MP 7,1 Final Cut Pro with multi 3rd party GPU utilization

[awkward_eagle]

Long time reader, first time poster. Just put in an oder for new Mac Pro today and am trying to figure out which 3rd Party GPUs to buy to work with Final Cut Pro and Davinci Resolve Studio.

I know Resolve allows manual selection of GPUs for compute, but was wondering if anyone has had any experience with using multiple 3rd party GPUs with the latest builds of Final Cut Pro and MacOS. I'm hoping I can leave in the stock 580X to drive the monitor and use a pair of Radeon VIIs or WX9100s for Metal compute in both Resolve and FCP.

When using an eGPU with a Macbook Pro for FCP, there's a dropdown in the FCP preferences that allows selection of which card is used for graphics processing. Does this same option appear when all GPUs are internal? Does having a third ( 580X ) slower card reduce the overall utilization like it does in Resolve?

Any help would be appriciated.

 

[riggieri]

Latest FCPx update now supports GPU selection

 

[awkward_eagle]

Latest FCPx update now supports GPU selection

More specifically, I was hoping to find out if the GPU selection was any different than the internal / external selection on the laptop with an eGPU.

For instance, if I have the stock GPU and two identical 3rd party GPUs, can I deactivate the stock 580X from Metal processing and leave the two 3rd party cards active ( similar to Resolve ). Or does it only allow one card to be manually selected at a time?

 

[Casey P]

I have a 580x and two Radeon VII's installed. With FCPX, you can still only select one card as a render card. The program, however, does seem to be using all of the cards even if a monitor isn't plugged into a card. I'm not sure what the program is doing, but according to my istat menus readout, the card processors are barely being taxed but the vram fills up quite fast on all three. I am running my two monitors off of the Radeon VII's and letting the 580X sit without anything plugged in.

I have been considering taking the 580x out, but I doubt it makes any difference. It would be nice to know what the computer is doing, but there isn't anything that I can throw at FCPX that causes it to slow down.

I've been wondering if the Radeon Pro Vega II Duo is considered a single GPU for the purposes of rendering.

 

[awkward_eagle]

I have a 580x and two Radeon VII's installed. With FCPX, you can still only select one card as a render card. The program, however, does seem to be using all of the cards even if a monitor isn't plugged into a card. I'm not sure what the program is doing, but according to my istat menus readout, the card processors are barely being taxed but the vram fills up quite fast on all three. I am running my two monitors off of the Radeon VII's and letting the 580X sit without anything plugged in.

I have been considering taking the 580x out, but I doubt it makes any difference. It would be nice to know what the computer is doing, but there isn't anything that I can throw at FCPX that causes it to slow down.

I've been wondering if the Radeon Pro Vega II Duo is considered a single GPU for the purposes of rendering.

Thank you! It's great to hear from someone with first hand experience. GPU compute in general prefers homogeneous cards, so I wouldn't be surprised if removing the 580x increased performance or stability. At least this is true in Resolve, but you can manually deactivate the UI card from compute for better results. It sounds like FCP just uses everything that's plugged in. Sounds good, but the imbalance of compute resources likely has a negative impact like Resolve or the Redshift renderer.

Overall, how are you liking the Radeon VIIs in FCP? I'm having a hard time deciding between those and the WX9100 which has better cooling for multi-card setups and hopefully no fan problems when the system sleeps.

edit : I saw somewhere that the Vega II Duo appears to the system as two separate GPUs. They posted a screenshot of the Activity Monitor's GPU graph for confirmation. This person had two of the cards so it showed up as 4 discrete GPUs.

 

[Casey P]

If AMD releases a similar card with more RAM than the Radeon VII's that also allows me to put my computer to sleep then I will replace them. FCPX barely uses the RAM in my system, but it does seem to like to take up VRAM. For just video editing, they are fine. They don't even work hard enough to spin up the fan while I am editing. The 580X wasn't enough without them.

My hope had been that FCPX would work such that two of the cards could be used for monitor playback while the third card would allow rendering in the background without pausing for playback. I still have to stop editing for any background rendering to occur. For the most part, my system plays back without needing to render, but noise reduction and certain transitions can cause hiccups.

 

[awkward_eagle]

Good denoising has always been slow for every NLE / compositor. The best one is Neat Video. It can be "fast" if it's been optimized, nut nowhere near real time.

My hope is that since all of my footage is 4.6K ProRes 4444 files, that they can play with reframing and basic color correction without having to render. If it cant, at least it can render quickly. I was able to do this on a base iMac Pro but not a 15" MBP with eGPU given the bandwidth constraints of TB3. If the Vega 56 in the iMac Pro could handle it pretty well, I'm really hoping two cards that are a lot faster can cut through it like it's nothing. If not I'll probably add an Afterburner when they become available separately.

 

[Casey P]

My most demanding footage is 22MP RAW timelapse photos that I put into a timeline and turn into a compound clip to play back as video. My old 2013 Mac Pro couldn't play more than a frame a second, although this was on the old non metal version of FCPX. The new Mac Pro can play it back in real time with as many color correction and video tweaks as I care to put on it. I've put up five layers of 60p 5.6K CRL with color correction and partial transparencies on top of each other without dropping a frame. You should be fine with ProRes.

 

[awkward_eagle]

Damn. Didn't realize it was rendering raw photos with corrections applied on the fly. I count that as being worth the upgrade. I hear CRL is a heavy codec to decode. Once camera makers started offering internal ProRes recording ( RED, Arri, Blackmagic ), I never looked back.

 

[OkiRun]

Damn. Didn't realize it was rendering raw photos with corrections applied on the fly. I count that as being worth the upgrade. I hear CRL is a heavy codec to decode. Once camera makers started offering internal ProRes recording ( RED, Arri, Blackmagic ), I never looked back.

RED = RED R3D. Did not know that RED cameras film internal ProRes.

 

[awkward_eagle]

RED = RED R3D. Did not know that RED cameras film internal ProRes.

The newer RED cameras can shoot R3D and ProRes simultaneously. The Sony F55 can do the same with ProRes limited to HD along side their 16bit RAW. Not sure about their newer Venice camera. Its a good proxy workflow.

 

[awkward_eagle]

Just ordered 2x Radeon VIIs made by XFX. Was either that or ASROCK. Never head of either so I went with the cheaper ones.

Who makes your Radeon VIIs?

 

[Casey P]

From my brief research, it appears that AMD designs the cards. They allow people to license the design or something and sell the cards as long as it meets the specs. In the case of the VII, the manufacturing is pretty much locked in so that all of the cards are interchangeable. I picked up the XFX cards as well.

 

[awkward_eagle]

From my brief research, it appears that AMD designs the cards. They allow people to license the design or something and sell the cards as long as it meets the specs. In the case of the VII, the manufacturing is pretty much locked in so that all of the cards are interchangeable. I picked up the XFX cards as well.

It's good to hear you're using the exact cards I'm getting with no problems. Hoping the recent update to 10.15.3 fixes the fan sleep problem. Then again, I don't sleep computers. Prefer to leave them on.

 

[OkiRun]

I see...

ProRes 422 HQ, ProRes 422 and ProRes 422 LT at 4K (4096 × 2160) up to 30 fps ​

ProRes 4444 XQ and ProRes 4444 at 2K (2048 × 1080) up to 120 fps ​

ProRes 422 HQ, ProRes 422 and ProRes 422 LT at 2K (2048 × 1080) up to 120 fps​

 

[awkward_eagle]

From my brief research, it appears that AMD designs the cards. They allow people to license the design or something and sell the cards as long as it meets the specs. In the case of the VII, the manufacturing is pretty much locked in so that all of the cards are interchangeable. I picked up the XFX cards as well.

Looks like someone else might be having Radeon VII problem causing kernel panic.

Random panic on 2019 Mac Pro

It _could_ be a bad GPU. Not necessarily all Radeon VIIs but maybe yours just nosedives every so often. I'd try running without it and see what happens. I've seen things like this when the GPU drops out for whatever reason.

forums.macrumors.com

Hoping you haven't run into anything similar. Fingers crossed since I'll be installing mine tomorrow when the machine arrives.

 

[Casey P]

I have the same kernal panic randomly. It may be due to the GPU. I don't know.

 

[awkward_eagle]

I guess i’m ordering the WX 9100s. Noticed the Radeon VII isn’t on the official gpu support list. That’s a shame considering the price.

 

[chfilm]

Good denoising has always been slow for every NLE / compositor. The best one is Neat Video. It can be "fast" if it's been optimized, nut nowhere near real time.

My hope is that since all of my footage is 4.6K ProRes 4444 files, that they can play with reframing and basic color correction without having to render. If it cant, at least it can render quickly. I was able to do this on a base iMac Pro but not a 15" MBP with eGPU given the bandwidth constraints of TB3. If the Vega 56 in the iMac Pro could handle it pretty well, I'm really hoping two cards that are a lot faster can cut through it like it's nothing. If not I'll probably add an Afterburner when they become available separately.

If all your footage is prores, wouldn’t your money be better off with an afterburner?

 

[awkward_eagle]

If all your footage is prores, wouldn’t your money be better off with an afterburner?

I’m adding an Afterburner once they become available separately. Needed to prioritize gpus for other stuff in my workflow. Editing in FCP is just one piece when you’re dealing with VFX and finishing where and Afterburner wouldn’t have an effect.

 

[h9826790]

I guess i’m ordering the WX 9100s. Noticed the Radeon VII isn’t on the official gpu support list. That’s a shame considering the price.

Radeon VII is on the supported list

Graphics card compatibility for Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor - Apple-support (SE)

Learn which built-in and aftermarket graphics cards work with Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor on Mac.

support.apple.com

 

[awkward_eagle]

Radeon VII is on the supported list
View attachment 893728

Graphics card compatibility for Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor - Apple-support (SE)

Learn which built-in and aftermarket graphics cards work with Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor on Mac.

support.apple.com

I saw the Radeon VII was on the FCP supported list. Weird that it's not on the eGPU list.

Use an eGPU with your Mac - Apple Support

Learn how to access additional graphics performance by connecting to an external graphics processor.

support.apple.com

Wonder if it's an oversight or if its an intentional exclusion. Still going with the 9100s. My experience with multi gpu systems has always leaned toward the reliability of rear exhaust cards when in close proximity, particularly when using something like Redshift that hits the cards harder for longer than FCP or Resolve.

 

[profdraper]

Good denoising has always been slow for every NLE / compositor. The best one is Neat Video. It can be "fast" if it's been optimized, nut nowhere near real time.

My hope is that since all of my footage is 4.6K ProRes 4444 files, that they can play with reframing and basic color correction without having to render. If it cant, at least it can render quickly. I was able to do this on a base iMac Pro but not a 15" MBP with eGPU given the bandwidth constraints of TB3. If the Vega 56 in the iMac Pro could handle it pretty well, I'm really hoping two cards that are a lot faster can cut through it like it's nothing. If not I'll probably add an Afterburner when they become available separately.

FWIW, have been using Neat for quite some time: on a Win workstation w/ RTX 2080Ti (works well); and now on MP7,1 with Vega II 32GB. At first, Neat did not see the Vega at all; wrote to Neat & they updated to a version that sees the card but can only use CPU cores. They say an update will be coming that will calculate, optimize the Vega at some point.

 

[awkward_eagle]

They say an update will be coming that will calculate, optimize the Vega at some point.

Neat Video is usually pretty quick to update. At least they were when the nVidia Titan Voltas came out a while back.

 

[Z28McCrory]

I've had two XFX Radeon VII in my 7,1 for about 6 weeks now. The only issue I've had is the fans going full blast when it goes to sleep. Once I prevented the computer from going to sleep, its been smooth sailing.