Apple Neural engine

Very excited about DR 18... Backing up my database so I can install Studio now.

A question.... one of the feature lines says "Apple Neural Engine support for DaVinci Neural Engine on M1 and M1 Pro."

Does that mean neural engine is NOT supported on M1Max and M1Ultra (apple's fastest chips)? If not, is it planned?

I always use a second boot drive (on an SSD, of course) for beta software, so I don't risk my database or anything else. It's so easy on a Mac.
Regarding neural engine on the Max, I'd expect it to work. But let's see when the first tests come in.

I'd also expect it to work with max and ultra because it's probably just an API call and the mac will handle whatever differences there (if any) are between the chips

This is from the official Davinci 18 product page "Apple Neural Engine support allows up to 30x faster playback on Apple Mac M1 models". They aren't specifying which flavour of chip (Pro, Max, Ultra) so I'm guessing the improvement is across the board which I'm very excited to test!

I always use a second boot drive (on an SSD, of course) for beta software, so I don't risk my database or anything else. It's so easy on a Mac.

Sorry, to hijack this thread by asking this, but with installing DR18 on boot drive are you then able to keep your current stable version untouched? If so, do you basically select an external SSD drive as the destination when running the new install or are there more steps involved?

No, you install Monterey on a second drive, boot MacOS from there and then install Resolve 18 on it.
Safest option and no other software running there, so you can be sure it's a bug if something goes wrong.

Thanks Uli!

After some testing it looks like Resolve is not using the Apple Neural Engine at all, instead it uses CPU/GPU cores

How do you know?

Because I watched the Apple neural engine activity during specific tasks in Resolve which in words of BM use the neural engine. But not the Apple one

[Peter Chamberlain]

If you are using the studio version on 18.6.2 on a modern Mac with a modern macOS the AI tools will use the apple neural engine.

If you are using the studio version on 18.6.2 on a modern Mac with a modern macOS the AI tools will use the apple neutral engine.

So why then the activity of the Apple neural engine is ZERO when using latest DR Studio? See my screenshot:

Neural Engine activity is ZERO

Screenshot 2023-11-04 at 8.43.22 AM.png (1006.28 KiB) Viewed 3600 times

Another example when creating subtitles from audio - ANE usage is again ZERO:

Screenshot 2023-11-04 at 8.49.51 AM.png (573.71 KiB) Viewed 3593 times

So can you clearly specify where exactly does latest DRStudio use the Apple neural engine? I have to ask because I never saw any activity of the Apple neural engine when using DRS. Never. I started investigating it after I saw the performance of my M2 Ultra is comparable to ordinary PC without any Apple neural engine and that's by my opinion not inline with the claims like 300% improvement etc.

I wonder why nobody from Blackmagic answered anymore after I posted my screenshots several days ago

If you are using the studio version on 18.6.2 on a modern Mac with a modern macOS the AI tools will use the apple neural engine.

Peter, could you be a little more specific? What do you mean by "modern"? Model dates?

[Rohit Gupta]

If your GPU is faster than ANE, it will be used. This is certainly the case with the Max and Ultra systems. There is a Preferences option to switch off ANE, so GPU is always used.

So I purchased the Studio version to use SuperScale, and it does not use the Apple Neural Engine (Macbook Pro 16" 2021, M1 Pro 10 cpu core, 32Gb RAM). Instead it maxes out the GPU and takes 3 days to render a 40min 1080p video :facepalm:

I am yet to see the ANE being used by any filter on my M1 Pro (as monitored by asitop).

If your GPU is faster than ANE, it will be used. This is certainly the case with the Max and Ultra systems. There is a Preferences option to switch off ANE, so GPU is always used.

The discussion in this thread is very helpful as I had the exact same question. I was also wondering because I had confirmed that ANE was not being used using asitop etc. Your comment made me understand that ANE is not being used because the GPU is more powerful on my M3 Max system.
However, even if ANE is slower, I think the GPU may be able to perform other tasks better by distributing the load to it, so I would like to see an option to actively use ANE in a system like M3 Max.

What are your thoughts on this?

Another example when creating subtitles from audio - ANE usage is again ZERO:

Screenshot 2023-11-04 at 8.49.51 AM.png

So can you clearly specify where exactly does latest DRStudio use the Apple neural engine? I have to ask because I never saw any activity of the Apple neural engine when using DRS. Never. I started investigating it after I saw the performance of my M2 Ultra is comparable to ordinary PC without any Apple neural engine and that's by my opinion not inline with the claims like 300% improvement etc.

The problem is still exist (May 2025)
(M2 Ultra 60 cores)

I'm in this thread, because the investigation of a slow render (when having ANE on in the DaVinci Neural Engine processing) took me here...