DaVinci Resolve 18.6 on Linux: A Minefield of Gotchas

[@ChrisMcDonough]

Post-video-production: I found a workaround for most of the window management related stuff in the rant at 09:14 by using a KDE "window rule": github.com/mcdonc/.nixconfig/blob/master/users/resolve.kwinrule Wrt 03:55 I also found out that OBS can encode to something directly importable by resolve (mkv/h.264/pcm) if you use its advanced output -> recording settings... see bouncer.repoze.org/misc/obs-settings-for-resolve.png And even later, I was able to record my mic by switching from Pipewire back to Pulseaudio... likely something to do with gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/issues/2870

[@smunaut]

Some of the issues you mention about resource usage are not linux specific, Resolve is just very resource hungry and the resolve forum are full of people with VRAM shortage on windows too. Definitely unfortunate, but not a shortcoming of the linux version. Also, it took quite a bit of effort but now I can run resolve on my intel laptop using the iGPU. I added the required function to the Intel OpenCL driver and those changes have now been merged upstream so hopefully once that trickles down to the distribution packages, it'll "just work".

[@ChrisMcDonough]

I was able to run Resolve on intel after adding the opencl drivers but I couldn't actually get it to play anything on the timeline. Do you have that working? Or do you mean you actually modified the driver itself?

[@smunaut]

@@ChrisMcDonough Yes, playing works and I indeed had to modify the driver itself. I'm not sure I'd use it as a main editing machine but to just review/cut footage, it's workable. I even do that over wifi while on the couch with data off a network server ... (replying again because I tried putting a link to github pull-request but links in comments gets them flagged ...)

[@ChrisMcDonough]

that's great! i didn't get the link to the PR here, maybe you could try to send again? or just tell me what to search for and in what repo?

[@ChrisMcDonough]

Found it... github.com/intel/compute-runtime/pull/673

[@channjose]

I'm using LMDE and installing Da Vinci was extremely easy, just download the installer and run it, I have an old Nvidia 1650M 4GB on my laptop and it works pretty well, never has a message of running out of memory, also my laptop monitor is 1080p and I never had any issues with the UI messing up, the only issue that is kinda a pain is to transcode footage to pcm, although it is almost instant, it annoying to do almost everytime, so these arguments are not well founded.

[@ChrisMcDonough]

Let me guess. You're using the free version and thus not using any AI features. And because your laptop is 1080p only, you never switch resolutions. And because you don't use AI features, and because you're in 1080p already, you don't need to switch out of 4k to free up memory for the AI features to complete. And you don't make a lot of videos. About right?

[@channjose]

I have the studio version, No, I dont change resolutions obviously, I am a video editor, professionally, so yeah, I edit videos on a daily basis @@ChrisMcDonough

[@wikwayer]

Yeah im not doing this back to windows😂

[@BartekBroniszewski]

Well, thanks. I don't do video editing but if i did, i would never touch this piece of shit software even with a stick... praying for the poor linux souls that have to buy it and use it.

[@ChrisMcDonough]

Heh it's useful, you just have to know what you're getting in to