Tips for smoother playback in Resolve

[Etienne Vigneault]

Hi ! New RED Komodo user here.

I shot a project in 6K 17:9 R3D MQ 24FPS. My timeline in Davinci Resolve Studio 17.4 is in UHD. I followed a tutorial from RED website to setup the project color wise.

I don't know why, but I can't get smooth playback at all. Even in 1/8 resolution. I get around 2-3fps. To see my edit I need to export it very often which is terrible.

I have a AMD Threadripper 2950x (16-core), RTX 3080, 64Gb of RAM, everything is installed on M.2 SSD and my files are on Western Digital Entreprise Gold 7200rpm internal drives.

Is there something from RED I need to install or anything in Resolve I need to change ? It's driving me crazy !

Thanks a lot for your help

 

[Bill Ravens]

Are you running any SFX, noise reduction or Dehancer? These plugins will slow your playback to a crawl. The only solution is to render a proxy file or node cache.

 

[Etienne Vigneault]

No VFX, nor denoising or anything. Ungraded footage only. I really thought I wouldn't need to bother with proxies with R3D files with my computer specs. I used to edit heavy ProRes files before and everything was smooth. The thing I noticed is that Resolve tells me I'm playing the timeline 24FPS with a little green light. But everything is super laggy and clips aren't played properly or even skipped. Thanks !

 

[Ryan Chernin]

No VFX, nor denoising or anything. Ungraded footage only. I really thought I wouldn't need to bother with proxies with R3D files with my computer specs. I used to edit heavy ProRes files before and everything was smooth. The thing I noticed is that Resolve tells me I'm playing the timeline 24FPS with a little green light. But everything is super laggy and clips aren't played properly or even skipped. Thanks !

Try double checking that your clip framerates (found by right clicking the clip and selecting "clip attributes") are matching your project and timeline framerates. Also maybe try a 4K timeline, rather than the full 6K, just to test.

 

[rand thompson]

Etienne,

There are a few things you can try alone or in combination with other methods.

Proxy Media and Optimized Media

Timeline Proxy Mode

Smart Render

 

[Etienne Vigneault]

Thanks guys, I hoped I wouldn't have to use proxies but if it's the only way, so be it ! If anyone uses the Komodo with the new M1 chips on Macs, how's your experience ? With the newly announced M1 Pro and M1 Max, I kinda want to go back to Apple !

 

[rand thompson]

Etienne,

You can simply choose not to use the Proxy/Optimized Media Files or Render Cache at the time of Delivery/Export. It will use your original R3D files instead.

 

[Phil Holland]

Two things to improve.

Resolve really likes two GPUs.

If you are using spinning disks that aren't in a RAID 0 configuration or otherwise you are very likely bottlenecked both by data rate and access times.

For Komodo make sure your read/write on your drives gets to 300MB/s true. Ideally higher even. A single SATA SSD will do better than a single SATA spinning disk drive.

I'm an all Intel house, but I would need to look closer at that AMD CPU and general system build to see if anything is tied to issues, I mention this as it's been a common culprit as well in regards to thermals and such.

 

[Etienne Vigneault]

Hey thanks Phil ! I will try to put my project folder on one of my M.2 to see if access time improves performance. And about AMD, I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of the problem since even After Effects became slower when I switched from Intel to AMD. I will wait for benchmarks on the new M1 Max chip for R3D files playback and I'll consider switching entirely to Apple if necessary. Thanks !

 

[Mohammed El Sharqawy]

Komodo footage at HQ is heavier than other red cameras.

to improve playback I have some notes based on my experience:

* the SSD is really important, make sure the speed doesn't run out because of cache effect. just use samsung ssds except the QVO to be sure.
* make sure you don't have any letterboxes on your footage for some reason resolve doesn't like it.
* if you're using cache select smart. it improves the performance in playback for a reason I didn't figure out why.

I'm getting 25 fps playback with zero nodes added at half-res good, in a 2048x1536 timeline. on my 3900x+64GB+1080ti machine.
I think there is a room to improve the software for better playback as I used to get smooth playback of Helium 8K footage at full-res good in a 4K DCI timeline on the same setup.
on your setup maybe the 8GB ram of the 3080 is the bottleneck. This one is not sure though!

 

[Han Vogen]

If anyone uses the Komodo with the new M1 chips on Macs, how's your experience ? With the newly announced M1 Pro and M1 Max, I kinda want to go back to Apple !

Hey Etienne, I recently got the new M1 Max MacBook Pro with 64GB and 8TB SSD. With it, I can edit in real-time… with full color grade. Dehancer Pro use to bring my late 2018 MBP to a standstill. The new one can play in real-time with this plugin. One caveat… uncheck film grain and halation. There is a built in halation effect in Resolve that also has a grain option and looks just as good while being extremely efficient so you can continue to enjoy “real-time“ performance.

The new MBP is the single best purchase I made this year. It’s absolutely awesome!

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hey there, Han. . .

What are you using for media storage? Just loading onto your 8TB internal? (I have an identical M1 Max with just 4TB on the way. . . couldn't afford the extra 4TB!) Can't wait for it to arrive!

Thanks!

Stephen

 

[Massimiliano_Serra]

When I setup decompression and debayer on GPU for R3D files on a M1 Max 32core 64ram I get choppy playback on graded clips. If I chose only debayer it goes smooth. Files on internal ssd, 2K timeline.

 

[Etienne Vigneault]

This is interesting! I don't have a need for a laptop, but Apple will surely announce a new Mac Pro using the M1 Max or even a dual M1 Max or something like that. This should help a lot for a smoother playback ! Thanks !

 

[Han Vogen]

Hey there, Han. . .

What are you using for media storage? Just loading onto your 8TB internal? (I have an identical M1 Max with just 4TB on the way. . . couldn't afford the extra 4TB!) Can't wait for it to arrive!

Thanks!

Stephen

I just load everything onto the 8TB internal drive. I started to dislike carrying an external drive with me.
Btw: congratulations on the new laptop. It’s going to be an eye opener for you.