Make DaVinci Resolve Run FAST!

I've found down multiple ways to speed up playback in DaVinci Resolve. I break nearly 40 tips down into 6 Categories:
Preferences
Project Settings
Proxies
Cache
Fusion
Additional Tips
If you're a beginner or someone using Davinci for years, but can't seem to get a clip to play smoothly, I'm sure I have a solution for it! #davinci #howto #tutorials
🚀 Supercharge Your Da Vinci Resolve Performance! 🎬 If you've been battling lag in Da Vinci Resolve, I've got you covered with over 35 optimization tips across six key categories. In this detailed tutorial, we dive into preferences, project settings, and insider tricks to make your editing experience smoother than ever. From GPU configuration to proxy usage, render cache, and Fusion page optimizations, we leave no stone unturned.
🖥️ Preferences Optimization: Max out your memory, configure your GPU (AMD/Nvidia or M1/M2 Chip), and decode options for h.264/h.265. Plus, learn UI settings tweaks for uninterrupted playback.
🎞️ Project Settings Mastery: Set up video format, bit depth, and optimized media settings. Explore proxy usage on Windows and Mac, and make the most of your render cache for optimal performance.
🎨 Fusion Page Hacks: Discover how to fine-tune Fusion effects, toggle on/off Fusion and color effects for better playback, and leverage smart cache for smoother performance.
🔊 Audio Effects & Drive Setup: Manage audio effects to prevent performance issues and explore the benefits of having multiple drives (C drive for program, SSDs for media, cache, and proxies).
🔧 Troubleshooting Tips: Uncover potential bottlenecks, address audio effects, and utilize multiple drives to streamline your Da Vinci Resolve workflow.
👍 If you're tired of lag and want to boost your editing speed, watch until the end for actionable tips! Don't forget to like, subscribe, and drop your questions or suggestions in the comments. Let's optimize together for peak performance! 🚀🎥 #DaVinciResolve #VideoEditing #OptimizationTips

[@Poke_DNA]

I see other people commented similar things, but I rarely subscribe to tutorial channels. These are the types of videos that I am looking for. Very littlle information besides what I am looking for and you clearly know what you are talking about. Keep up the awesome work. Thank you.

[@cinnamontography94]

I really appreciate that, it means so much! Thank you!

[@mellowmel2012]

This is the most comprehensive tutorial on this subject that I have found. Well explained. Thank you!

[@cinnamontography94]

Thank you so much! Glad you found it helpful!

[@majorediting8164]

THESE ARE THE ABSOLUTE BEST SETTINGS I'VE USED WITH DAVINICI SINCE I STARTED USING IT. ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE WAY DAVINICI RESPONDS NOW!!! SUBSCRIBED!!! W/NOTIFICATIONS!!!

[@DavidtheSwarfer]

Some years ago, not knowing any of this and faced with lag and SSDs being too expensive back then, resolve 14 days, I solved it by putting 3 old 1tb HDDs into the machine and configuring them as a stripe array. This gives 3x the read/write performance of a single SATA drive and really helped thought generating good proxies would probably have helped more. I also tried generating optimised media externally using ffmpeg, transforming all sources into DNXHR , this worked well.

[@maddogrk1]

This is extremely thorough. I’ve decided to copy the transcript to Word and edit it to create a checklist/quick reference guide. There are times when I don’t work in DR for a while, so it will be good to have a reminder. Great work and thank you!

[@JesseEdgar]

Share please! :)

[@cinnamontography94]

That's an amazing idea! 🤯

[@alemattosbr]

Nice tips, thanks for sharing. Only one note: when you disable motion blur on Fusion (right click grey area, unmark motion blur) this only affects the playback, not the final rendering out of Davinci Resolve (like toggle bypass at Edit page). Kind regards

[@Dokken74]

its relay what we need ... moore of this videos 🤙

[@LegalMikel]

Thanks man I rarely leave comments on guides but this really helped me out.

[@cinnamontography94]

I'm so happy to hear that! I really appreciate it!

[@vivid-efx]

Very informative video even for us that thought we knew all we could do.

[@cinnamontography94]

Glad it's helped you!

[@borralbi]

Wow, this is gold for beginners like me! Thanks a lot for covering this important topic very thoroughly with well thought-off examples :) If I may suggest one thing: you might want to add chapters to your video to easier scroll through the different categories. Thanks a lot for this great tutorial!

[@EmmasonArt]

This blew my mind❤❤❤❤ Thanks a lot for this invaluable knowledge😊 I just subscribed❤

[@cinnamontography94]

Thank you so much 😃

[@petrkan8792]

underrated ty

[@sebastianodibusti]

Hey mate, this information is pure gold, thnx a lot 👏🏻

[@cinnamontography94]

You're welcome 🙌

[@MrEaves]

The best video on this topic. Appreciate your work!

[@cinnamontography94]

I greatly appreciate that, thank you.

[@U9QFX]

this video is the most life saver i cant even edit a single clip with a transition also even if i keep my timeline proxy to even sixteenth quarter also also i get the lag but after following your steps i realised the caching steps are a must to be used step and specially generate proxy to another disk drive creating a different folder for each projects is the best opinion ... thank you so much bro for your tips i do want you to make a video for topaz AI enhance get best faster and high quality rendering if possible 😇

[@cinnamontography94]

Thank you so much! I'm really glad that helped solve your issue! I've been hoping topaz would reach out for a video to test it since it can be a pricy software. I really hope it is beneficial for us editors lol

[@Gaavwala98]

wow, its very thorough and helpful, thanks a lot 😍

[@cinnamontography94]

I'm glad it was helpful for you! Thank you! 😁

[@vicentefernandezgarcia3612]

GREAT TUTORIAL! CONGRATULATIONS!

[@cinnamontography94]

THANK YOU! CHEERS!

[@garypranzo9334]

If starting from scratch building a PC for Davinci get the best 12th or 13th Intel paired with 30 or 40 series Nvidia cards with most Vram you can afford. Quicksync and Cuda cores combined are what Resolve and Fusion love.

[@cinnamontography94]

Great question! I personally haven't tested the newer components. I'm running a 12th Gen i9 and a 3090. I do have the 128gb DDR5 ram which does come in handy. From what I remember, the 40 series is only 5% of an improvement for most non gaming things. There is a KZbinr, @theTechNotice who reviews PC parts for creatives. He may have a better insight with the CPUs

[@FaithLogic]

Best video I saw on this topic so far, I have seen a looooooot!!! Yet I still have playback problems (like stuttering). This is my setup: I am working with H.265 main l4.1 footage, 30 fps , 1920x1080, aac audio, 8 bit. I have made proxies for them in this for DNxhr LB half res, I set my timeline resolution to quarter, the cache is on ( DNxhr LB), the video monitoring is in 720p -30 fps 8- bit basic , playback frame rate 30. I have pc with a ryzen 3700x and a gtx 1660 super 6 vram and 32 ram and it still can play 30 fps it max out at 25 fps. When I engage cache it becomes even slower it only reaches 16 fps. I don't know if maybe it is because I am using the free version and it does not have hardware acceleration.

[@Fromega001]

I really think that the free version is the probl because i have pro and my pc setting is not really bigger than you; it is but not a lot. the most time i don't use proxies because i don't need it but i don't use X265 on input so i thinks yes you need proxies. I just need" proxies" if i have 6K or 8K in input; but i don't really use proxies on the timeline i right-click on my media in and choice "make a optimized media..." and at this time i set optimized file in the firs time i start the project. After i use the cache file as needed. i just need to pre render some file when i start to use a lot of film emulation with grain, bloom etc when i de noise too, i set a optimized render file and after i have power left to use the color adjust and the other thinks like title etc in real time mode. i have a ryzen 7 5800x OC at 4700 when it works hard, 96 G ram 3200 setting as 32 in RAMDISK and 64G for the windows software programs and geforce rtx 2060 with 6G ram with light OC and RAM light OC when it works hard. 1 27" 4K monitor and a 40" 1080P 60fps TV I hope that can help you some. Perhaps your 32G ram is poor? it is really a minimum to use video edit. and 32 or 64G more is not really expensive cost and will be aprecied Try to close really a max oft sotwares and windows start app to try to determine if RAM is you probl ? I had installed a over OS ATLAS ( atlasos.net/) on WIN 11 pro that optimize at the max the pc for gamer an editing. This can help you too TAKE care to use the same frame rate as the source if possible because if not, resolve will calculate on your source file already when you just read them. this is no good idea lol

[@tulpenboom6738]

Very good overview. Thanks!

[@cinnamontography94]

Thank you!

[@tulpenboom6738]

@@cinnamontography94 Added tip/question. I think many people store their videos on a file server or NAS. These are more often than not large, rotating (so slow) disks. Is it feasible to just store your footage on the server, and have all proxies/caches on an attached SSD (or even on the local disk) of the laptop, and would DR be just as fast to work with (as soon as the proxies are generated), because it always only uses the proxies, or would the fact that the originals are stored on the server still be a slowing factor? Thanks.

[@HaydenGerstner]

Great question, I actually work at a production company with 3 other editors sharing the same server. How we have it set up is the original footage is on a separate volume/drive on the server, and because we tend to use multi user collaboration we have the proxies on another volume which houses the project folder (graphics, scripts, documents, etc). But we have the Resolve cache on our local machines. We have everything running through 10G Ethernet to some Synologys (I don't remember the drive speeds on the nas) but it does have about 1TB of SSD Cache on the server for quick access of recent files, and we use M1 ultra Mac Studios to edit. This hasn't posed any real playback issues for us. But in the event we do get bad results we have put the proxies on an external SSD. I hope that helped answer everything and made sense lol.

[@GMGM1998]

I don't know how to thank you, believe it or not these tips worked on my potato pc 🥶🥶 8gb of ram i5 4590 gtx 970 THX A LOT ♥♥♥♥

[@cinnamontography94]

Glad I could help! I'm honestly shocked given your specs! That's amazing!!!! 🙌🤯

[@dots560]

Vey informative video. Thabos for sharing.

[@cinnamontography94]

Glad you enjoyed. Thank you!

[@legends_rules]

Super ❤❤❤❤

[@cinnamontography94]

Thank you 🙌

[@KonstantinosPlatis]

Excellent 👌. Thank you 🙏

[@cinnamontography94]

You're welcome!

[@GatesRick]

Excellent. Thank you.

[@cinnamontography94]

Glad it was helpful. Thank you so much!

[@_delleps_]

Thank you!

[@goja981]

Nice.Thanks 👍

[@cinnamontography94]

You're welcome! 🙌

[@BrightsChannel]

This video should really be helpful for native speakers. Being english my second language, I find it hard to grasp it. Especially, the last part of almost all the sentences are "blurred" 😁to me. One question: after installing window 11, my laptop experience lagging. Shall I switch back to window 10? Now, I always have to generate proxy media, that takes all my time. Last: what does "cache"do? please

[@cinnamontography94]

Sorry about that. Most of my audience is English and about 90% watch without subtitles lol. I've been working on my German and Spanish to make separate channels in those languages, but I'm not fluent enough yet lol. My computer came with Windows 11 pre installed. But I have heard of other people running into that issue in general with lag by upgrading. I think the upgrade adds a lot of bloat software. So it could be a bunch of the new features running in the background taking up the resources of the computer. Proxy is great, you could try using the proxy generator app so it can run in the background to allow you to still edit while proxies are being made to save time. Cache is just saving a smaller file size of pre-rendered images. So it's like a proxy. But if you add a lot of coloring or effects to the clip, it won't update the proxy to have those effects applied. But using cache will save those clips with the effects and everything applied so you won't have as much lag. Do remember if you use cache, to clear/delete it when you finish a project as I've had some take up to 50-250GB of just cache data. And if you ever notice a glitch during playback, you can just delete the cache for that clip with the glitch and it will re cache it to fix the issue. I really hope that was easy to understand and helpful for you 🙂

[@TimelyAdventure]

Thanks, great vid!

[@ExperimentalKana]

5:00 render proxy media while working.

[@majorediting8164]

Would love to see a video on best settings on graphics cards for Davinci. I've seen a ton of video on this subject but I just don't trust them.

[@eight7sixjoe]

What's the difference between generating proxies vs generating optimized media and are there advantages using one or the other?

[@cinnamontography94]

Proxy media are lower-resolution copies of your original footage. They are often used to create a lightweight version of the timeline that plays back more smoothly on less powerful systems. When using proxy media, you can switch back to the original high-resolution footage for color grading, effects, and final output. This method is beneficial for maintaining a seamless editing experience with less strain on the computer's resources. Optimized media refers to transcoded versions of your original files, typically in a more edit-friendly codec. The goal is to create versions of the footage that are easier to handle and play back more smoothly within the editing software. Optimized media are stored in a format that the editing software can process more efficiently, such as ProRes or DNxHR, which reduces the load on your system while preserving higher quality compared to proxy media. Proxies are easier and quicker to generate, significantly reduces system load, and allows for smooth playback and editing on lower-end systems. Lower resolution can sometimes make it harder to see fine details, and you need to ensure proper relinking to high-resolution files before final output. Optimized media maintains higher quality than proxies while still improving performance, making it easier to manage and view fine details during editing. But it Takes up more storage space than proxy media, and the transcoding process can be time-consuming.

[@eight7sixjoe]

@cinnamontography94 thank you very much I realized what works best for me to render 4k vids is render in place.

[@CausticCreations]

dooooooooooooode. thanks.

[@HikingWithCooper]

Thanks for making this. I’m going to go through all tips tonight. My BM disk test says I’m good for everything but 12k h.264 yet I can’t get so much as 10 fps on a single 4k track with zero fx. Every other program I have runs full speed ahead at all times. There is something majorly wrong in their code and they are in no hurry to fix it.

[@cinnamontography94]

I hope they helped out! I agree, I had some 8K Arri raw before that was super sluggish. Honestly just making proxies was the biggest time save for it... Except for waiting for them to be made lol

[@wanzenburg]

Danke!

[@cinnamontography94]

Gern geschehen!

[@miguel_30]

if I use proxy media, will it lower my video quality when I start rendering it also, I don't use camera I screen record so will it still help at all?

[@cinnamontography94]

Nope! It automatically renders from the original files. There is an option to use the proxies for rendering, but that is something you'd have to turn on. Honestly, I only render from proxies for client work if a project is going through revisions to save time and space.

[@Sotnez]

Hello dude. very good video, congratulations. It seems you know a lot about DaVini technical issues. And I have seen few that manage themselves well in these aspects. I am a self-managed music producer. And I'm making video clips for my music. I have learned a lot from your course. I tried to render a project and I get the message "YOUR GPU MEMORY IS FULL". My computer has good RAM and HDD. I'm wondering if it's because DaVinci has loaded my audio plugins (which are many and some are quite heavy. Do you know how to prevent DaVinci from loading them; and if it has already loaded them, how to unlink them? If this is not the problem, do you know how I could solve it? Greetings from Chile

[@JakubOdelski]

Hey ;) Good video :) But monitor settings only works when you have some I/O device like decklink or ultrastudio.

[@AxelNotHuman]

When render in place window pops up its not showing "ENCODER"?

[@alienman7866]

problem: stutter every 4 or 5 seconds in mp4 format. this after setting preferences and importing a clip. no editing. i havent got past this yet. been about a month! resolve Studio 19 PC Specs Ryzen 7 5800x/4070 oc/32ram/2tb dedicated editing Pc nothing else on it memory cache, didnt help. i cant even playback a 1 minute clip. i have one gpu so no multi. not needed for a playback issue proxies dont change anything. cache changes dont affect this. still wondering how other people are doing this... unless this is all a joke.

[@cinnamontography94]

That is really strange. I've only had a similar issue like that from running too many effects (5+) on a clip. Or when I edit red R3D, but that's not mp4 obviously. The only things I can think of, some may sound dumb, but worth checking: - Making sure frame rate of the project is matching the clips. - using a different SSD, with the given cabel for the original clips. Might be a speed issue. - try optimized media or proxies in the Dnxhr format. With the optimized/proxy resolution lower. - updating computer drivers. Since you have an Nvidia card, I've notice minor improvements using the game ready driver and not the studio one, which is weird lol. - if you have multiple video clips stacked that are 4k or larger, it can slow down playback in some cases. - since 19 is in beta, try downgrading back to 18. Just remember to archive your project libraries as you can't down grade a project in DaVinci, only upgrade. It's really hard to say without physically being on your machine to pinpoint what would work. But hopefully one of those things may do the trick. I really hope it starts working good for you.

[@alienman7866]

@cinnamontography94 I've got it almost smooth as butter. There is still a blink of an eye blip going on. I'm going to upgrade cpu and go through the suggestions you gave as well. That's gotta fix it. I also noticed my CPU randomly bottle necking during playback. So that was also a little odd. My pc has windows 10 ( I don't like 11 much ) and resolve. Other than stock Microsoft stuff, some old pc port games, mp4 files and photos- there's nothing else on it.

[@Fromega001]

Hello, nice explanation but.. I use an idea because I had buy more ram 32 to 96G ram but i saw that da Vinci don't use more than before. i was very sad to see that the setting for ram in maximum on da Vinci had changing absolutely nothing in my case. Especially then resolve don't use ram for caching and so on. SO I had made a ramdisk that automatically start with windows and all the tmp/temp file are on it. I have set the env to ramdisk directory too. I need that resolve use it and I had set the folders like this proxy in the ramdisk (it is very strange becaus they go to my input media folder i thinks) ! cache in the ramdisk too but gallery I had set to a NVMe disk slower than my syst NVMe Do you think that's good ? I'll be just afraid if da Vinci wait for these files after the pc restart? I think it is needed only for the gallery one. And for this, a NVMe type 3 (2X slower than my syst NVMe) is enough? Or i really must place these on my faster NVMe but my c: SYST disk? Or in can let them on my ram disk and they Wil be erased when the pc logout? The speed of ram disk is really crazy I have set it to 32Gbyte on my 96Gram My first syst NVMe is 7400 mB/sec read 6750 write Second NVMe 3200 read 2600 write and the ramdisk is 14500 read and, 18300 write I'm on win 11 with a "over OS ATLAS" ( atlasos.net/) that clean the pc for gamer and editing. So becaus confusion with proxies, i set one by one my media in on the tiemline to "generate a optimized file" these are on my ramdisk And after qhen i need it i use cache file, cache color, cache FX.. all of the go to my ramdisk and it is not a problem that they dead when i stop my computer. Is my setting OK for you? I had a good idea? Did you try a ramdisk? You seem to have a lot off ram, so it can be real cool With this, I also don't spend my time to be afraid about a lot of cache fill to take all the space and not used to works with this, all is dead when my pc restart, 32 G of my ram is used for all my syst (temp file too) and I have enough ram left (64G) for the normal operation. I'm working in 1080 and 4K only If you have another idea or if you test ramdisk too, please tell me/us what append. Just in case, my ramdisk is an open source called "ImDisk" free, and you can set up for windows for tmp and env setting so you just set the folder to resolve, and it is OK. Thanks a lot to make so cool video da Vinci is a really wonderful software but to begin with it, it is really hard. Have a nice day.

[@Tymon02]

When scaling down the FPS and resolution of video monitoring, the audio is completely out of sync and stuttering, is there any way to fix that?

[@cinnamontography94]

Did you make sure the fps was the same as your source clip? I do know the Nov 14th update for DaVinci (18.6.3) had improvements made to audio playback. Not sure if you may be on an older version and that could be causing the issue.

[@Tymon02]

@@cinnamontography94 I updated DaVinci and messed around with the settings, I did manage to fix the audio issue for my main footage but still some clips/additional footage is mismatched. Sometimes it still lags but it very well may be my PC at this point..anyways thanks for the help though.

[@souviksamanta8938]

for exporting what settings i need to change?

[@bigbaochannel]

Where is the vertical workspace to easily edit shorts?

[@cinnamontography94]

They don't have a workspace dedicated to shorts, just the regular edit page. All you have to do is change your timeline settings to vertical which now has a check box for that. I made a video more on vertical videos here kzbin.info/www/bejne/lXfbmGiAa9Crd6c

[@DeathDeclined]

Me going to the "Manage Cache Data" and seeing over 250gb+ of Cache Data saved lmao thanks

[@cinnamontography94]

It's insane how much is hiding in there 💀 you're welcome! 😁

[@saturnn.24]

My playback is all fine no lag no stutter but it gets slowed down my half when i play it back. Like the whole timeline is smooth in frames(no frame drop) but its slow. Can you please make a fix on this. And yes I've watched like over a 100 video about render caches proxy and all that. Please tell me whats wrong with my resolve

[@flencko9290]

Put your mic closer.... please. Echo is awful...