[Don Eitner]

I have a bit of a follow-on question.

Thinking of building a new Intel Skylake/Windows 10 PC. I realize Resolve won’t use the Intel graphics, but… can I use the Intel graphics to run my desktop/GUI with a GTX 760 card I already own sitting in the first PCIe slot solely for Resolve’s use?

Outside of occasional video editing (not heavy color grading) my graphics needs are light, so the Intel graphics on Skylake would be sufficient for my day-to-day work. I would only be looking for Resolve to be able to use the GTX 760 for its work.

Or is this one of those “lower denominator” scenarios where the use of the Intel graphics as my GUI are going to make the whole thing not work well?

And when people say a Decklink is “necessary”, that’s only the case if one wishes to have a separate calibrated monitor, right? Resolve’s UI will still display and allow me to do my editing on my desktop monitor connected to the Intel graphics?

Thanks,
Don

[Don Eitner]

I believe I can answer your second question. Now I did this a couple of years ago I think in Motion 5.0.x or 5.1.x, but I took screen grabs using VLC from the preview video which Motion created for my generators/effects/transitions and saved them at 640×360 (named that one large.png) and also at 192×108 (named that one small.png). Placed them in the Motion project’s folder alongside the preview video and they show up just fine.

[Don Eitner]

Sorry, I think we’re talking about different things. What I’m trying to do is, for example, to output a single Quicktime file which has both an English language track and a Spanish language track, but they should not play at the same time. The viewer should be able to select which language to listen to.

Unless I’m missing something very basic (quite possible) the channel mixer only seems to let me map audio to a stereo or 5.1 mix.

[Don Eitner]

Thank you, I didn’t think to look for that in the Media Pool — I was looking in the Deliver section after arranging and mixing.

[Don Eitner]

On the View menu go down to User Interface Layout and then click Show Window Frame. You can then resize (i.e. maximize) the window using the standard OSX “green circle” button at upper-left of the window and you should see the MEDIA, EDIT, COLOR and DELIVER buttons across the bottom.

I had the same issue here on a monitor which is only 1600×900. Unfortunately it seems you need to click the green circle/maximize button each time you launch, though you should not need to seek out and click Show Window Frame each time.

Don Eitner

[Don Eitner]

What cables you need depends on what your Mac Pro offers. The 2010 Mac Pro has 2×6 pin PCIe power leads, but they’re a non-standard size (what a surprise in an Apple device, eh?).

The card which shipped with my Mac already had one cable so I had to buy a second one on Ebay (about $6) to power the gtx760 which needs 2×6 pins power (note that some 760s instead have either 1×8 pin power or 1×6 + 1×8 pin power). There are many discussions all over the internet about the pros and cons and the risks of running a card in the Mac which has different power requirements than the Mac officially supports. I chose to go the safe route buying a card with 2×6 pin power.

I think built-in drivers for the modern cards come only with Mountain Lion 10.8 or Mavericks 10.9. Nvidia has Mac drivers on their site which may or may not work in Lion, I’m not positive. You would probably want to upgrade your OS if you go with a card that’s not Mac-specific. For me running 10.9.1 it was plug and play with my gtx760 once I purchased the mini-PCIe power cable needed for the Mac Pro.

Like I said, there’s tons of discussions on the web (check e.g. MacRumors forums) on the topic.

[Don Eitner]

Are you looking to stay within the “fully supported” realm of Mac-specific cards or are you willing to go with a PC card which works well but isn’t officially supported by Apple?

There are some good benchmarks for newer cards in Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5 (if you choose to go with those) up on https://www.barefeats.com.

I myself just got a GeForce gtx760 card (PC version, no Mac boot screen) which works well in the Mac Pro tower because it only needs 2×6 pin supplemental power which the 2010 Mac Pro provides (not sure about the 2008 model).

[Don Eitner]

In case anyone else had the same question, I got an answer from Rob-ART Morgan of Bare Feats that FCPX and Motion ignore the 2nd GPU if it is not identical to the first. And it looks like Apple have stopped selling the aftermarket Radeon 5770 so running a pair of those (which it seems does improve performance quite a bit) is unlikely.

[Don Eitner]

To your point about reusing the keyer, would you just keep it in a .motn project file and when you need it copy & paste it out as a group into whatever other project you’re working on?

Or could you save the keyer group to the Library so it’s always ready?

[Don Eitner]

Wow! Thank you for sharing this, Simon. It’s still a bit over my head (I’ve not needed to work with green screen yet) but your results look very impressive.