Anyone started using Windows Resolve fulltime?

[Robbie Carman]

I’m interested in this to Ola. We lease our machines and those leases are up in May for our Mac Pro’s. Luckily we already have a couple Cubix Expanders but the computers them selves are getting long in the tooth.

Ola not sure of the SuperMicro where you are but it can get super pricey! Configured I had mine pushing 16k. This is the same box linux resolve is running from a lot of resellers.

Don’t know if you saw this but HP has updated the 800z (or about too) to the 820. Looks like a nice machine. But again configured you’re probably in the 10-12k range

https://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/workstations/z820_features.html#.T1dmiVFAvyG

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
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[Ola Haldor voll]

I’ve established contact with a reseller who’s got the SuperMicro 7046GT-TRF
– Two six-core X5650 2.66GHz
– 48GB RAM (it was set to this as default before configuration!)
– PNY Quadro 4000
– Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
– SATA 8 port RAID controller (RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10)

About $7,5K + VAT and shipping.

GTX580 and internal RAID comes on top of this, and that’s about another $2,5K here.

I don’t think that’s too bad, really.

One of my biggest concerns are ProRes input/output. I love the codec. 99% of all my jobs are delivered to me and expected to be delivered back in any of the ProRes types.

[Juan Salvo]

You do definitely have prores decode. Encode appeared briefly on the beta, but I don’t believe is back yet. Might have been a glimpse into what to expect in v9? For the 7.5k you’d invest in supermicro you could easily get a fully populated cubix. How many pcie slots does that config have?

[Ola Haldor voll]

Here’s the specs I’ve been given.

4 (x16) PCI-E 2.0,
2 (x4) PCI-E 2.0 (in x16 and x8 slots),
1 (x4) PCI-E (in x16 slot),
2 32-bit PCI slots

In my example, after I’ve installed a Quadro 4000 and two GTX580s, I’m left with
1 (x16) PCI-E 2.0,
2 (x4) PCI-E 2.0 (in x16 and x8 slots),
1 (x4) PCI-E (in x16 slot),
2 32-bit PCI slots

As far as I can see from photos of the casing, it should be possible to install four double width PCI cards.

[Mike Most]

Until very thorny and unpredictable legal questions are answered regarding the open source Prores codec, don’t expect to see Prores encoding in Resolve on any platform other than the Mac.

In other words, don’t hold your breath and don’t move to Windows expecting that you will have Prores encoding now or in the future.

[Margus Voll]

I would wait it out a bit. Cubix is relatively cheap compared to full pc setup?

—

Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[Jonathon Lee]

I’m in the midst of testing WIndows Resolve. So far so good. I’m doing a 6min Epic short. The system is not certified by a long shot, but it is working well so far. I’m working in proxy mode. The output will be 4k & 2k DCDM, 1080p rec709.

The system is:

HP z400 3.06 GHZ w/24GB
win7/64
SAS LSI RAID-6 controller w/12 not that fast SATA HDD’s
(1) GTX 285 pulled from a mac!
Quadro 600
BMD Decklink HD Dual-link

So far so good. I’ve not done a scientific test, but it seems to be a bit snappier then the 8-core 2010 2.4GHZ that I was using. I’m going to install a GTX 570 in that mac and use it for conforming.

The new z820 looks amazing… 3x Gen 3 slots.. wonder if there will be new cards that have better performance?

[Aaron Hayden]

For the past 3 weeks I’ve been coloring 43 minutes of material a day on a windows box. I started with the recommend Supermicro system and build it beyond their specs.

– 2 x5690 @ 3.47 xeon processors
– 24 gigs of ram
– 1 quadro 4000 for gui
– 3 EVGA Classifeid GTX 580 cards for GPU
– 5 drive internal raid (windows raid 0) for local storage
– SSD drive for system disk
– Decklink SDI for video out, my projects are all finished in HD and i had the card laying around.
– 4g atto Fiber card for connection to Unity 5 server
– Davinci Resolve BMD color panel

It runs Da Vinci like a BEAST! I can have 6 serial nodes with blur, power windows and noise reduction on all of them and still get 30 fps. All my media is dnxhd 220x with some phantom cine files, so I imagine performance would be even greater using DPX files, less decoding work for the CPUs.

Only downside is computer also doubles as a space heater and sounds like a leaf blower. Any room I put it in raises the temperature by ten degrees. The GPU cards are packed in the case very tight and I have to manual increase the fan speed on the cards to keep them from overheating. Plan on getting their recommend DVI and USB extension cables.

It took a couple weeks of testing to get the Avid roundtrip workflow down. The round trip works perfectly as long as your sequence prep is perfect. All in all I love the system and so glad to never be forced to color in Symphony Nitris ever again.

Aaron Hayden
Colorist
Gurney Productions
ahayden@gurneyproductions.com

[John Michaels]

Lately I’ve been doing a good 90% of my jobs on a Windows box with no regrets. Performance far exceeds what I was seeing on the Mac, and it has been every bit as stable for me. The only thing holding us back is the occasional need to render out to ProRes. As previously mentioned, we had this ability on an earlier beta and it got me really excited, but it seems to be gone for now.

“Are you using the suggested mother board/Z800/SuperMicro as mentioned in the Config Guide?”

Not really. I’m running two GTX 580, latest stable nvidia drivers, 16GB RAM, Decklink Studio. Other guys are running very different setups.

[Ola Haldor voll]

Heat and noise are two big concerns for me. Even though I’ve got much more space now than before, heat can be an issue.