Very poor Final Cut performance

We just upgraded to a Final Cut system from an older Avid system, but it seems to be performing well below expectations. If anyone could make suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.

Syptoms:
- Dropping frames on virtually every application, from mere audio to standard def.
- a weird flicker when playback stops (the screen goes black then refreshes with expected picture)
- choppy edges on resized windows. (Real-time but it doesn't ask for a render)
- Difference in color between paused video and playing video. (The playback appears to be the "correct" color)

Explination of system:
Apple G5 running mac os 10.4.3
Dual 2.3 Ghz Processor
2.5 gigs memory
ATI X850XT Video Card
Blackmagic's Decklink HD Pro
Blackmagic's HD Link
Final Cut Studio (Final Cut Pro 5)

The boot drive is an internal SATA 250 Gig Drive. This is where the Final Cut Application is.

Our scratch disk is a RAID using 6 external SATA drives controlled by a Tempo card. A Blackmagic Speed test returned 377 MB/sec read and 376 MB/sec write on these drives, so I don't think it's a bandwith issue. Drives are formatted without Journalling enabled.

All drives are new, optimized, and have been verified by Diskwarrior and Apple's Disk Utility.

I have also checked that each of the High performance PCI cards is in the right slot to optimize performance.

Things I've thought about but would like some input-
Is there a software cap that I haven't turned off?
Do I need to set up the Final Cut Application on the RAID Drive? (For quicker access to, say, preference files)
Could this be a symptom of a corrupt preference file?

can offer a suggestion for the dropped frame, as that happened to me a lot at first

set your windows viewing arrangement to "standard," if you resize your windows or overlap them, this can cause multiple issues and problems, dropped frames being only one

you didn't say whether the dropped frames are occuring in capture or playback but be very strict in your configuration of the FCP system, i.e. application on computer hard drive, media on another, project file on the same hard drive as the application, etc.

The Dropped Frames are when we are playing back, not capturing.

If canvas window is not set to Fit to Window or smaller then you may get dropped frames. Also dropped frames might be a drive problem. also look at this

[docs.info.apple.com]

definitely sounds like arrangement issues, in the FCP menu, set the "Window" "Arrange" to "Standard" and do not overlap or rearrange any of your windows, sounds simple and stupid, I know, but give it a try

also, set the canvus viewing size to 50% or even less!

That machine shouldn't be having those issues. There's something wrong. I would start with re-installing FCP and then move on to hardware issues.

Is there a software cap that I haven't turned off?
No

Do I need to set up the Final Cut Application on the RAID Drive? (For quicker access to, say, preference files)
No

Could this be a symptom of a corrupt preference file?
Yes. Actually, try trashing and resetting your preferences first.

William,

You aren't forgetting to do the audio mixdown are you? Perhaps doing so will help, at least it solved my initial problems with dropped frames during playback. Pretty basic I suppose, but sometimes this gets overlooked.

Go to "sequence", "render only" and then "mixdown".

Ok, that's my 2 cents.

Good luck,

F

Here's another weird one, but it worked for me.

Make sure your monitors are set at a refresh rate of 70 or higher. I had one set at 65 and the application acted like I was trying to run it on a Mac Classic. Upped the refresh to 75 and no problems.

Jeff

Thank you to all!

I tried many things. What ended up working for me was just deleting the old preference files.