DaVinci Resolve super slow reaction time

Hi there,

I am using the latest version of Resolve on a MacBook Pro M1, latest version, 16GB.

All went well, but suddenly in the middle of a project the reaction time of the system has gotten terribly slow. By reaction time I mean: each time I select, click or duplicate something...I get the wheel and have to wait for 5-10 seconds before I can continue. Playback is NOT the problem. Playback is smooth.

What to do?

Does this happen with every project or with a specific one?

It happened to me once before on another Mac system on an older DR version.

I would say it happens in a large project. While duplicating a timeline....after that everything went into superslim reaction time...
If I open another project, the problem isn't there, so it is project-specific.
What could be happening?

Sad but interesting. Can you give more information about your project ? Short/Long, with or without effects, colour corrections, layers or not.

Last month I had to re-edit a 60 minute documentary in FCPX (I know) on a M1-mini, 16 GB, 1 Terra, with the least possible amount of timelines (projects in FCP speech) and I saw more beach balls than on the Costa del Sol. So impossible to work with. I hope it's not something M1 specific.

If live save is enabled, try to disable it to see if still happens.
You can also try to create a new empty database and import the problematic project there to see if this makes any difference.

The issue I see with these new M1 systems is how little RAM most of them have. 16GB is quite a small amount of RAM these days. It's been about 10 years since I regularly used a system with so little. I often see my web browser use multiple GBs on its own.

Periodic pauses that start occurring after using the system for some time could be a sign of running out of RAM, forcing the system to first compress it, and then swap to disk.

I second the questions regarding what exactly is being used in Resolve. For example I wouldn't try and do anything in Fusion with only 16GB RAM - or nothing other than the most basic comps.

All that said, the OP's issue could also be some issue specific to the M1 MacBook Pro, which being so new could well have bugs either in general, or specific to Resolve.