ram

[Jonathon Lee]

I have:

– Mac 12-core w/48GB (6x 8GB DIMMs)
– Win7 4-core w/12GB (6x 2GB DIMMs)
– Mac 8-core w/24GB (6x 4GB DIMMs)

Have not had RAM issues yet, but working mostly on short form. On the shows I’m working on never could tell the difference on any of the systems… which struck me as a bit odd! But, it’s all short form so far!

– Jonathon

[Colin Travers]

I have a MacPro 12-core w/32GB (4x 8GB DIMMs)but not sure how much my system may be negatively effected by this. I would add 2 more DIMMs if i knew for sure that it would make specific substantial differences..

[C. Ryan stemple]

Have not had RAM issues yet, but working mostly on short form. On the shows I’m working on never could tell the difference on any of the systems… which struck me as a bit odd! But, it’s all short form so far!

I’ve actually found that, even if I’m working on a feature length project, it’s significantly beneficial to the performance of the GUI to break it up into “reels” of about 10 or so minutes. The less that Resolve has to account for, the less it has to think about where and what the footage is.

—
Carl Ryan Stemple
Color | Edit | VFX
digitalbarbershop.com

[Andrew Sableton]

I have half hour and one hour TV shows that are typically broken into 4 – 6 separate timelines. I keep each episode in one project with multiple timelines. I have thought about making each timeline a separate project, but this would be very annoying for saved still pages – only available through the gallery page.

I give every series a separate database, so each database might contain 7 – 13 half hour or one hour shows. I could also make a separate database for every episode but this seems excessive.

S

[C. Ryan stemple]

All right on the money, Andrew! I’ve got an incredibly similar workflow that works really well for me.

If you don’t mind me asking, what graphics card are you running that powers the GUI? That MAY be what’s causing the lags – although honestly, I’m not entirely convinced that’s the problem. I’m running my GUI on a AMD 6770M HD with no issues – and that is supported by 16GB of ram.

—
Carl Ryan Stemple
Color | Edit | VFX
digitalbarbershop.com

[Andrew Sableton]

Hi Jonathan,

As a separate issue I would love to know if you have graded projects on the Win system that you have exported and moved to a MAC system. I know that DaVinci say this works fine, but would love to hear some real world experiences before I invest.

Typically I would be taking either a FCP7 xml, prores 1080i project and grading it on a Win system, then exporting the Resolve project from my Win system to render in ProRes on a MAC.

Also I would be taking an Avid AAF DNxHD 1080i project (Mac Avid), importing on a Win system, then exporting that back to a MAC Resolve for rendering.

Would be great to know if anyone out there had actually performed these workflows.

A

[Mike Most]

We go between Linux and Mac systems every day with no discrepancies or problems.

[Jonathon Lee]

I’ve not done that yet. Currently we are working in ProRes and Red mostly. But… I know this will come up. I’ll try to test this out soon once I get through my current show.

[Chris Jones]

This is from the Resolve Config Manual on the Blackmagic website:

RAM: 6, 12 or 24 GB for memory
optimization (not 8, 16 or 32 GB).

I always thought it was odd – but they took the time to put it in the manual so they must feel there is something too it.

I have 8GBs also, but now that you can get 32GB for the 2009 4,1 for $250 I was going to upgrade. But from this it seems that it would be better if I get 24GB ($179)

[Jonathon Lee]

Yeah, I always wondered about that too. There are ways for a non-64bit app to use more then 3gb, but it is not as simple as just having the app directly address the RAM. I’m not a programer so I’m not exactly sure how it works. WIth Adobe AE there is a multi-processor mode where each processor can use up to 3GB each. With the latest version of Pro Tools HD there is a way to use the RAM as a disk cache that amazingly improves disk performance… you can assign a huge amount of RAM for that.

With regard to the Resolve specs for RAM on 2009 & 2010 macs… the Nehalem and Westmere processors use in these systems there are 3 “RAM channels” per processor. So, installing in matched sets of 3 allows for the best possible performance. Even though there are 4 DIMM slots per processor using only the first 3 slots per proc yields the fastest processing as I understand it. The most cost effective way to go on one of these machines is 6x 4GB DIMMS. It is surprisingly affordable. 6x 8GB DIMMs is not that much more expensive either. But, you need to be on one of the 64-bit OS’s flavors to use it all. I’ve been running with 48gb on a 2010 12-core under Lion for a while. Runs great, but honestly it seems to run as well as my 8-core 2010 with 24gb. It’s just fun to look at the about this Mac and see that big number! But with Lion you can use that new Nvidia driver and drop in a GTX 570 2.5GB card and run Resolve useably with a single GPU.