System Requirements

Our tests have shown that our products perform best when used with the system configurations listed below. Although many of our products will run on older or less-powerful systems, those listed below are the minimum system requirements which we support.

Apple Macintosh

Mac OSX 10.4.8 and later*
Power Mac G5, Mac Intel
1 GB of RAM
30 MB of Hard Drive space

*Updating from Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.5.2 or later will in most cases solve compatibility issues. Please update your operating system before contacting support.

PC / Windows

Windows XP SP1 or later (32-bit)**

Windows Vista (32-bit)**
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or faster (or AMD equivalent)
1 GB of RAM
30 MB of Hard Drive space

**Windows XP and Vista 64-bit systems are not supported at this time.
Host Applications

Magic Bullet Looks runs in a variety of host applications. Each purchase and serial number allows the owner to use the product on more than one host application but only on a single computer at any one time. Except where noted, the features are the same in all systems and host applications.

Adobe After Effects CS3, 7, 6.5
Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, 2.0
Apple Final Cut Pro 6, 5.1.4

Apple Motion 3.02

Avid Xpress Pro/Media Composer 5.6+,2.6+

Please ensure that the host version is compatible with your operating system. Check with your application provider for specifics.
Video Cards

Like Apple Motion, Magic Bullet Looks requires specific graphics card capabilities to run. Without the correct card, the software will not install or run, and the installer will warn you if you don't have the necessary graphics card installed in your system.

Magic Bullet Looks supports a wide range of cards from both ATI or NVIDIA. For ATI cards, we require a 9600 XT or greater, or an X series card starting with the X700 series. Cards with greater model numbers and at least 128 MB of RAM can run the Looks engine.

For NVIDIA cards, we support the 6600 model and higher or QuadroFX 1300 and up. Cards with higher model numbers and a minimum of 128 MB of RAM can run Looks. For users working with HD images, we require that the video card have at least 256 MB of RAM. In all cases, we suggest using the latest video drivers for your graphics card.

Please Note Since all media is processed at 32 bit, you will absolutely need a 256 MB graphics card or larger. For newer cards from ATI and NVIDIA, we recommend a minimum of 320 MB of RAM. For 2K projects, we recommend 512 MB or a larger amount of RAM on the graphics card.

Rendering

In most cases, the Looks plug-in requires rendering to generate final color-corrected output. With host applications like Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro, you can use Looks as a real-time color correction effect with the dynamic playback capabilities. With applications such as Apple Motion and Adobe After Effects, rendering is required to generate any output with Looks applied. In general, the faster the graphics card, the faster the rendering of media. NVIDIA cards are generally faster than ATI cards of the same level for HD or HDV projects.

Please Note The maximum render size in Looks is 8192 x 8192, but is dependent on the video card in the system. Most cards will support 2K media (2048 x 1536) rendering, but only the NVIDIA 8800 series cards or Quadro 4600/5600 support 8K output at time of this writing.

Performance Expectations

Since the processing requirements vary wildly by the number of tools in a look, it is difficult to give exact output or render speed expectations on every system with every look. On the highest-end systems such as a Mac Pro or PC workstation with the Quadro 4000 series of graphic cards, you can expect relatively speedy rendering.

On a Mac Pro with an X1900XT card, we tested some of the looks for render speed on a 720p clip saved in DVCPRO HD format. This is a higher data rate than DV but lower than uncompressed. The following table shows the render speed of various Look presets. The render speed is noted for the output time relative to the length of the media. For example, a look that is 2.4x real time means that 1 minute of media will take approximately 2 minutes and 25 seconds to render.