Mac configuration for C1

[Riss]

Hello,

I've been trying to pierce an ideal configuration for C1 but haven't been able to find decent recommendations. I am aware that this part of the forum is related to software, but there doesn't seem to be a hardware related section - maybe admins could create one?

I'm using currently Mac mini 2012 2.6GHz w 16GB and 2xSSD and MBP 15" mid 2014 w GT750m + eGPU with Quadro P2000 hooked to NEC EA244 and ACD 23". As an old time Aperture user I still find C1 to lag or taking too long when browsing edited pictures. I'm thinking of retiring the Mac mini to its server function and getting a new Mac, question being which one. My budget goes as far as mid configuration of iMac Pro, but I'm on the fence whether Mac Pro (2013 or 12 core 2012 version with beefy GPU) would not be a better option?

Appreciate your thoughts and own experiences, maybe your share info on what Mac you're using with C1

[tenmangu81]

Hi,

My 15" Retina MBP (late 2013) with 16 GB RAM and the same graphic card as yours works quite well with C1, and I have sometimes to process 300 MB tiffs, without any issue.
I have just bought, a few years ago, a second (graphic) monitor, as you did. Do you really need a better config ? I find C1 very responsive on my system.

Anyway, iMac Pro is also a good configuration. Mac Pro seems to me superfluous, except if you intend to process videos.

[Riss]

Hi,

My 15" Retina MBP (late 2013) with 16 GB RAM and the same graphic card as yours works quite well with C1, and I have sometimes to process 300 MB tiffs, without any issue.
I have just bought, a few years ago, a second (graphic) monitor, as you did. Do you really need a better config ? I find C1 very responsive on my system.

Anyway, iMac Pro is also a good configuration. Mac Pro seems to me superfluous, except if you intend to process videos.

My biggest gripe is the slow preview of RAW - every time I select a picture and it opens in full screen it takes long time to show final edit making quickly browsing between maximised photos nearly impossible. I tried changing the preview size down to 1280 which helped, but it's still nowhere near Aperture's speed (my RAW files are ± 50MB)

[Ian3]

I don't think changing the preview size to 1280 is a good idea. You should ideally match it to the resolution of your monitor. So for my 2560 x 1600 MBP, I have the preview size set to 2560. Otherwise, C1 keeps having to refer back to the actual raw file when you are working on the image.

Ian

[tenmangu81]

My biggest gripe is the slow preview of RAW - every time I select a picture and it opens in full screen it takes long time to show final edit making quickly browsing between maximised photos nearly impossible. I tried changing the preview size down to 1280 which helped, but it's still nowhere near Aperture's speed (my RAW files are ± 50MB)

What do you mean by "full screen" ? 100% size or just full screen ?
What do you mean by "long time" ? 1 second or several seconds ?
With my MBP, "full screen" opening is instantaneous, while 100% size takes about 1 second with my digital 25 MB, 24 Mpx files. With my 300 MB scanned 120 films tiff files, it takes more....

[Riss]

My biggest gripe is the slow preview of RAW - every time I select a picture and it opens in full screen it takes long time to show final edit making quickly browsing between maximised photos nearly impossible. I tried changing the preview size down to 1280 which helped, but it's still nowhere near Aperture's speed (my RAW files are ± 50MB)

What do you mean by "full screen" ? 100% size or just full screen ?
What do you mean by "long time" ? 1 second or several seconds ?
With my MBP, "full screen" opening is instantaneous, while 100% size takes about 1 second with my digital 25 MB, 24 Mpx files. With my 300 MB scanned 120 films tiff files, it takes more....

full screen is maximized view, not zoomed to 100%
long time - edited 50MB RAW files take on avg 9s to be displayed as final picture... I thought C1 was doing some caching of the previews, but it seems to me that it renders it every time

I don't think changing the preview size to 1280 is a good idea. You should ideally match it to the resolution of your monitor. So for my 2560 x 1600 MBP, I have the preview size set to 2560. Otherwise, C1 keeps having to refer back to the actual raw file when you are working on the image.

Ian

Hi Ian,
I started with 1920, but that took even longer. The size of the image preview in C1 is the size of X axis and with tool + preview bars the actual viewing area is smaller, hence the 1280 settings.

What Mac are you using if I may ask?

[Ian3]

Hi Ian,
I started with 1920, but that took even longer. The size of the image preview in C1 is the size of X axis and with tool + preview bars the actual viewing area is smaller, hence the 1280 settings.

What Mac are you using if I may ask?

I'm using a MPB retina with 2560 x 1600 and also a 27 inch iMac with 2560 x 1440. I'm just repeating the oft-given advice from Phase One to match the preview size to the display size as described.

Ian

[tenmangu81]

Yep. I have also a 15" Retina MBP and my previews are 2560 px wide. And it works quite well.
I guess you should have something wrong in your config/system if the display of a full screen image takes 9s.
Actually, the previews are calculated once, and C1 doesn't have to recalculate any time you open an image. And, definitely, recalculating the previews takes some time.

[Riss]

Yep. I have also a 15" Retina MBP and my previews are 2560 px wide. And it works quite well.
I guess you should have something wrong in your config/system if the display of a full screen image takes 9s.
Actually, the previews are calculated once, and C1 doesn't have to recalculate any time you open an image. And, definitely, recalculating the previews takes some time.

I don’t know what it could be - I’m using catalogues with referenced files (RAW files as in their separate folder), on average these catalogues have 200-300 files (keepers). I’ll check with C1 support as my previews are being rendered repeatedly.

In the meantime I’m still curious what kind of Mac configurations are other forum members using...100+ views and so far only few chipped in

[David Edge]

2013 iMac with 32GB RAM. It seldom uses much over 16GB in truth, but I regard it as future-proofing.

It's occasionally a bit slow, but nothing I would wish to spend GBP/EUR 5000 to fix. Some of the things that slow it down the most use only one core. It's fine with TIFFs in the Affinity in the hundreds of MB range.

I'm shooting 24MP / 14 bit. I expect that if I went to 46MP a new iMac would be needed, but would test first. I'd only consider an iMac Pro if I won the pools or were editing several hours per day.

d.

[Wesley]

Late 2011 15" MBP - 2.2 i7, 16GB 1333mhz, 850 Evo SSD - Gigabyte RX 580 eGPU - 25" 1440p monitor
Working drives between the SATA 850 Evo and USB 3 Samsung T5 connected to eGPU.

Looking through 24MP raw images load up within half a second once all previews generated.
Slows down to 2-4 seconds for layered mask brushing and loading up rotated images.

Both Mac Pros are dead end systems to me this day and age. The 2012 MP had a long run due to being modular but I think it deserves retirement. Current MP a failed Apple experiment. I'm leery for the upcoming MP. Judging by the time it's taking for them to release it, they are trying to reinvent the wheel again instead of using 2012 chassis with modern parts.

To get a new Mac now, I'd want to get 2018 15" MBP - base CPU/GPU with eGPU or 10c/Vega 64 iMac Pro.

[fatihayoglu]

Late 2015 iMac 27, 4Ghz, 40 GB Ram, 4 GB GPU M395X.
Not so much issue in here as well

[Riss]

Great info guys, thx for sharing!

Wish those 300 something other Mac users that viewed the topic would chip in too