Davinci Resolve *Studio* on M1 Macs - how fast is it really?

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

If someone running Davince Resolve *Studio* on their M1-powered Mac could download this small sample project and render it?

I run Davince Resolve Studio (paid version) 17.1 on a Windows 10 machine, Intel i7-8600 + SSD + GeForce 1070.

Rendering speeds on my Win10 machine are:

1:07 [mm:ss] using the NVIDIA-Encoder

3:47 using the generic CPU Encoder (note that Intel encoding capabilities are disabled on my machine)

How does your M1 powered Mac fare?

Cheers,

Medon

It took 02:33 to render it on my 16GB Mac Mini M1 in Resolve Studio 17.1.1 with "Use hardware acceleration if available" ticked. The output file is a 30FPS UHD MPEG-4 QuickTime MOV file with duration 01:47.

Your current PC will be faster than an M1 for pretty much everything in Resolve if you enable GPU-assisted features. The M1 is fine for HD but struggles with 4K and GPU-hungry effects. For example, your first two clips played back fine but the third one slowed right down during playback. I had to drop the timeline proxy mode to 1/2 res to get it to display at full speed.

If you compare an M1 with similarly-priced PC laptops then it does indeed shine as a general purpose machine. But even a modest PC desktop with 16GB RAM and an 8GB GPU will run Resolve much faster than a Mac M1 in my experience. Resolve really needs an 8GB or better GPU for 4K work which the M1 cannot yet compete with.

I'm not at the office today, but I'll try to remember to give this a go tomorrow.

I use an M1 MacMini 8GB/256 and just upgraded from Resolve 17 to Resolve 17 Studio at the end of last week and did my first export - a 30 minute, 1080p, H.264 video, and it took 9 minutes to render.

Second that. I wouldn't expect any of the current entry-level machines to replace a mid-level desktop machine with a good GPU.
But as a second device on the road, the laptops are great.

The mini is less attractive in my eyes. Maybe as a server are for transcoding independently while working on another machine.

If you don't need portability I'd rather wait for the Apple event in April and see if they offer a new iMac with a stronger GPU.

If you compare an M1 with similarly-priced PC laptops then it does indeed shine as a general purpose machine.

Any PC made in 2017 or later shines as a general purpose machine. The CPUs and even iGPUs are overpowered for basic productivity tasks.

But even a modest PC desktop with 16GB RAM and an 8GB GPU will run Resolve much faster than a Mac M1 in my experience. Resolve really needs an 8GB or better GPU for 4K work which the M1 cannot yet compete with.

Even Laptops with i7s/Ryzen 7 or 9 and RTX2060 will perform better because the GPU is the differentiator with Resolve. The CPU performance of the M1 is impressive, but more and more software are moving in a direction where the GPU is becoming more and more important. Resolve is an exaggeration of this.

Anything GPU intensive will see PCs with decent dGPUs - even mid-range cards - outrun the M1.

These current M1 machines are entry-level. Apple needs to (and will obviously) release better spec packages. My issue with these machines is that they are too expensive to "spec up." I bought an M1 MBP with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD and it was $2,012 after taxes.

$200 for 8GB RAM is too much. $400 for 768GB of NVMe storage is insane.

My guess is that iMacs will come with the same setup and stipulations.

I ended up returning mine and getting a PC Laptop instead. Ended up saving $850, and still get better Resolve performance due to the GPU disparity (and a Ryzen 9 CPU is no slouch, anyways). I also could pick a device that didn't use PWM for screen brightness, which means I can now use my laptop without sun shades and avoid a migraine. That's the only way I can use a MacBook (or iPad).

It took 02:33 to render it on my 16GB Mac Mini M1 in Resolve Studio 17.1.1 with "Use hardware acceleration if available" ticked. The output file is a 30FPS UHD MPEG-4 QuickTime MOV file with duration 01:47.

Thank you very much for trying and posting your figures! Very much appreciated.
Also your hint that going through the time line is sluggish helps to judge editing (not just rendering) performance.

Fun fact: My PC draws around 150 Watts during rendering, so from a render-speed/power perspective at least, the M1 Mac wins by a huge margin.

Which is even more impressive in a laptop. Any laptop that can run DR decently is generating lots of heat and is eating batteries for breakfast. Manufacturers tend to throttle them down when off mains to get decent runtimes. The MB Air M1 doesn't care and runs for many hours.

Resolve performance on the new M1 Macs has been discussed a few times here. If you are thinking of getting one mainly for Resolve use then these threads might also be helpful:

• Simplify life with a Mac Mini M1?
• Mac Mini M1 Extremely slow

TL;DR: They're lovely little machines but struggle somewhat with Resolve beyond simple HD projects.

Hey all... I just posted some info concerning the M1 Mini... While installing the MAC 17.1.1 on the mini it insisted on installing the Rosetta.

From my thread....
To stress the M1 Mini:
I tested a 4k/30fps iPhone 11 Pro Max Filmic Pro MOV file. [Normally I am using BMPCC4k BRAW or Sony A7r3 files.]

Used The MOV + Audio WAV + 2 png logo files, +1 adjustment layer that contained; color adjustments + 2 nodes of "3D Lut" adjustments AND A SKIN softening node + 1 music WAV file.

Stress Results:
--->On my PC (info in my sig) it took 39 min to render for 11 min final 1080 vid
--->On the M1 Mini 16gb running from a folder from the desktop 1h40m WITHOUT the 2, "3D Lut" nodes.
--->Turned OFF the skin softening and the M1 Mini went 1hr.

Very disappointing and most likely I am returning the M1 Mini unless I have set it up incorrectly.

Got me an M1 Air, 16GB and 8core GPU (as a new toy, not as a Resolve Machine).

The rendering speed for me was 2:36.
BTW, no speed difference between the free and the paid Studio version, at least not at the moment.

Cheers!