DaVinci Resolve Studio 20 is extremely slow to render

Hi, I’ve been testing the new DaVinci Resolve Studio 20 Beta, and it looks awesome with all the brand-new features. I converted my client’s YouTube video projects to the new version, and the editing experience has definitely improved

However, when it comes to rendering the final video (usually 10–15 minutes long), DaVinci Resolve Studio 20 takes between 11 and 14 minutes to render. Before upgrading, DaVinci Resolve Studio 19 consistently took only 3 to 5 minutes to render a 15–20 minute video — using the same export settings.

My setup:
CPU: Intel Core i7-12700F @ 2.10 GHz, 12 cores
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070
RAM: 32GB DDR4
Export format: H.264, MP4
Encoder: Nvidia NVENC
Hardware acceleration: Enabled
Timeline: 1080p @ 60fps
Footage source: Shot on iPhone 16 Pro Max (H.264/HEVC)

Project details:
Light color grading
No Fusion effects
No Fairlight or audio effects
Everything done mainly in the Edit page
Render cache is disabled

I’ve never had any render speed issues with Resolve 19 under the same conditions. Is anyone else experiencing this slower render performance with Resolve 20 Beta?

Thanks in advance!
Regards

Anyone here?

Hi, I’ve been testing the new DaVinci Resolve Studio 20 Beta, and it looks awesome with all the brand-new features. I converted my client’s YouTube video projects to the new version, and the editing experience has definitely improved

However, when it comes to rendering the final video (usually 10–15 minutes long), DaVinci Resolve Studio 20 takes between 11 and 14 minutes to render. Before upgrading, DaVinci Resolve Studio 19 consistently took only 3 to 5 minutes to render a 15–20 minute video — using the same export settings.

My setup:
CPU: Intel Core i7-12700F @ 2.10 GHz, 12 cores
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070
RAM: 32GB DDR4
Export format: H.264, MP4
Encoder: Nvidia NVENC
Hardware acceleration: Enabled
Timeline: 1080p @ 60fps
Footage source: Shot on iPhone 16 Pro Max (H.264/HEVC)

Project details:
Light color grading
No Fusion effects
No Fairlight or audio effects
Everything done mainly in the Edit page
Render cache is disabled

I’ve never had any render speed issues with Resolve 19 under the same conditions. Is anyone else experiencing this slower render performance with Resolve 20 Beta?

Thanks in advance!
Regards

DO you always render in (H.264/HEVC)? I often hear how this is a tricky codec that can cause users some gnarly problems due to the way it is proccesed. If your projects have always used this codec and you are getting slower renders maybe someone else could identify the problem if the codec is not it.

I always used the H.264 codec but, since I installed the Resolve Studio 20 Beta, it's extremely slow to render (It took around 50s per minute)

Does it play in real-time on the edit page?

I'm having the same issue on MacOS Sonoma. Davinci Beta 20 is taking over an hour and still counting up to render a 7minute pro res clip into an H.265 with the same settings I'd use in version 19, which only took a couple minutes tops.

Does it play in real-time on the edit page?

Yes, it does. The edit page plays the whole video with adjustment layers and some effects with the Full Quality without any problem. Except some beta version small glitches, DaVinci Resolve works perfectly as always. But it takes so much time to render a 15 minute video since I installed the Beta version

Does it play in real-time on the edit page?

Yes, it does. The edit page plays the whole video with adjustment layers and some effects with the Full Quality without any problem. Except some beta version small glitches, DaVinci Resolve works perfectly as always. But it takes so much time to render a 15 minute video since I installed the Beta version

OK - interesting (sorry). I was asking because I wondered if there was a project setting that was forcing a more advanced retiming / spatial effect such as speed warp that could explain the lengthy render but that would have affected the real-time performance on the edit page as well.

I'm not seeing any appreciable difference with 20 on Windows.

You may not be - but when you put it that way it sounds like you’re saying “you’re wrong” to the other person.

It's just a data point, Joe. Don't read so much into it.

I’m simply suggesting a slight reword so it’s more clear you’re proving a datapoint as opposed to judgment of the OP.

Hi everyone
I got an update: I restored DaVinci Resolve Studio 19 and a project backup I made before upgrading Resolve from 19 to 20 and the render speed back to normal. I'm not figuring out what's happening with the new version, maybe the problem could be the Beta version.

Wondering if anyone had the same problem.
Thanks!

I'm having the same situation.

Very long, long renders for something that it usually took the same amount of time as the duration of video.
I also noticed, that when I'm tracking a Mask in the Color tab, I'm having a tracking speed of 1fps.

I feel I'm not using an M1 chip anymore and went back to the old days of Premiere

Macbook Pro with the M1 and I updated the OSX to Sequoia 15.4.

What says the render speed on the different clips? Is it the same at each clip? On my old Intel Mac, I have a render speed between 0 and 0.5 on some clips with NR or slowmo, while "normal" clips go up to 20 fps, all in 4k. Maybe you tested some new AI features which may be slow.

I solved my issue!

The problem was my NVIDIA Studio Drivers — I had updated them using an external source. I figured this out by testing the same beta on a different computer, which prompted me to update the drivers (often necessary when switching from Resolve 19 to 20) and optimize the DaVinci Neural Engines.
After doing all that, my render speed went back to normal. Now I can render a 15–20 minute video in less than 3 minutes again.

Pro tip: Always check if your drivers are compatible before updating!

I solved my issue!

The problem was my NVIDIA Studio Drivers — I had updated them using an external source. I figured this out by testing the same beta on a different computer, which prompted me to update the drivers (often necessary when switching from Resolve 19 to 20) and optimize the DaVinci Neural Engines.
After doing all that, my render speed went back to normal. Now I can render a 15–20 minute video in less than 3 minutes again.

Pro tip: Always check if your drivers are compatible before updating!

From where did you update the drivers? I am using Nvidia's official app to update Studio Drivers. I have the issue of DaVinci Resolve Studio 20 slow playback etc. (have all nice settings for faster work).

Hi there,
I'd be curious to know too, cause i just went from a 10 minute export to a 3 day export right after upgrading to v20 on my mac

Hi there,
I'd be curious to know too, cause i just went from a 10 minute export to a 3 day export right after upgrading to v20 on my mac

If you would like some help with this, could you upload a sample project exhibiting the slower render to a file sharing site (include media) and post a link to it here? Going from 10 minutes to 3 days is obviously not expected and points to something off about project settings or your system. What are the specs of you Mac?

Pro tip: Always check if your drivers are compatible before updating!

For Windows users of nVidia cards, I've found the nVidia App to be very useful here.

On the initial beta of DR 20, I was able to play Cintel scanned footage at 23.976 FPS on a low end i7-9700K PC with only 64GB RAM. Since upgrading to beta 4 and then the final, it now plays at 13-15 FPS when I open and play that project. Also, DV footage seems to struggle, while 17K URSA 65 footage plays easily. I'm thinking the de-interlacing of DV footage is taking up all the resources.

I am getting extremely poor rendering performance, as well with the latest version.

I am not keen on rolling back, so is there an update in the works that will address this situation?

It did seem that Beta 1 had the best performance. Hopefully they will optimize it better in a x.1 version update.

I just blindly updated so unless you are in the know, how can you be aware that a beta version is being foisted on you.

Basically, whenever you are being offered a version that is one number above what you are currently on, you can potentially expect difficulties.

Since upgrading to beta 4 and then the final...

Are you saying that's the last update to version 20, or is there more to come?

After the final release, sometimes there are patches, bug fixes or other updates.

After going back to V19, I find that Windows is mostly the culprit so unless resource requirements have increased, there would want to be something to correct the situation otherwise I will need a new machine just to render.

After reverting back to V19, I am now finding the same problem, as with the beta so something must have changed in the OS, i.e., updates however it is still for the developers of Davinci, to get something sorted, unless Microsoft are forcing their hand.

I really appreciate that FLAC can now be used but as there is no renderer on the program side, then the software is really at the behest of the OS manufacturer or so it would appear.