MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 5,1 VTDecoderXPCService process is over 9000!!?

[Geckomode]

Ok, not quite over 9000, but I have a Mac Pro 5,1 mid 2010 dual 6 core 2.66 GHz processor and Radeon Rx5770 graphics and 128Gb ddr3 reg ECC ram. I have recently started using FCPX to edit video but when I try to playback multiple simultaneous 4K 60FPS HDR videos (say multi Picture in Picture), I noticed it was almost unplayable and choppy at best. I checked the activity monitor and saw that the Process for VTDecoderXPCService was utilizing 1900% CPU.

What would be the best first steps in diagnosing the issue and then fixing the problem if there even is a remedy?

Thanks!

 

[h9826790]

Ok, not quite over 9000, but I have a Mac Pro 5,1 mid 2010 dual 6 core 2.66 GHz processor and Radeon Rx5770 graphics and 128Gb ddr3 reg ECC ram. I have recently started using FCPX to edit video but when I try to playback multiple simultaneous 4K 60FPS HDR videos (say multi Picture in Picture), I noticed it was almost unplayable and choppy at best. I checked the activity monitor and saw that the Process for VTDecoderXPCService was utilizing 1900% CPU.

What would be the best first steps in diagnosing the issue and then fixing the problem if there even is a remedy?

Thanks!

My guess is nothing wrong. "Playing multiple simultaneous 4K 60FPS HDR videos" is demanding. Without HWAccel, and without background rendering / proxy, dual 2.66GHz Xeon can't handle that sounds reasonable to me. Even Dual X5690 most likely can't do that.

If the video is H264, then install a newer GPU and use HWAccel to decode the video should be a better choice, but it required Mojave or higher macOS.

If that's ProRes, then you better turn on background rendering, and wait for it to complete (before you try to play the timeline). Using proxy can further shortern the waiting time.

 

[Geckomode]

My guess is nothing wrong. "Playing multiple simultaneous 4K 60FPS HDR videos" is demanding. Without HWAccel, and without background rendering / proxy, dual 2.66GHz Xeon can't handle that sounds reasonable to me. Even Dual X5690 most likely can't do that.

If the video is H264, then install a newer GPU and use HWAccel to decode the video should be a better choice, but it required Mojave or higher macOS.

If that's ProRes, then you better turn on background rendering, and wait for it to complete (before you try to play the timeline). Using proxy can further shortern the waiting time.

Thank you so much for the wisdom. I don’t doubt what I am trying to do is a high ask for my Mac Pro. I did notice if I let the computer sit for a long time, the playback would be smoother, but I’d rather not have to do that.

I am looking to install a Radeon sapphire RX580 pulse and possibly upgrade to Mojave. Any thoughts on that?

For the time being, do you suggest using video files that are 30FPS 1080P non-HDR for now? The videos I believe would be in H.264 in MOV format from an iPhone 12 Pro Max.


Thanks,

 

[h9826790]

Thank you so much for the wisdom. I don’t doubt what I am trying to do is a high ask for my Mac Pro. I did notice if I let the computer sit for a long time, the playback would be smoother, but I’d rather not have to do that.

I am looking to install a Radeon sapphire RX580 pulse and possibly upgrade to Mojave. Any thoughts on that?

For the time being, do you suggest using video files that are 30FPS 1080P non-HDR for now? The videos I believe would be in H.264 in MOV format from an iPhone 12 Pro Max.


Thanks,

If you want to use HWAccel, you can join this thread.

Activate AMD hardware acceleration

[For existing OpenCore users, you can always download my latest OpenCore package at post #1314 for update] Full HWAccel achieved now! Everything is covered in the OpenCore thread. The step by step tutorial to enable AMD hardware acceleration is now at here, but I strongly recommend you go...

forums.macrumors.com

For H264, Mojave with RX580 should be good enough, but I can't quite remember if Mojave can provide decent support for HDR videos. You may need to go higher if you want to have better HDR support. In my own experince, both Big Sur and Monterey works good with a properly upgraded cMP.

If you don't want to wait that long, use 1080P 30 FPS non HDR will help. But if the source videos are still 4K 60 HDR, your cMP will still need a lot of time to decode them, then re-encode into the 1080P 30 ProRes (your timeline's cache files).

 

[Geckomode]

If you want to use HWAccel, you can join this thread.

Activate AMD hardware acceleration

[For existing OpenCore users, you can always download my latest OpenCore package at post #1314 for update] Full HWAccel achieved now! Everything is covered in the OpenCore thread. The step by step tutorial to enable AMD hardware acceleration is now at here, but I strongly recommend you go...

forums.macrumors.com

For H264, Mojave with RX580 should be good enough, but I can't quite remember if Mojave can provide decent support for HDR videos. You may need to go higher if you want to have better HDR support. In my own experince, both Big Sur and Monterey works good with a properly upgraded cMP.

If you don't want to wait that long, use 1080P 30 FPS non HDR will help. But if the source videos are still 4K 60 HDR, your cMP will still need a lot of time to decode them, then re-encode into the 1080P 30 ProRes (your timeline's cache files).

Thank you for the reference for HWaccel. I will check that out.

Currently on High Sierra, FCPX recognizes that it is HDR or overexposed, so there’s a manual filter you can apply to normalize the brightness. I’m sure this only adds more processing. Perhaps FPCX for Mojave supports HDR but will have to research that one.

I will change my iPhone video settings to 1080 30FPS no HDR and see the result as well.

Thanks,