I am wanting to run Davinci resolve to edit. I am only shooting HD or 2K at the most. Because of a very tight budget I am trying to keep the cost of a computer down and run on the minimum specs. I have worked as a cameraman/editor for most of my life but am retired now and just shooting community and sailing videos so I'm not trying to recreate Ben Hur.(old cameraman actually don't retire we just get pissed on our boat and fall overboard) The reason for Davinci is the free version. I shoot with a JVC GY-LS300 and appreciate any help.
George

Even though it's free there are two caveats: 1. You need a fairly new and powerful computer to run it. All mine won't. Despite having a high end laptop which I paid extra for a discrete video card its not good enough for DR. 2. It's not the easiest program to use for basic editing since it's designed for color grading. Depends on how tech savvy you are.

I don't think you need a souped up computer. I edit and grade 4K footage all the time on a couple of 2014 MacBook Pros when I'm traveling. No problems at all -- and I'm always working with 4K. Even my main computer in my edit bay is just a regular 2018 MacBook Pro. Editing/grading HD with any of my Macs would be like cutting butter with a hot knife.
The HDD or SSD that you put your footage on and your monitor setup is far more important for working successfully with Resolve than is the raw processing power of the computer.

What computer hardware do you currently own and what is your budget for purchasing new?

I played around with it about 5 years ago and was surprised that it ran on my 2012 base 2.5ghz dual core i5 Mac Mini with the lowly Intel HD-4000 integrated graphics chip. Didn't do anything serious, but it ran. Perhaps the current version is more demanding, I have not followed it.

I had been using the old, legacy version of Final Cut Pro and found Davinci a little hard to understand. Instead of investing the time, I decided to just upgrade to Final Cut Pro X and have been happy with it ever since. FWIW, I'm also retired on a fixed income and only shoot personal projects.

Anyway, have you tried to install Resolve on whatever computer you currently own?

Davinci resolve running surprisingly well with Apples new cpu. https://youtu.be/p2B8uksMFRU

What computer hardware do you currently own and what is your budget for purchasing new?
Not sure if you’re directing the question to me. I currently don’t have a need for DR and happily edit in FCPX. I do have a new mac mini on order and will probably play around with DR. A while back when I tried DR it wouldn’t install do to not meeting the hardware requirements on my dell xps laptop and my mac pro could have been too old os.

Thanks guys, my budget is pretty low and as for my current computer it’s just an old secondhand ex gov computer I bought. It’s not that I’m a tight arse it’s just that after 45yrs in the industry I prefer to spend what money I do have on sailing my boat. However a friend heard about my whining and has offered me a 2012 Mac Pro tower with both avid and FCP and all the bells and whistles. What do you think?
George🐸

I am using a Windows 10 box I assembled myself in late 2016 with what even then was medium range specs and it's running Resolve well enough for me.

First I'll describe what I am editing. Mostly I'm assembling a single track of video, some titles over top on a second layer, an additional audio track or two under the main clips for background music and narration. I've done more complicated projects but now I like simple cuts of minimal tracks for mini-documentaries, interviews and live music. I've done commercial broadcast output in the past with pricey AVID suites, etc.

Sometimes I alter speed, add stabilization, rotate, scale a few clips. None of that seems to be impeded by what I'm operating with. I work with up to 100MB/sec MP4 clips (4K).

My box is Windows 10, has an Intel i5 processor, 16 GB RAM, ASUS GTX750Ti 2 GB graphics card, 250 GB SSD system and program drive, and a few hard disks. I'll give the forum a minute to recover from chuckling.

Rendering speeds are surprisingly acceptable too. My god, much faster than Adobe Premiere on any PC I've ever used including this one. Resolve looks daunting, but doesn't everything until you get your feet wet? Uhh, you're a boater so maybe that's a bad analogy :)

However a friend heard about my whining and has offered me a 2012 Mac Pro tower with both avid and FCP and all the bells and whistles. What do you think?

I would just go with that for starters, unless there's some reason why you think you need Resolve. Regarding Final Cut Pro, unless its a *really* old version (legacy Final Cut Pro) I'm not sure how you could use it. The new version (Final Cut Pro X) is from the Mac App Store which is tied to your Apple ID and credit card, you'd need to login to the Mac using his name and password and would have access to all his stuff.

Apple has a fully functional 90-day free trial of Final Cut Pro X that you could register to your own AppleID however.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202389

No it was directed at the person who asked for advice. DR will take advantage of a good graphics card. There should be a lot of used gtx cards on the market since cryptominers should be moving to rtx series. Cards used in mining are typically underclocked as it’s more efficient in terms of yield per watt, so I wouldn’t let crypto use stop me from using a used gtx card. I’m running a pair of gtx1070ti cards and DR runs well wiith those. If OP is running an older Mac then I can’t offer a solution.

Pete, please report back your success with the M1. Might convince me to switch back to Apple. I’ve been working with small ARM embedded devices the past couple of years and impressed what can be done with a tiny single board comuter.


Not sure if you’re directing the question to me. I currently don’t have a need for DR and happily edit in FCPX. I do have a new mac mini on order and will probably play around with DR. A while back when I tried DR it wouldn’t install do to not meeting the hardware requirements on my dell xps laptop and my mac pro could have been too old os.

I am wanting to run Davinci resolve to edit. I am only shooting HD or 2K at the most. Because of a very tight budget I am trying to keep the cost of a computer down and run on the minimum specs. I have worked as a cameraman/editor for most of my life but am retired now and just shooting community and sailing videos so I'm not trying to recreate Ben Hur.(old cameraman actually don't retire we just get pissed on our boat and fall overboard) The reason for Davinci is the free version. I shoot with a JVC GY-LS300 and appreciate any help.
George

Resolve virtually runs on GPU and each new version seems to be ever more demanding on hardware requirements. If you are struggling to run version 16, or the latest 17 beta, and are content with the Free version, I'd suggest trying one of the earlier versions - 15 (last update 15.3.1), otherwise 14 (last update 14.3.1). All of the same core functionality for color grading is there.

You can download all past versions going back to 12.5 on the support page:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/ca/support/family/davinci-resolve-and-fusion

Just scroll down under 'Latest Downloads' on the left side.

BTW, the current nVidia drivers are two flavors---gaming and "creative" or somesuch. The new creative drivers have coding specific to Resolve, as I understand it. My GTX 1080 and Resolve 16 run like the proverbial scalded dog on output using the specified driver. Available at nvidia.com, look for the creative variant.