Mac Pro 2,1 Working incredible well with Resolve 8.0 GTX285,GT120 combo

[Jake Blackstone]

Although it is quite possible, that Resolve runs fine on Mac 2.1 in 8 bit mode, it is highly unlikely, that you can run 1/2 Good res on it in real time. As a matter of fact, I guarantee, that it is not even close to the truth. Only latest dual 6 core Westmere computers are capable of such feat. GPU performance has ZERO effect on debayer speed. Debayer is strictly CPU. So, the whole post smells a lot like an ad for macvidcards.

[Matt Ryan]

Jake,
This is definitely not an ad. I know you from Refuser and I have no affiliation with macvodcards. I was just a customer when looking for video cards to run Resolve. I’m a 24 year old recent film school graduate with absolutely no hidden agenda. How can you make these claims with no proof whatsoever? I have included this evidence and system info to prove my statement.

This is most definitely not an ad and I advise you to not make such claims without a shred of evidence to support this ridiculous elitist statement.

What else do you need for me to prove my statement, the setup is sitting in front of me. I have no reservations in proving my claim.

[David Pirinelli]

Whoa there guys.

Jake, why is it when Sascha wrote glowing words about my GTX470 you didn’t call him out as a mole?

I have gone out of my way to create better Nvidia cards than you can get anywhere else.

I don’t even come on here and brag about it, there has been enough chatter to create more demand than I can easily deal with.

I am both the CEO and ALL of the employees of MacVidCards.

This guy doesn’t work for me, but is in fact a customer.

I thinnk that many people are interested to know whether 1,1 and 2,1 Mac pros can be made to run Resolve. I created a way to do it.

It has amazed me that everyone says RAM transfer to CPU speeds too slow, etc, yet people discuss running Resolve on MacBooks and iMacs all of the time. I have a MacBook Pro from 2009 and I guarantee that I see more beachballs on it then I do on my Quad 3.0 1,1. If people want to run it on a 1,1 or 2,1 why not? It is still a better choice then a MacBook with a 9600GT or 330GT (8800GT from years gone by). So these slower but newer Macs are on the “list”, why not something with more REAL HP behind it?

Aside from which, my cards sell themselves. Above this post on masthead I see at least 3 of my customers. BMD has bought 3 or 4 cards I know of and I have spoken in person with at least 1 employee.

I make cards that make it easier for people to use this software. I just introed a Quadro 5000 and I am looking for someone in Hollywood to try a Quadro 6000 for Mac. I don’t know Resolve well enough to post about it’s abilities with my cards so I always hope for people to do so themselves. I am an Art Director who has worked in the biz in Hollywood for 16 years. I went to edit my reel one day and discovered that I didn’t have a good enough GPU for FCP. That led me here.

The guy isn’t a mole. I don’t know him outside of his role as a guy that handed me $$$ so he could get a card.

Less paranoia would be good.

[Guillem Ventura]

Hi David,

Sorry to say Mattt’s post could sound a bit like a hidden ad 🙂
We’ve all seen a lot of this around this forum.
Anyway I’m sure plenty of us would LOVE to be able to use Resolve on an old MacPro:

If new MacPros come to the market I’ll throw my second machine (MacPro 1,1) to the garbage and spend a lot on a new one, while if it could really handle Resolve properly keep it and safe some bucks.

But then I see you say FCP needed GPU… Is your business as new as FCP X or I’ve been missing something?

You had a great idea, Apple left us so behind when it comes to GPU… Let’s change this thread to a “benchmark reference”. Anyone with different setups could throw figures we can contrast?
Sascha, can you throw the numbers your machine gives with the same setup?

I’m willing to take the dongle out of the Company to my home and I can also post my results on the latest full-charged iMac and a MacPro 1,1: if you post a link to the Benchmark software…

http://www.malgeniofilms.com

[Sascha Haber]

Guys, WTF !!

I bought a 470 because Steve and the nVidia guys had a bad cup of tea or something and didnt deliver.

The GTX470 I am using delivers 1088 gflops which is like 180% of the 285.

Also at work our IT built a hackintosh with a Dual (no mods) 570 and a 220 for UI.
That is a real beast…on paper.
The benchmark I developed shows almost double performance compared to my Mac.
Interesting enough it doesn’t show on the same amount of nodes.
I still can slow it down with just a regular tree and Alexa footage.
And the stability is .. well.. not stable.
As of now I would totally recommend a proper Mac , Lion and a modded card.

And give the guy a break, he delivered what nVidia refused to make themselves.

A slice of color…

DaVinci 8.0.1 OSX 10.7
MacPro 5.1 2×2,4 24GB
RAID0 8TB eSata 6TB
GTX 470 / GT 120
Extreme 3D+ WAVE

http://www.saschahaber.com

[Guillem Ventura]

Lion?
It’s been bugging me around, we went back to 10.6.8 (better for Nuke and FCP)

Anyway, Sascha… would you recommend a GTX setup if having to work with clients?
I’d hate having to say “the machine doesn’t work”, it sounds so lame.

Anyway I’m using 2xQuadro4000 on a MacPro 5,1 and I’m not happy at all!!

http://www.malgeniofilms.com

[Jake Blackstone]

David.
I’m using your GTX 285 with great success for over a year and a half and I have great respect for what you do.
Unfortunately, I do have a problem with the claim of 1/2 Good 4k debayer for real time playback on a 2.1 Mac. The debayer speed has nothing to do with your card whatsoever, as I pointed out, that it is done strictly in CPU. That’s it.
Keep up the good work…

[Robbie Carman]

I’m working with multiple GTX470s in my cubix desktop 4 for supervised work (supervised pretty much everyday) it just rocks. We have another system with multiple 285s

ProRes I’m rendering at least double real time, S3D I’m getting a ton of nodes all in realtime. We have 2009 2.93 8-Cores and couldn’t be happier. We’ll upgrade the boxes when/if Apple updates them.

RE Lion I haven’t had any issues

Robbie Carman
—————-
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books:
Video Made on a Mac
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP
From Still To Motion
An Editors Guide To Adobe Premiere Pro

Twitter
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[David Pirinelli]

Thanks for any and all kind words.

As I stated before, I am NOT a colorist. I know absolutely ZERO about what you guys do. I have spent my last 16 years making pretty sets. Sometime in there I started fiddling around with Video Cards when my old Blue & White wouldn’t run FCP. It has grown into an obsession and already takes up WAY too much of my time. (Coincidentally, time I should be spending updating my reel)

Speaking of which, if any of you have Director friends in LA who have recently mentioned needing an Art DIrector, I wouldn’t mind getting paint on my hands again instead of thermal compound.

https://web.mac.com/dpart2/

I have considered learning Resolve to a point that I could test my various cards with it. But then I should also like to learn Premiere so that I could test the configs I have come up with to enable Mercury on 1,1 and 2,1 as well. I have had several people ask me to load SMOKE and see how my cards work with it. And I know that my head can not hold all of that, nor do I have time to learn all of that software.

I make the cards work and I depend on your guys to benchmark & report on what works and what doesn’t. ENd users know far better than I could. I encouraged Barefeats to test Resolve and sent him some of these “unsupported” cards to test with. For whatever reason, nobody is able to “officially” endorse these cards.

So again, it falls to end users on boards like this.

If there is someone in LA / Hollywood area who would like to scientifically compare these cards in a 1,1 or any Mac, I would be MORE than happy to loan them out for such a test. The basis of the 1,1/2,1 Resolve setup is an EFI32 GT120 I have been able to make work. My efforts to add EFI32 to more complex cards like GTX285 and GXT470 have not worked out. So, the GPU card is “injected” while the GUI GT120 offers full 100% boot screen and EFI support.

And as far as that goes, once you have the GT120 and injector in, ANY of the various GPUs will run in a 1,1 or 2,1. So it could also be used with GTX470 or even GTX480 with power brought it. On it’s PCIE 1.0 bus, will these faster cards make a difference? I don’t know but again, would love to .

So if someone has a licensed copy of Resolve and would like to get to the bottom of this, hard drives from later Mac Pros will fit right into older ones, they just stick out and you have to leave cover off. But that would be the most scientific way, test on a “supported” 4,1 and run benchmark then move the drives to a 1,1 or 2,1 and run same tests. I can offer my 1,1 up as a test mule. It has Dual Dual 3.0s and 17 Gigs of RAM.

But ultimately, I think my point always has been that I find it funny that the Resove guide lists various iMac and Macbook setups but then the commonly held opinion is that 1,1 and 2,1 are completely NOT able to run it. But if we consider a Macbook with GT330 as “capable” why is a 2,1 with Dual Quad 3.0s and a GTX285 “unacceptable”? Will the 2,1 be slower than a 5,1 ? Of course, but saying it “Can’t be used” with Resolve seems to be rather arbitrarily telling a large bunch of people that they can’t use Resolve until they drop 3-5K on a new machine. Why not encourage them to start off on their existing Mac Pro and when they feel the need for more speed (and get some paid work) then they can buy whatever machine they want and move Resolve onto it?

[Jake Blackstone]

David.
I think you’re misunderstanding BM’s system requirements. The whole point of Resolve is that it is a REAL TIME grading system. By saying, that 2.1 is not recommended system, they mean, that as a REAL TIME system 2.1 is not recommended, but it doesn’t mean it, that Resolve will not run. It is obviously does, just not very well. The CPU is not up to par to a modern 4.1 and 5.1 systems, but more importantly, the PCI bus is not fast enough to support 10 bit real time with at least 1/4 res debayer. That is why Resolve introduced an 8 bit mode, so older systems can be used.
On the other note, if interested, I’d be happy to use my 4.1 Mac Pro for GPU testing. I’m in Hollywood.
Let me know jake4n(at)me dot com