I was surfing and came across this great post about hacking FCP 4.5 on an Intel Mac. It is definitely worth sharing.
Please be very careful when you start modifying system files. Make sure that you have a good backup before you try anything suggested below.
screenplayer.sg
So you broke the bank and got yourself a shiny new Intel Mac! Congratulations! Oh but what’s this? It doesn’t seem to run Final Cut Pro 4.5! It says you’re missing an AGP graphics card and presents you with no choice but to shut down FCP! A dead end.
Does this mean that you now have no choice but to shell out more money to upgrade to FCP 5? Of course not! After the jump, learn how to make your copy of FCP 4.5 work with your Intel Mac in less than 2 minutes!
What’s AGP? If you’ve seen the inside of a computer, this picture should make sense. If not, don’t worry too much about it. PowerMacs came with AGP cards and for a long time, they were touted to be faster than PCI cards.
Your Intel Mac comes with a PCIe (PCI Express) graphics card and this is a new bus that surpasses AGP on some levels. In fact, AGP is on its way out. Ok, enough yak. Let’s get down to business.
The problem is that FCP 4.5 looks for an AGP card where none exists. Solution? Make it look for a PCI card instead.
Here’s how:
- Go to Applications folder
- Right click on Final Cut Pro HD & choose Show Package Contents
- Double click on Contents folder
- Open up info.plist with TextEdit
- Search for ‘AGP’ and replace it with ‘PCI’
- Save
- That’s it! Easy, wasn’t it?
Try running Final Cut Pro now and it’ll work just fine! Enjoy!
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
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How about on an Intel iMac? Thanks.
Should be the same, but I don’t have an iMac to test.
That was the best Geek fix EVER!!!
Thank you :~)
Sweet! Worked like a charm. Thanks GEEKS!
help! i keep trying this fix, but not sure where to save it TO or as what type of document. OmniOutliner wants me to pick where and what to save it as. (the new plist for fcp 4.5) any help would be great!
thanks
Stanya
This was great, and fixed the AGP problem, but FCP still won’t launch. I just got a quad core 2.66 GHz, and this is the error message I’m getting “Configuaration error: Power Macintosh G4/350 megahertz (MHz), or faster required” What the??? My new computer is certainly faster, so I don’t get it. Help!
P.S. To the poster above: use “get info” and change the default application to Text Edit and just save the file w/o renaming it. That will solve the problem.
So, just in case someone comes across this page with the same problem I did: (above)
After changing AGP to PCI, (thanks for that little nugget of info!)I deleted the lines referring to CPU and minimum system requirements. Not sure why this was necessary for me to do, since noone else has had the same problem, but it worked like a charm! (But save an original of the info.plist, just in case.)
what about livetype?
Not sure about livetype. Has anyone tested it?
bravo,
you truly have made life a little easier!
cheers,
Bud
Great Tip! Know I can upgrade from my eMac without shelling out an extra $700 on the Final Cut Pro upgrade.
I was just wondering, how fast does it fun on an Intel vs. a PowerPC? Would it be worth upgrading to FCP 6 for the speed, is it a lot slower due to Rosetta?
Thanks!
The latest and greatest is always going to be faster. But if you are not a power user it may not be worth the expense.
Thanks!
Now I can go get an iMac with Leopard.
That was so freakin easy! And it works great!
Thanks for the tips to get final cut launched, but i’m finding that the launch hangs during the “loading audio filters” indefinitely – has anyone else had this issue? thanks
absolutely beautiful… my many thanks!!!
I just got the MacBook Pro and was excited until I sat to work on a project started in my “old Mac” and found out the news I had not heard: FCP 4.5 won’t work. My heart sank when I saw the cost of the upgrade, but was moved back into it’s original position when I tried your remedy! Thanks a million. Geekymac was the better find over this MacBook.
thanks for this… do you thinnk it will work on FCP 4.0? i just got my imac with intel today and was supper excited until that damn AGP thing came up.
I actually have FCS2 but this tip will definitely help my understanding of things in general and might help me troubleshoot in the future. Thx
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This worked out great. I had to also delete the reference lines in the code to the system requirements. Very important as noted by others to make a copy of the package contents doc to your desktop before you start changing anything.
Yes–Ditto the thanks! Worked like a charm. I’m sure I’ll have to upgrade FCP eventually, as I do a lot of intense video stuff, but I can’t afford it right now after buying a new computer and this has helped my workflow tremendously!
Woo Hoo! I just came from the Creative Cow website and I was starting to despair. Worked om my Mac book pro 2.2 GHz-2Duo, with FCP 4.5! Thanks.
thanks alot! it really helped. hey do you think final cut pro HD will run on the new aluminum macbooks? a reply would be very helpful
Help please. I just tried fixing the plist file by changing AGP to PCI and after deleting some info on the system requirements I am still getting the dreaded
“Configuaration error: Power Macintosh G4/350 megahertz (MHz), or faster required”
Maybe I’m doing something wrong??? Can anyone tell me which lines exactly to change?
Hey – I hope you feel like a true hero – after two weeks listening to a friend with a new mac, leaving the country, panicked that FCP HD would not load – somehow a quick search for “FCP HD” and “intel” came up with a solution that even a non-technophile could easily put into action.
Genius. Thank you. You really are a hero.
I love geeks.
You sir (or mam) have just made me the happiest person!! It works perfectly 😀
Just wanted to say thanks for this small miracle! It does work with FCP 4.0 as well. Unbelievable!!! You are the man.
I changed the info file, and FCP launched perfectly. It acts perfectly normal, except it will not let me render. The video is question was an imported .avi file. Any help would be appreciated.
I just wrestled FCP onto a new Intel Mac Pro, and I couldn’t have done it without this thread. THANK YOU – particularly C-tina (deleting the config lines never occurred to me) – THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
help please!!
I am trying to do this cahange,cant get it working…
does it work on final cut pro 4? or is it only fcp 4,5 or newer?
I have an Imac 3gh and 1tb HD. I changed to PCI as above but when I try and play one of the sampler movies i get a message warning of dropped frames. It will play a few second and stop. Anyone got any ideas on fixing this.
There is also mention of deleting some of the config lines – can someone describe exactly which lines these are that they are deleting, don’t want to ged rid of the wrong ones.
Thanks
Just purchased an Mac Pro 8 core. Same problem with FCP, made the AGP to PCI fix however, FCP still wont open and gives the same error as before (G4/350 meg or faster). Is there a proceedure to fix?
My new macbook pro 10.7.1 2 ghz corei7 will not even let me download form the cd fcp 4.5 or photoshop cs2 any suggestions?