User Manual

Understanding the GPU Status Display
Every viewer in DaVInci Resolve exposes a GPU status indicator and a frame-per-second (FPS)
meter, which appears in the Viewer’s title bar, which shows you your workstation’s performance
whenever playback is initiated. Since DaVinci Resolve uses one or more GPUs (graphics
processing units) to handle all image processing and effects, the GPU status display shows you
how much processing power is being used by whichever clip is playing.
Frame rate and GPU
indication, green is good
A green status indicator shows there is plenty of GPU processing headroom available. As the
GPU resources is increasingly taxed, this green graph eventually turns red to show that the
available GPU power is insufficient for consistent real time playback.
Red indicates that playback
is at slower than real time
Eventually, as you add more and more effects and corrections, you’ll reach the limits of
available performance, forcing DaVinci Resolve to either drop frames, or play video at a slower
speed in order to maintain high image quality, shown by the red FPS indicator.
When real time performance falls short, DaVinci Resolve provides a variety of controls and
options that let you enhance real time playback and effects. Each is useful for different
situations, and all can work together so you can choose the best trade-off between image
quality and performance while you work. All of these methods can be set up to have no effect
on your delivered output.
Prioritizing Audio or Video
Playback in the Edit Page
When available processing power is insufficient to play the clip or clips at the position of the
playhead due to the grade, transforms, or effects that are applied at that moment in the
Timeline, you have the ability to choose exactly how performance in DaVinci Resolve degrades,
by turning the “Show All Video Frames” on or off in the Option menu of the Edit page Viewers.
 Show All Video Frames off: The default setting, ideal for video editing. Prioritizes audio
playback at the expense of dropping video frames when processing power is tight,
resulting in a more conventional playback experience.
 Show All Video Frames on: An alternate setting that’s ideal when you’re doing effects
work, for which you need to see every single frame play back, sequentially. Audio
quality is compromised while every frame of video plays in slower-than-real-time, if
necessary, to maintain playback.
Keep in mind that this setting only affects playback when GPU performance is lacking. In areas
of the Timeline where performance is adequate, playback remains uncompromised.
Chapter – 6 Improving Performance, Proxies, andthe RenderCache 200