how to let the quadro fx free of any monitors just for DaVinci

[Joseph Owens]

[Michael Cinquin] “Other solutions would be to put 2 big graphic cards in the computer, and leave the Quadro Fx without any monitors attached, or use the computer only for DaVinci “

I get the feeling that the “use the computer only for DaVinci” is the plan and the swiss army knife might be too much to ask.

And, what would the BlackMagic HDLink Extreme3D be for? … besides the SDI I/O you will require and where are you going to put it in your 2008 MacPro? I thought it was for attaching a Grade Monitor so that the 4800 is the CUDA GPU that is doing the calculations and passing the image on for SDI display? Sort of like the Apple COLOR ATI/GPU plus Kona/Video I/O approach…

Correct me if this is not within the “no hardware variations” directive.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Michael Cinquin]

[Joseph Owens] “And, what would the BlackMagic HDLink Extreme3D be for”
I bet monitoring 😉 but it’s not part of my dvi problem…

[Joseph Owens] “besides the SDI I/O you will require and where are you going to put it in your 2008 MacPro”
it’s not going to be a mac pro.

[Arthur Puig]

If it’s not going to be a Mac Pro then I assume is a Linux machine, in which case don’t even bother configuring it because for what I read in a previous post, the don’t sell it software only, the sell you the whole package, software + hardware.

Or are we talking Hackintosh?

[Illya Laney]

I think he means a Hackintosh since he also plans to run Color.

Motion Design, Color, Editing
SWGC Incorporated

[Arthur Puig]

OK, now I’m confused.
First of all, you can’t run Color in a DaVinci setup? So, if my DVI monitor is connected to the GT120,the Quadro or GT285 is doing the math for DaVinci, when you run Color, shouldn’t it be using the GT120?
What happens when you have more than one card?

And how different a hackintosh would be since the software would act thinking it’s a macintosh?

[Jack Jones]

I don’t get any of this?

If you’re having a DaVinci setup surely the point of that system is to grade. Therefore if you have Color as well surely you’ll decide which you prefer and use that most of the time… They both do the same thing just in different ways and with slightly different toolsets.

I’m simply going to buy a second Mac Pro and use one machine as my grading suite and use the second for encoding, playouts and prep work.

I tend to find it makes most sense to have a machine that does a job and to configure it so that is what it’s best at.

Jack Jones
Freelance Colourist

[Michael Cinquin]

[Arthur Puig]
First of all, you can’t run Color in a DaVinci setup? So, if my DVI monitor is connected to the GT120,the Quadro or GT285 is doing the math for DaVinci, when you run Color, shouldn’t it be using the GT120?

From my understanding, Color should work fine in a DaVinci setup ; the only drawback is that Color will then be using the very small video card the monitors are connected to (GT120) instead of a big one (GTX285,FX4800) : render times will increase.

[Arthur Puig]
And how different a hackintosh would be since the software would act thinking it’s a macintosh?”

It would behave the same on a hackintosh.

[Michael Cinquin]

[Jack Jones] “Therefore if you have Color as well surely you’ll decide which you prefer and use that most of the time…”

Color is not the only app that probably won’t make use the Qaudro Fx if the monitors are not hooked to it.
Plus, I think it will be likely that I won’t drop Color anytime soon. Color is very powerful once you have trusted workflows, and I would be surprised if DaVinci was better in every single aspect. Time will tell.

“I tend to find it makes most sense to have a machine that does a job and to configure it so that is what it’s best at.
“

Your point makes sense : if you can afford it (money & space & efficient networking), it could be better & simpler to build a station dedicated to daVinci grading. For my studio, this is not the route I’m going to follow, hence my quest to easily switch the video card to which the the monitors are connected to.

Michael

[Joseph Owens]

[Michael Cinquin] “Color should work fine in a DaVinci setup ; the only drawback is that Color will then be using the very small video card the monitors are connected to (GT120) instead of a big one (GTX285,FX4800) : “

I would not bet the farm on this one. There is more than one drawback. Although I have a single anecdotal report that COLOR has booted with more than one GPU resident (and active), the history is that it won’t run with that configuration, so you will likely be intervening in the hardware setup at bootup to successfully run both applications from the same platform. Also, COLOR is not 100% compatible with nVidia, most obviously in its bit-depth rendering. To date, to get anything beyond 8-bit, you need to select “float”. Maybe this isn’t a problem for most consumers.

Unless Blackmagic somehow finds a way to bring ATI into the CUDA club, these very basic, read “crucial”, differences make Resolve and COLOR uneasy bedmates.

This is NOT an Apple application, (neither is COLOR, to tell the truth) and as far as I can infer, Apple is not helping, and is unlikely to.

On the hackintosh/Linux issue:
Silicon Color lost control of how its subscriber/user base implemented their application, and the unsuccessful do-it-yourselfers got busy bad-mouthing the app as fast and hard as they could muster, when the app failed to perform as advertised.
I sympathize completely with the BlackMagic’s concern in preserving the hallowed brand of DaVinci by keeping control of its configuration.

jPo

You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?

[Michael Cinquin]

okay, I found what seems to be a very promising solution.

The Excellent SwitchResX, which I already use, has the ability to disable a display, just like if you had unplugged it.

I think this makes it possible to have all 4 heads of the 2 gpus hooked up to a normal DVI matrix, and enable-disable the outputs at will so as to have one or the other of your gpus free of any monitor.