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

[Matt Ryan]

Hey!
First make sure Resolve is set for a 1080p timeline and then set to 1/2 good resolution. Resolve can also only go as fast as the drives will allow…
The gtx285 must be running 16x, the 120 at 8x…I put 285 in bottom double wide slot and then the 120 in the next slot. I was just using the internal drives for playback as well as external drives through esata and always got real time playback in a 1080p timeline.

Hope this helps.

[Suny Behar]

Hey Matt,

I’m running a 1080p timeline at 1/2 Good… still no realtime.

Something doesn’t quite make sense to me. If you have a Mac Pro 2,1 and are running your GTX285 as a 16X, and your GT120 as an 8x, that means that your 2 remaining slots are automatically 1x.

But my BlackMagic Card requires me to run it in a 4X slot, so I have to set my GT120 at 4x in order to accommodate that.

What other PCIe cards do you have in your system and in what slots?

You mentioned eSata, I’m assuming you’re running an ESata card like a Tempo or something…

Anyway, can’t figure out how you can run your GT120 at 8x and still be able to play out video through a BlackMagic Card..

Cheers!

[Matt Ryan]

I was just using those two cards and the esata card which could run in a 1x slot. No output card.

I’m not sure why your running slower than realtime as I always got real time playback. Where did you get your GTX and have you tested to make sure it’s running correctly? As long as your not doing noise reduction you should get real time if your drives are fast enough. I’m not a techie so I’m not much help. All I know is my setup worked.

[Suny Behar]

Hey Matt,

Thanks for the quick reply. I got my cards from Dave after reading your recommendation. He was really nice to deal with.

It seems the only difference in our setup is where you are placing the GT120 (8x) instead of my (4x).

What process are you using to check if the cards are running properly?

Would love to check that…

I really need video output so I can’t really put my Gt120 in 8x mode…

[Matt Ryan]

Hello,
From what I understand in order for Resolve to function properly in real time the 285 must be running 16x and the 120 in at least 8x. You must also make sure that you are only using the 120 for playback/gui. The 285 must be left alone an not used for output or monitoring.

As for the app I cant quite remember but if you email Dave he will email it to you.

I have since bought a 4,1 8 core Mac Pro and am running Daves GTX470 and a gt120 and am getting far better results. I was able to get real time on my 2,1 mac pro with those cards but I was running them in 16x and 8x. I have some screen grabs of 4k footage running in resolve real time from my old system if you’d like to see. I wish I could help more but im not much of a techie.

Also, just to confirm your using Resolve 8 correct?

My 2,1 specs were:
2x quad 3.0ghz processors
16gigs ram
osx lion
gtx285
gt120- monitoring
Resolve 8

[Suny Behar]

Hey Matt,

This has been very useful.

Seems like I have the same specs as you.

The main difference seems to be in the placing of the Cards within the slots.

On my Mac 2,1, if I were to place the GTX285 in Slot 1, and the GT120 in Slot 2, the only option for the GTX set at 16x in slot 1, would be to run the GT120 at 1x. (looking at the Expansion Slot Utility).

Do you think you could have been running your GT120 at x1 speed?

If not, if I set SLot 1 to 16x, the only other 8x slot is in Slot 4. But that would not fit with your scenario of being in SLot 2.

My other thought is that I can set Slot 1 to 8x for the GTX285 and Slot 2 to 8x for the GT120…. but I don’t know that that would be right….

Found the test software, it’s called CUDA-Z

[Matt Ryan]

Cuda-z. That is it. It’s possible I was running it at 4x. I’d have to find my screen grabs from my old system to check (im still looking).

Also, what is your source settings for the Red Project?

[Suny Behar]

Hey Matt,

For my RED tests, I am using 4K R3Ds recorded in 2:1.

I have now run a series of tests and this is what I get with:
285 Plugged into Slot 1 (16x)
GT120 Plugged into Slot 3 (4x)
RAID into Slot 2 (1x)
Black Magic into Slot 4 (4x)

ProRes444 clips playback in resolve at 17-18 fps (at 1920×1080 8bit)
RED R3D clips playback in resolve at 17-18 fps (1/4 Res. Good, 8 bit)
RED R3D Clips playback in resolve at 10 fps (1/2 Res. Good, 8bit)
RED R3D Clips playback in resolve at 5 fps (1/2 Res. Good, 10 bit)

I tried plugging the monitors into the GT120, got an error message saying it would not be optimal, but it ran anyway.

What was interesting was that the ProRes444 dropped to 10 fps. But the R3D only dropped to 16fps (1/4 Res. Good). Which seems to lend credence to the fact that the R3D speed is not as dependent on the card as one would think…

Either way, I am not able to achieve 24fps in either ProRes or R3D…

[Matt Ryan]

Hmm.

That’s interesting since the only time I didn’t get real time playback was with noise reduction or over 4-5 nodes…

How did the cards perform in cuda-z? My original post has my results of each card. They should match if they are working correctly.

[Suny Behar]

My CUDA-Z performance specs match yours exactly. Except that my GT120 says 1400 MHz and yours says 1500 MHz. Shouldn’t really matter as it’s GUI only..

This is really strange…

Did you check what lane speed your GT120 was set to?
Shouldn’t matter but it’s the only thing I can think of…