Resolve prefers VST or AU?

I bought iZotope RX8 and it provides AU and VST plugins, and I was wondering if either format it preferred by
Resolve?

I gather that using VST plugins allows compatibility across platforms -- if the one you're sharing with also has the same plugin -- but I won't really be sharing with anyone else any time soon, so was wondering if one format or the other provides better capability, reliability, speed, or anything else. It's fine if Resolve doesn't prefer either.

No performance or behavioural differences between the iZotope RX suite in AU or VST format.
Select the format you prefer.

Sometimes even though the plugins are functionally equivalent on the surface there are latent bugs in one or the other that are waiting to jump out if exactly the wrong set of conditions are hit. Tracktion Waveform has a tool called "pluginval" that validates plugins by running a suite of tests that will often trigger these bugs and I have often found that in suites like this some plugins will pass validation for AU and fail for VST while other plugins will do the opposite.

I have the RX 8 elements suite and it is no exception. It looks like I ended up tagging for use:

AU: De-clip, Voice De-noise
VST3: De-click, De-hum


Note that some bugs are related to features of the plugin interface that may be used by some DAWs and not by others so depending on exactly what is going wrong the bugs that are detected may not occur in real-world use, or they might only occur at specific sample rates or the like which you might not be using, so just because the bugs are there doesn't mean you will encounter them yourself under ordinary use of the plugins.

Some hosts only support one format or the other (Logic only supports AU; Cubase and Reason only support VST...), but Resolve supports both (on the Mac).

[Shrinivas Ramani]

Please note that DaVinci Resolve supports AU and VST 2.4 plugin versions. VST3 plugins are not supported.

Wow, thanks so much for the great information!

I assume that if I install 2.4 and 3.x VST plugins, Resolve will ignore the 3.x version and load the 2.4 version.

I assume that if I install 2.4 and 3.x VST plugins, Resolve will ignore the 3.x version and load the 2.4 version.

Correct.

I experience an unconvenient slowdown when opening/switching timelines using Izotope VST plugins in DR17 (currently using DR17.2.1b12):
- on an 2020 Intel iMac/AMD 5700
- on and Intel i9/Nvidia GTX 1080 PC (both with 64Gb RAM).

The behaviour is similar to the one described in an older post on this forum: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=72395

So, I did a quick test with 3 identical timelines (2 minute basic interview and music - 3 audiotracks), using Ozone 9 mastering, RX8 noise reduction and Nectar voice EQ/compression plugins:

- The timeline without audio effects loads perfect (=instantly) on Mac and PC
- the timeline with AU effects takes approx. 2 seconds to open (Mac only)
- the timeline with (the same) VST effects takes 7 to 8 seconds, and the mac 'wheel of patience' is showing. Opening the VST plugin timeline took more than 9 seconds on an Intel i9/Nvidia GTX 1080... So it's not mac-related I guess...

From now on I'll use the AU versions of the Izotope plugins - the downside being that the timeline audio mixes are no longer compatible with PC - but a faster workflow is more important to me...