• DaVinci Resolve

  2008 Mac Pro RT Performance with DaVinci

  Posted by Fabio Cormack on July 19, 2011 at 3:17 pm

  Dear friends,

  I had first my DaVinci station assembled 2 weeks ago using a Mac Pro 2008 (3.1) with 10Gb RAM/Quadro 4000/GT 120 an internal RAID and a Tangent Wave as a controller. I intend to invest on a new Mac Pro later this year.

  So far I’m deeply in love with the DaVinci software, and with the excellent posts in this forum 🙂

  The DaVinci support warned me about the 2008 Mac Pro would have some limits in performance.

  My question is, if the limit bellow is due to the 2008 Mac Pro or due to a misconfiguration on my side:

  Grading a 1080p ProRes HQ 24p file (from a 5D), after a primary correction node + 2 parallels with a key mixer node + a serial node, I’m getting only about 5 fps in RT playback ( with the GPU indicator in RED).

  Using lower res RT proxies, I can improve the playback rate in about 10-15%. Is this normal for my hardware?

  Your comments please.

  Thank you in advance

  Fabio Cormack

  Fabio Cormack
  Davinci 8
  Final Cut Suite
  Adobe CS5.5 Suite

  Dara Yem replied 14 years, 8 months ago 8 Members · 10 Replies
• 10 Replies

• 

  Adam Hendershot

  July 19, 2011 at 4:18 pm

  That seems a little low, although when I had a 2008 as our main machine we had a GTX 285 instead of the Q4000. The main tweak with a 2008 Mac Pro is to use 8-bit monitoring instead of 10-bit (on the config tab). Do you get 24fps with no corrections?
• 

  Fabio Cormack

  July 19, 2011 at 5:14 pm

  Hi Adam,

  After changing the monitoring to 8-bit I’m getting 24fps without correction and about 13fps with the nodes, much faster than with the 10-bit monitoring (I was getting 19fps and 7fps respectively). Thanks for the tip 🙂

  Fabio Cormack
  Davinci 8
  Final Cut Suite
  Adobe CS5.5 Suite
• 

  Dwaine Maggart

  July 19, 2011 at 9:28 pm

  If you are using any of the Resolve scopes, turning those all off might also help.

  Dwaine Maggart
  Blackmagic Design DaVinci Support
• 

  Fabio Cormack

  July 20, 2011 at 12:10 am

  Thanks Dwaine,

  In fact I was using 2 scopes… I’ll turn them off when not using it.

  Best,

  Fabio Cormack
  Davinci 8 – Tangent Wave – Decklink HD Extreme 3D+
  Final Cut Suite
  Adobe CS5.5 Suite
  Rio de Janeiro – Brazil
• 

  Fred Fleureau

  July 20, 2011 at 3:55 am

  uninstall soft and hard….
  install your gt120 in slot 1, install Resolve.
  turn off
  put you gt 120 in slot 2
  install your quadro in slot 1
  turn on
  open Resolve

  Enjoy !

  PS do not plug screen(s) on the Quadro, just a reminder.
• 

  Teo Rižnar

  July 21, 2011 at 9:12 pm

  I have similar problems on MacPro 2008. Is there an option to pause scopes in playback? So they refresh only when you pause the video. 8bit output is just not enough for some projects.

  @Fred: I will try uninstalling and installing like you specified in next few days, hope to solve the problem that way.

  Is there any issue with DeckLink drivers about 8bit and 10bit output? I have installed only Resolve no other separate of installation for DeckLink.

  Color grade reel: https://vimeo.com/15480583
  Cofounder of https://nuframe.si postproduction

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• 

  Fred Fleureau

  July 24, 2011 at 1:27 am

  don’t know why, but it seems to be a 2008 early 2009 problem. Try it and lemme know if it fix the problem.
  Best
  Fred

  Fred Fleureau

  Untitled Studios Paris
  https://www.untitled-studios.com
• 

  Darin Wooldridge

  July 26, 2011 at 2:11 am

  My 08 is working without issues. Real time 2k dpx with several nodes of color correction. I’m running 16 drives of raid 0 external fibre storage. gtx 285

  NOTE: The comments above are strictly mine, and may not necessarily
  represent those of my employers.

  Darin Wooldridge
  Colorist / Technical Strategist
  818-653-3918-cell
  dwooldridge@mac.com
  check me out at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Davinci-Resolve-Colorist/117363011609028?ref=….
• 

  Nook Kim

  July 26, 2011 at 9:02 pm

  I’m running the Resolve on a 2008 machine with 16GB ram, ATI 4870 for GUI, 3 x Q4000, Red Rocket, Extreme HD SDI out, 16 drive FC raid6, and a 480GB SSD for the system drive. I get real-time playback for R3D’s with no grade, but I get about 10fps to 20fps with more than three nodes. I set the source decoding setting to be the “Half Good” while grading and switch it to “Full High” for rendering. I also set the monitor out as 10bit.

  I believe my bottle neck is the CPU’s, and I’m planning on replacing it with whatever Apple brings out this year. If they don’t in about a month, I will have to go with a 2010 machine 🙁

  Nook Kim
  http://www.nookkim.com
• 

  Dara Yem

  August 12, 2011 at 8:53 am

  Hi There,

  Have you try just running without the FC Raid..instead just use a normal raid..estata connection? I think it the FC Raid that letting you do 2k playback. Seem a lot of people here concentrate on the GPU and not paying attention to the HDD.

  Thanks

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