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balkyny

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 25, 2022
41
0
New York
Hello, everyone!

I was just wondering if this system could be upgraded?!

3.5Ghz - 6 Core - Xeon E5
Graphics: AMD FirePro D500 (X2)
Hard Drive Capacity: 512gb SSD
Ram (Memory): 32GB

Will be very much grateful.

Thank you.
 

Bigwaff

Contributor
Sep 20, 2013
1,951
1,280
I was just wondering if this system could be upgraded?!

3.5Ghz - 6 Core - Xeon E5
Graphics: AMD FirePro D500 (X2)
Hard Drive Capacity: 512gb SSD
Ram (Memory): 32GB
Processor: Yes
Graphics: Yes
Hard Drive Capacity: Yes
Ram (Memory): Yes

 

balkyny

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 25, 2022
41
0
New York
Processor: Yes
Graphics: Yes
Hard Drive Capacity: Yes
Ram (Memory): Yes

Thank you for your reply!

I installed this software, and according to its minimum requirements, it should be OK.

8 GB of system memory (16 GB for intense graphics work)
M1 Apple Silicon CPU (or intel core i7 on older macs)
Integrated GPU or discrete GPU with at least 2GB of VRAM and supports Metal or OpenCL 1.2.
A fast Solid State Hard Drive (SSD)

Yet, something is not right. I posted on the other forum and the reply was: "your machine is a bit underwhelming, and it might run poorly."

So what could be off? The processor? What do you think?
 

nathan_reilly

macrumors 6502
Apr 2, 2016
333
991
Maybe i'm missing something but what is the software? Is it not working well for you?

*edit* I have a 2013 mac pro similar to yours except with D700s.
 

balkyny

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 25, 2022
41
0
New York
Spinning wheel comes often when simple things are completed. Magic mask practically paralyzes the entire system when is running. Playback is delayed and or choppy at times.


I am thinking the Processor
They say i7 at least, is Xeon E5 not as good?
 

nathan_reilly

macrumors 6502
Apr 2, 2016
333
991
Xeon and i7 are much the same chips, just that xeon is built for continuous duty. It is better than i7.


I wonder if someone else here with more experience with Davinci could chime in.

I used it years ago, in a college class, running on windows 7 on a lab computer that was not very powerful. Take a look at using proxy media to lighten the load. This is a way to work with footage at a reduced-resolution, saving the heavy lifting at full res for export.

If you are curious about the load that the processor is seeing you can open Activity Monitor and take a look at the CPU tab. Command + Space, type in "activity" and open from there, or in Finder, Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.
 

balkyny

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 25, 2022
41
0
New York
Xeon and i7 are much the same chips, just that xeon is built for continuous duty. It is better than i7.


I wonder if someone else here with more experience with Davinci could chime in.

I used it years ago, in a college class, running on windows 7 on a lab computer that was not very powerful. Take a look at using proxy media to lighten the load. This is a way to work with footage at a reduced-resolution, saving the heavy lifting at full res for export.

If you are curious about the load that the processor is seeing you can open Activity Monitor and take a look at the CPU tab. Command + Space, type in "activity" and open from there, or in Finder, Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.
Nathan, thank you!

Well, it is good you said that the processor is not that bad... so with my common sense, I figured thatmy computer is above minimum requirements and should be working OK at least, but the guy from their forum said it was a bit underwhelming. Strange. I did try to run activity monitor a few days ago, but I don't understand what I am looking at. The processor (CPU) is over a 100 whenever playback is ON... with my understanding, it is too much ? Actually, I just opened it and as I am working on something in Nuendo, CPU load shown is dormant 82-125 playback. Perhaps in mac world it is considered normal.

I just tried to look into Activity M - as I discovered during this magic mask running, GPU is overloaded, and the whole system is messed up because of that. Will try to see if in program preferences something maybe adjusted incorrectly.
 

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arw

macrumors 65816
Aug 31, 2010
1,100
859
I have no knowledge about Davinci Resolve but some thoughts:
100% utilization does not necessarily mean overloaded. It makes 100% use of the available hardware - which is a good thing because the task will finish faster.
The 2013 Mac Pro has two GPUs of the same model (as seen in Activity Monitor as Slot 1 and Slot 2).
The general idea is: GPU 1 for rendering/computing tasks (as seen in your screenshot), the second one for driving the displays.
But some applications can make use of both GPUs for rendering/computing which can lead to a stuttering/freezing UI.
You can click on (Slot) GPU 2 to check if it is utilized in the same capacity for the rendering task.
Perhaps there is a setting in Davinci Resolve to disable GPU 2 for processing if you want to keep the system completely responsive - at the expense of longer rendering times.

EDIT: Regarding the CPU utilization: If you did look at one single process, 100% does not mean 100% utilization of the CPU, but 100% of one thread. Your 6-core has 12 threads and therefore one process can use up to 1200% until the CPU is at 100%.
82-125% relates to 7-11% total CPU load.
 
Last edited:

nathan_reilly

macrumors 6502
Apr 2, 2016
333
991
I think you should try using lower res proxy media for editing, like I said earlier. Here's some more info:
 

nathan_reilly

macrumors 6502
Apr 2, 2016
333
991
I have know knowledge about Davinci Resolve but some thoughts:
100% utilization does not necessarily mean overloaded. It makes 100% use of the available hardware - which is a good thing because the task will finish faster.
The 2013 Mac Pro has two GPUs of the same model (as seen in Activity Monitor as Slot 1 and Slot 2).
The general idea is: GPU 1 for rendering/computing tasks (as seen in your screenshot), the second one for driving the displays.
But some applications can make use of both GPUs for rendering/computing which can lead to a stuttering/freezing UI.
You can click on (Slot) GPU 2 to check if it is utilized in the same capacity for the rendering task.
Perhaps there is a setting in Davinci Resolve to disable GPU 2 for processing if you want to keep the system completely responsive - at the expense of longer rendering times.

EDIT: Regarding the CPU utilization: If you did look at one single process, 100% does not mean 100% utilization of the CPU, but 100% of one thread. Your 6-core has 12 threads and therefore one process can use up to 1200% until the CPU is at 100%.
82-125% relates to 7-11% total CPU load.
Thank you for typing out what I was too lazy to say. I really did not want to dip into that whole 100% utilization thing but you handled it well.
 

balkyny

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 25, 2022
41
0
New York
I have no knowledge about Davinci Resolve but some thoughts:
100% utilization does not necessarily mean overloaded. It makes 100% use of the available hardware - which is a good thing because the task will finish faster.
The 2013 Mac Pro has two GPUs of the same model (as seen in Activity Monitor as Slot 1 and Slot 2).
The general idea is: GPU 1 for rendering/computing tasks (as seen in your screenshot), the second one for driving the displays.
But some applications can make use of both GPUs for rendering/computing which can lead to a stuttering/freezing UI.
You can click on (Slot) GPU 2 to check if it is utilized in the same capacity for the rendering task.
Perhaps there is a setting in Davinci Resolve to disable GPU 2 for processing if you want to keep the system completely responsive - at the expense of longer rendering times.

EDIT: Regarding the CPU utilization: If you did look at one single process, 100% does not mean 100% utilization of the CPU, but 100% of one thread. Your 6-core has 12 threads and therefore one process can use up to 1200% until the CPU is at 100%.
82-125% relates to 7-11% total CPU load.
Thanks

I understand with the cpu... it is not CPU. It is something with the GPU ... when the magic mask is being scanned, it is about 40% loaded. but when it is reading it -is 100% overloaded... I tried to play with GPU settings but it really changes nothing...
 

nathan_reilly

macrumors 6502
Apr 2, 2016
333
991
Have you tried googling stuff like "reduce gpu usage in davinci resolve" ? I found a lot of stuff in like 2 minutes that way but I'm not going to post it here... Ok one link:


What were your results using proxy media?

What about arw's suggestion that you consider GPU usage to total 200%, and not 100%, because you have 2 GPUs and not 1? This logic paradigm applies to multi core CPUs and multiple GPUs, it is simply a frame of mind.
 

balkyny

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 25, 2022
41
0
New York
Have you tried googling stuff like "reduce gpu usage in davinci resolve" ? I found a lot of stuff in like 2 minutes that way but I'm not going to post it here... Ok one link:


What were your results using proxy media?

What about arw's suggestion that you consider GPU usage to total 200%, and not 100%, because you have 2 GPUs and not 1? This logic paradigm applies to multi core CPUs and multiple GPUs, it is simply a frame of mind.
thanks, Nathan. I've seen this guy before.
and the footage I am playing with is not that great of a quality. It is 1080 recorded from TV channel by media player. So, there si not much to proxy... It is not something like 4 K and stuff.
 
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