Davinci Resolve 16 suddenly not performing well on 2013 iMac

Hello, I'm new here and this is my first post. I've been trying to figure out this problem for what seems like months. I exclusively started editing in Davinci Resolve for over 2 years now and it's been amazing. I switched from PP thank goodness.

2 or 3 months ago I started having issues within Davinci Resolve. It's become slow and it trips up constantly. I don't know how to explain it other than I get the spinning rainbow wheel almost every time I try to perform an action - the spinning lasts 5 to 10 seconds. Whenever I try to select a tool, trim a clip, move a clip, change timelines - any action really, the rainbow spinning wheel pops up. It makes it almost impossible to edit. I've watched a ton of YouTube videos, searched all over the Blackmagic Forum and I can't find a solution. It even does it when I'm in a brand new project and I haven't imported anything - I'll toggle between the panels and on and off windows and the wheel still happens.

note: I can get my timeline to playback smooth using render cache's, the wheel only happens when I hit space bar or click something to perform another action. I'm mostly editing 1080 footage and some drone 4K footage. It will not preview the 4k footage smoothly anymore.

I've started to think my equipment/hard drive is wearing out from what I've read.

Specs:
Processor 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
Memory 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2 GB
HDD 1TB internal storage

Do I need to upgrade my computer?
Why has it worked for me for over 2 years and suddenly stopped?

Things I've done:
Davinci is up to date
iMac is up to date
Cleared Davinci Cache (helped a little)
Played around with settings like GPU processing mode
iMac storage is clean - it has 900gb available
I'm getting about 140 Write and 170 Read with BM Disk Speed Test

Thanks to everyone in advance!

If a hard drive is wearing out, you'll hear some strange noises first (if you are lucky) and then one day it dies.
It doesn't get slower over time, only when it's very full (even when new).

Your VRAM is not really large for 4K footage, but should work OK'ish in HD.

Which system do you use? Is the GPU processing set to auto or manually to Metal?

I’ve used all the different gpu processing modes and it doesn’t seem to make a difference. When I try using metal I get an error? Not sure if my iMac is compatible?

If a hard drive is wearing out, you'll hear some strange noises first (if you are lucky) and then one day it dies.
It doesn't get slower over time, only when it's very full (even when new).

Your VRAM is not really large for 4K footage, but should work OK'ish in HD.

Which system do you use? Is the GPU processing set to auto or manually to Metal?

Thanks for responding! What do you mean what system do I use? I’ve tried all the GPU processing options. It’s all the same.


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[Peter Chamberlain]

Its an old system so performance is not optimized for current OS nor Metal.
U don’t list the OS version but my guess is it’s not Catalina

Try open CL for GPU selection
Your drone if likely 60fps so the timeline rate needs to match that or be half that for slow mo.
H264 is also CPU bound for decompression so assuming ur frame rate is right, make ProRes optimized media for all clips.

I am having the exact same problem. I am on a IMAC pro and the like you said i have been editing on reoslve for 2 years now. I am loving it but then this problem started happening, its hard to figure out what is causing it. I am definitely not doing anything heavy on the processor or system to expect it to slow down. I am literally just setting and in and out point and i get the spinning wheel. any playback in the timeline or source is completely fine and smooth. But when i move anything I get the spinning wheel and it is very frustrating.

2017 imac pro
3.2ghz 8core intel xeon W
32gb 2666 mhz ddr4
raedon pro vega 56 8gb
1tb ssd

I am editing off a G-tech raid 20tb thunderbolt 3.

I feel like my editing system is pretty solid for resolve. Im using all blackmagic footage shot in B.raw

someone please help!

That should be quite a decent system, I can work smoothly with less.
Something is screwed up in your config. Check your disk structure with a tool like Disk Warrior and generally check your hardware. It could also be thermal, those machines tend to suck in a lot of dust. A tool like TG Pro can tell you more about that.

I have the istat menus and my temps look to be fine. What would you suggest i looks for with a tool like disk warrior ? To inspect the the G-tech Raid ?

Internal too.
Alternatively, set up a new system. You could even do that on a bootable external to find out if it’s a hardware problem or not.

I am literally just setting and in and out point and i get the spinning wheel. any playback in the timeline or source is completely fine and smooth. But when i move anything I get the spinning wheel and it is very frustrating.

Do you have Live Save turned on? If the issue is happening every time you do anything then it's not inconceivable that it could be related to that writing of each action to the database. If you do have Live Save enabled then an easy check would be to disable it and see if that changes anything.

Do you have any antivirus software running on your Mac? Non linear editing apps (ie constant read write processes) paired with antivirus real-time protection scans aren't considered to be a great combination.

Thanks for the suggestions. I do have live save enabled - every 3 mins. Its never seemed to be an issue before though. The issue is very odd, very similar to the original post above. I have express VPN that i have on randomly. But usually when i edit i dont have anything on or opened besides davicni resolve.

Would love to know how to set up a new system config.

I have been struggling with this same issue myself. When it's at its worst I can't even scrub through a timeline without it buffering, Not moving my playhead but just adjusting my view of the timeline will send Davnici into a fit. For me it almost seems project specific though. Some projects will get along just fine they way they should while others can't get past a single click. My projects always have the same settings and are all stored on the same hard drives and backups. So frustrating trying to work like this.

3 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5
8 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro 570X 4 GB

I have been struggling with this same issue myself. When it's at its worst I can't even scrub through a timeline without it buffering, Not moving my playhead but just adjusting my view of the timeline will send Davnici into a fit. For me it almost seems project specific though. Some projects will get along just fine they way they should while others can't get past a single click. My projects always have the same settings and are all stored on the same hard drives and backups. So frustrating trying to work like this.

3 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5
8 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro 570X 4 GB

Try disable the live save feature and save manually - that actually worked for me as a work around. I have the same issue i cant pinpoint why it happens to certain projects and not others as my assets are all stored on the same drive as well. I have noticed that most of the time its on these bigger projects where i have about 50 sequenes of cut downs in different ratios for social media it seems to start to happen more often than others with single sequences.

Weird, yes, disabling the autosave feature is now preventing the intermittent spinning wheel on my mac.

Does anyone know what causes this?

I found this looking for a solution to the same problem and turning off LiveSave fixed it for me too. As someone else up there pointed out it seems to happen when I hit a certain arbitrary number of timelines or something like that. Ala versioning.

But i’d really rather I had LiveSave on, this is a 2019 Mac Pro with 96GB Ram and a Radeon Pro Vega II Duo card so it really shouldn’t be a performance issue I would hope.

Anyone with thoughts on an actual fix instead of this workaround (which don’t get me wrong I was very excited to find)?

Hi to everyone,

I have the same problem and turning off LiveSave or background render or something like that sometimes helps but sometimes not.

Butwhat I found out is this - If I open old project with clips I already worked on and then add some new clips - rainbow wheel will appear on almost every action - basic one like moving clip on timeline. It gets so frequent that it is impossible to work at all.

My way of working for permanent customers is to have one project for one customer and when I have a new clips I just add them to that project, open a new timeline, add new clips (one I need) some old stuff from other timelines (adjustment layer, graphics, intro video...) and work with that. Well, it is not possible in Davinci Resolve. If I try to do that I get rainbow wheel as described before.

Even if I delete all of the old stuff - timelines, clips, adjustment or fusion layers - and leave just a new clips it is the same.

Solution is this - If I make a new project and add same clips it works like a charm.

Of course in both cases it's the same system, CPU & GPU, SDD, settings, clips.. only difference is if I used old project or created a new one.

Hope this will help someone and sincerely hope someone from Blackmagic will read this and try to figure out why is it happening and fix it.