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NVidia graphics card and Final Cut Studio

C

chrisnielsen82

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 23, 2009
1
0
OK, so I want to buy a 13" Macbook Pro.
But, I want to run Final Cut Studio as well as the Adobe Master Collection (mainly for After Effects).
I keep on hearing conflicting arguments over the system requirements for Final Cut because of this (from the apple website on FCS):


Minimum Requirements to Install All Final Cut Studio Applications
* A Macintosh computer with a 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, or Intel Xeon processor
* 1GB of RAM
* An AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Studio is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
* Mac OS X v10.4.11 or Mac OS X v10.5.5 or later
* QuickTime 7.5.5 or later
* A DVD drive for installation

What does that mean? Will I have to buy a 15" 2.66 GHz in order to get the better graphics card? Or will it work with the normal NVIDIA card?

Am I not seeing right when I see that none of the entire Macbook Pro line have an AGP or PCI express Quartz Extreme Graphics card?

I guess all I want to know is: Is anyone else using a new 13" Macbook Pro and using Final Cut Studio? If so, I'd love to hear so I can buy one with peace of mind. Thanks!
 
Good question. I've heard stories of the 13" MBP running FCS2 just fine because it has integrated NVIDIA graphics instead of Intel, albeit perhaps a bit slower in Motion and Color versus discrete GPUs.

Funny, though. It seems that a lot of people want to run FCS2 on the 13" MBP... Unless you plan on running an external monitor, you might find 1280x800 resolution limiting.
 
Funny, though. It seems that a lot of people want to run FCS2 on the 13" MBP... Unless you plan on running an external monitor, you might find 1280x800 resolution limiting.
Click to expand...

Indeed. It depends on what footage you are editing. Also, an external monitor would be a good idea for Colour at anyrate. But yes, FCS2 should run on your MBP.
 
I have the same exact question. Im getting a 13" MBP this weekend, Im going to use it for mainly imovie 06 and FCE, as well as Illustrator and some light After Effects. I chose 13" because I want something light for editing on the field. I also have a 20" monitor to use if the 1280x800 is not enough.

Is it a good choice? Im new to film, the only REAL project Ive done was write the story for a short film adaptation me and my buddies did. I have alot of ideas but I never had the equipment to materialize them, but now that I have my own income I am going to buy a computer first, and a camera/etc next.
 
I felt the same way before I bought mine. I don't know how to use color or motion, but I am able to run final cut pro just fine. I use nattress film plugins and magic bullet with it and it works fine as well. I thought you needed a dedicated graphics card to run them but they work well. Overall I'm happy with my 13 inch MacBook pro.
 
dcac said:
I felt the same way before I bought mine. I don't know how to use color or motion, but I am able to run final cut pro just fine. I use nattress film plugins and magic bullet with it and it works fine as well. I thought you needed a dedicated graphics card to run them but they work well. Overall I'm happy with my 13 inch MacBook pro.
Click to expand...

Glad to hear that haha. I guess my 13" is gonna be just fine.
 
MacBook Pro 13" and FCS 3

Can I ask how you got on with Final Cut Studio on your 13" MB pro?

I'm facing a similar dilemma. I would like to buy the 13" MB pro for maximum portability (with 24" cinema display at home), but am unsure if it will run FCS 3.

The minimum specs suggest that it will not work - Apple say the graphics card must have 128mb of VRAM (and 512mb of VRAM for Colour 1.5) and the Nvidea GeForce 9400m, which is the only video card option for the 13" MB Pro, has none. In other words, they say that if I want to run FCS 3 then as a minimum I must buy the 15" with the additional video card. Further, there seems to be the suggestion that the program will not even load unless it detects the higher spec video card.

But entries on this forum and elsewhere seem to suggest that the minimum spec as detailed by Apple is not necessary, although clearly it will lead to faster performance. Indeed some (but not all) Apple assistants think it will work - but they may only have experience of FCS 2 and not the latest, version 3.

I would much prefer the smaller 13", but clearly there's no point if it's not going to work. Therefore I would like to hear from anyone who has managed to load version 3 of Final Cut Studio onto a 13" 2.53ghz MB Pro to see if it works (none of the machines in the apple store in London have FCS 3 loaded yet.)

Many thanks.
 
For those who using FCP2 on the 13" MBP's, how does that set up handle editing AVCHD??
I Just got myself a Sony HDR-XR500, I love the camera, but I have to upgrade from my FCE2 on an ibook G4 set-up.
I was thinking about using FCE on the 15" MBP, so if the 13" can handle FCP and AVCHD I will be fine. Thanks for your time.
 
filman408 said:
Apple puts the 9400M performance in range with a discrete unit.
Click to expand...


Up to a point - but not it seems for the 13" MBP, hence this thread.

The Nvidea 9400M graphics processor has 256mb of shared SDRAM. The specifications for Final Cut Studio version 3 calls for 128mb of VRAM (and higher for some very specific bits of Colour 1.5). Getting dedicated VRAM as opposed to shared SDRAM is only available on the 15" MB Pro when the 9400M GT is specified as a second card. This second card is not offered, for some annoying reason, on the 13" MB Pro.

Hence the question - has Apple over specified the minimum requirements of FCS 3 to encourage us to buy the 15" MBP, or will FCS 3 actually work with the 13" without the second graphics card? It is possible that the application looks for a video card with dedicated VRAM - and it won't find this on the 13" MBP, so even if the program will work (which I suspect it will, albeit slower) a fix needs to be found to override the otherwise inevitable error messages from the installer and application programs.
 
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