Good luck

[Poi Boy]

yeah the smooth cam came from shake and is a welcome addition to fcp. But when you say g5 you mean quad don't you ? Color won't seem to load on a non quad g5.
Aloha
-A

[SashkaMish]

Just got FCS2 running on a dual G5 2.7 with Kona 2 and Nvidia 6800 Ultra DDL. ProRes runs great in everything except the 1080 Kona 10bit output. Unfortunately that's too much to handle smoothly. (Will run fine if the Kona is not outputting).

Color on the other had is a different story... Color has a "some issues" with Nvidia cards apparently. I can only run Color in 8 bit mode and it gets like 8 fps. From what I've read though, this is entirely an Nvidia card issue and it should/would run smoothly on an ATI card.

So it looks like we will all have to buy new Intel based Macs.
Do not see it as very nice move from Apple, especially when you count all the costs and the fact that no existing hardware from G5s will work with MacPro.
MacPro 6k, extra disks at least 2k, HD SDI card about 2k (3.5k if you like IO HD to convert all to ProRes), computer monitors at least 2k, video monitor up to 5k...
All in all, moving to FCS2 will cost you about 20k (USD in US or EUR in Europe as prices are not the same). Moving from FCP4 to FCP5 (in fact FCS1) had a cost of about 0.5k for upgrade and that is it.
From this point of view I can say that I will not move to FCS2 very soon.
Thank you all for info and help.

[Harva Raj]

don't give up too soon.. read this blog by mike from HD for indies.
http://www.hdforindies.com/labels/Final%20Cut%20Studio%202.html

start reading from the bottom of the page ie (Ready, Set, Go 2.0 - Installing Final Cut Studio 2 on a Macbook and a Quad G5)

[Nick Shaw]

I had the beta version of color running on my 17" mac book pro; I was really surprised Monday when my official upgrade came that it won't run on my dual 2.5 G5 ! bummer, guess I have to spend more money.
Aloha
-A

I have Color running on my 17" Macbook Pro (1.67GHz) and it appears to work fine (if a bit slow). Not installed it on my dual 2GHz G5 yet as I'm in the middle of a big job.

The Color manual says that 32-bit float processing is not supported on NVIDIA graphics cards, so that's yet another reason not to get the Quadro FX 4500 when I upgrade to a Mac Pro!

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I haven't tried Color on my 15" MBP... I'm kinda curious, even though it isn't supported by Apple's requirements.

As for my G5 quad, Color runs klunky... I have the FX4500 in mine and I can tell you, if there was any doubt, you should not even consider this card for a new Mac Pro. The FX4500 is a 3 year old dinosaur in the world of video cards. It can't even come close to the shader and texel performance of the newer generation cards by a long shot. Right now, the ATI X1900XT is the way to go. The only reason to consider the FX4500 is if you have some obscure need for the genlock port or its couple additional hardware abilities that the cheaper cards don't have. And I can tell you right now, that you don't need those features. ;)

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

Final Cut studio 2, FCP and Color work(launch) on G5 Dual 2Ghz (first generation system).

I wish they made color a bit more like the rest of the package though, not very user friendly (and not very pretty)- I have to read the manual for this...

[Cail Young]

I have Color running on my iMac G5 20" (2.1GHz G5) - it's not lightning fast, but it is workable. I have found some sort of brick wall though where if I'm working in HD and have a primary in grade, one vignetted secondary, and a primary out grade, I can adjust anything with relatively quick updates. As soon as I enable a second secondary (vignetted or not) it bogs down and runs very, very slowly. My theory is that it is switching from GPU to CPU at that point.

Color is so very different because, like Shake, it is a product Apple have bought and integrated and rewriting the UI would have taken far too long. That said, there is a very good reason why the UI is flat, boring, and grey - so that your eyes aren't thrown off what you're doing. In fact there's a user pref to lower the saturation of coloured items in the UI!

If you watch the DVD included with FCS2 the sections on Color should be enough to get you started. I do recommend flipping through the manual, though.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm still trying to work my way through a lot of the features and functions of color. I wish it didn't run so choppy on my system... The DVD intro is definitely enough to get you started and working with Color. If you're familiar with nodal interfaces like Shake, that helps too. Overall, it really doesn't seem that complicated, but I'm still trying to figure out just how the 3D scopes are supposed to be used. They're pretty to look at, but I'm not quite sure how practical they are. It's definitely an app that will take some practice and it just shows that while the process isn't that complex, proper color grading is an art just like oil painting or sculpting and some can do it, others can't.

[Poi Boy]

Eirik, I'm a bit suprised you get color to work on your g5 dual. I can't even get it to install on my g5 dual 2.5. works great on my 17" macbook pro however.
Aloha
-A

[Corey Culp]

Eirik, I'm a bit suprised you get color to work on your g5 dual. I can't even get it to install on my g5 dual 2.5. works great on my 17" macbook pro however.
Aloha
-A

I have it running fine on my dual 2.3ghz G5. I think the key is the graphics card. My G5 is a BTO and I had bumped up the card (ATI 9650).

Of course, my 2.0 MacBook Pro smoke the G5 doing the same exact processes. In fact, when the G5 got to the 1/3 complete mark while analyzing a clip via SmoothCam, I started the MBP test. The MBP finished the analysis, allowed me to render, and was ready for playback before the G5 ever finished it's SmoothCam analysis! (And then the G5 took another 5 minutes to finish the clip analysis.)

Once the QctoProcs come down in price a bit (i.e. the $3000-3200 area), I'll upgrade the G5 to a MacPro.

[Cail Young]

if I'm working in HD and have a primary in grade, one vignetted secondary, and a primary out grade, I can adjust anything with relatively quick updates. As soon as I enable a second secondary (vignetted or not) it bogs down and runs very, very slowly. My theory is that it is switching from GPU to CPU at that point.

After more digging through the manual, Color exclusively uses the GPU for all corrections - therefore the brick wall must come from exceeding the ability of the GPU to execute the grade of the frame in one operation.

[mattbatt]

After more digging through the manual, Color exclusively uses the GPU for all corrections - therefore the brick wall must come from exceeding the ability of the GPU to execute the grade of the frame in one operation.

After reading this thread, maybe I'll wait on buying FCS2 (I have a dual G5 2.0). What is sad is that the G5 is powerful enough to accomplish many high end video/rendering needs (sometimes I wonder how graphic designers ever used a 1 mhz machine to do their work, or how movie titles were rendered on machines barely topping out the 200mhz mark in the mid 90's).

Btw, check out the new G6 processor—its the fastest single processor EVER developed (according to SPEC index) and is IBM's upgrade to the G5
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21580.wss

The problem is graphic card speed (and my generation of G5 is only AGP). Now, there are bios mods/flashing that one can do to take a PC Radeon x1900xtx and convert it for AGP 8x on a Mac and other mods (the x850XT is the same card as the x800, it just was 'detuned' because production was actually cheaper to disable some pipeline processors then to develop 2 different cards). SO, you can sodder a connection with your x800 and ramp it to an 850xt.

Just check out http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/ sign up and view the forums. You may find a graphic card there anyway.

OK, back to the point: Apple is writing proprietary software to Intel now and we all know it deep inside. The G5 is going to get slower and slower as software denies it's capabilities. Software is the key. Right now, at my design job I'm running a MacPro 2.66 quad and it runs CS Suite 2 slightly SLOWER than my dual 2.0 G5 because its running Rosetta. Now CS3 will see 400-600% increases in speed for Intel Macs, but it is actually more sluggish on G5's.

So, when I personally buy my MacPro, I'm going to wait for SLI cards. Honestly, I think that's what we need more so that 8 processors right now (since bus bottlenecks occur with the Octo). Apple has always been a little slow to embrace the latest GPU's (well, I'll give Apple a break, its ATI and Nvidia who delay their 'mac' versions). SLI is the way to go and surprisengly, Apple was the first to invent this technology years ago but it never caught on then . . .

[Cail Young]

OK, back to the point: Apple is writing proprietary software to Intel now and we all know it deep inside.

1) Not yet they're not. Adobe and Microsoft and Joost might be following those lines, but FCS2 is a Universal suite, and will stay that way for a long time.

2) How is this relevant to discussion of GPU?

[mattbatt]

1) Not yet they're not. Adobe and Microsoft and Joost might be following those lines, but FCS2 is a Universal suite, and will stay that way for a long time.

2) How is this relevant to discussion of GPU?

1.) Universal means nothing. Do you know about compilers and optimization components to properly use the data pipelines of the processors? Remember when we all when from 68k to PPC (the 601 RISC processor from Motorola?) Software was then written as 68k and PPC, some could run on both machines, eventually the software went only to PPC. Well, the software written for both 68k and PPC was horrible on 68k machines. It was "universal" but optimized for the PPC.

2.) Half of my discussion was about the GPU. Go to strangedogs, learn about flashing your GPU if you are like me and have a 1st gen. G5 without the PCI-Express slot. The point is, what is holding back FCS2 is not the G5 but the software and GPU. Sure the Intel is faster, but it would be helpful if you ran a 1900xtx or something. So flash it for your older G5 is my point.

[Cail Young]

1.) Universal means nothing. Do you know about compilers and optimization components to properly use the data pipelines of the processors? Remember when we all when from 68k to PPC (the 601 RISC processor from Motorola?) Software was then written as 68k and PPC, some could run on both machines, eventually the software went only to PPC. Well, the software written for both 68k and PPC was horrible on 68k machines. It was "universal" but optimized for the PPC.

I can't say that FCP6 or anything else in the suite is running noticably slower on my iMac G5; perhaps you're having a different experience.


The point is, what is holding back FCS2 is not the G5 but the software and GPU. Sure the Intel is faster, but it would be helpful if you ran a 1900xtx or something. So flash it for your older G5 is my point.

Perhaps what's holding back Color is, yes. If I could put an x1900XT in my iMac I would.

[Matthew Rogers]

Eirik, I'm a bit suprised you get color to work on your g5 dual. I can't even get it to install on my g5 dual 2.5. works great on my 17" macbook pro however.
Aloha
-A

I've got FSC2 & Color running fine on my Dual 1.8 G5 w/2GB Ram. True, color doesn't run that fast (only have a ati 9800 Pro), but I have been already able to color correct a small project (which worked much better than filters in FCP.) My only problem was that it took the colors and did a bad gradient in the final render (only noticeable when the subject walks in and out of light with his bald head.)

I'm hoping that I can use my AJA IOla to monitor Color on my production monitor.

Matthew
PS. Being able to drop a clip onto a fresh timeline and have the timeline switch to the clip settings is worth the upgrade!

[Robert Sanders]

Some companies are offering a free FCS2 upgrade with the purchase of the AJA IO HD.