Keeping two versions of Resolve

I am looking for some advice on upgrading to 14. I am currently running 12.5 and I dipped my toe in the water when 14 Beta came out but as much as I love the features I found it really unstable (constantly crashing), my izotope plug in wouldn't work properly among many other things, so I restored everything back to 12.5 from my back ups. I find 12.5 to be amazingly stable, rock solid and reliable and I've finally got a decent resolve workflow happening but that said, I would like to have another look at 14 now it's been released properly (hopefully the bugs are ironed out now). I learnt the hard way last time that as soon you upgrade a project there is no going backward. My question is, can I download 14 and have a play without a losing my projects in 12.5? Any suggestions on the best way to do this? Can I back up my database, put my current version of 12.5 safely in another folder somewhere so if I need to go back to it, I can? Look forward to any advice.

You can back up your database, as well as export out individual projects.

You can't have both versions installed at the same time.

You can test out the new version on a second machine.

I am looking for some advice on upgrading to 14. I am currently running 12.5 and I dipped my toe in the water when 14 Beta came out but as much as I love the features I found it really unstable (constantly crashing), my izotope plug in wouldn't work properly among many other things, so I restored everything back to 12.5 from my back ups. I find 12.5 to be amazingly stable, rock solid and reliable and I've finally got a decent resolve workflow happening but that said, I would like to have another look at 14 now it's been released properly (hopefully the bugs are ironed out now). I learnt the hard way last time that as soon you upgrade a project there is no going backward. My question is, can I download 14 and have a play without a losing my projects in 12.5? Any suggestions on the best way to do this? Can I back up my database, put my current version of 12.5 safely in another folder somewhere so if I need to go back to it, I can? Look forward to any advice.

I had the same need as you, ended up installing a Preview edition of Windows 10 in dual boot in order to test version 14. This way I keep my production environment at 12.5.6 and once I am totally happy with a new stable release, I will upgrade it. In terms of sharing projects between them, you can simply export your project to the same folder as your video files with 12.5, then when you work on version 14, you can import it. However I do not make any change that I need to keep with version 14, it is just for testing.

To install Windows 10 preview edition, you need to repartition your existing C: drive with a tool (some are free) or add a second one. I had a second SSD that I had used to boot into Max OSX and no longer wanted to keep, so I used that one. Then you need to sign up for Windows Preview builds, and download the ISO installer to a USB stick. Finally you just boot from it, select a manual installation and pick your new volume as the target. You will end up with a boot menu that will allow you to choose between your regular Windows 10 and the preview build every time you restart your PC.

Hope this helps.

I am looking for some advice on upgrading to 14. I am currently running 12.5 and I dipped my toe in the water when 14 Beta came out but as much as I love the features I found it really unstable (constantly crashing), my izotope plug in wouldn't work properly among many other things, so I restored everything back to 12.5 from my back ups. I find 12.5 to be amazingly stable, rock solid and reliable and I've finally got a decent resolve workflow happening but that said, I would like to have another look at 14 now it's been released properly (hopefully the bugs are ironed out now). I learnt the hard way last time that as soon you upgrade a project there is no going backward. My question is, can I download 14 and have a play without a losing my projects in 12.5? Any suggestions on the best way to do this? Can I back up my database, put my current version of 12.5 safely in another folder somewhere so if I need to go back to it, I can? Look forward to any advice.

I had the same need as you, ended up installing a Preview edition of Windows 10 in dual boot in order to test version 14. This way I keep my production environment at 12.5.6 and once I am totally happy with a new stable release, I will upgrade it. In terms of sharing projects between them, you can simply export your project to the same folder as your video files with 12.5, then when you work on version 14, you can import it. However I do not make any change that I need to keep with version 14, it is just for testing.

To install Windows 10 preview edition, you need to repartition your existing C: drive with a tool (some are free) or add a second one. I had a second SSD that I had used to boot into Max OSX and no longer wanted to keep, so I used that one. Then you need to sign up for Windows Preview builds, and download the ISO installer to a USB stick. Finally you just boot from it, select a manual installation and pick your new volume as the target. You will end up with a boot menu that will allow you to choose between your regular Windows 10 and the preview build every time you restart your PC.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Frederic. Have you upgraded to 14 yet or are you still testing?I should have mentioned that I am on OSX but booting up from another a drive is a good idea but I am not sure I am 100% confident in that process and while I can certainly work it out, I don’t think that’s going to be the most efficient use of time. I think what I will do is back up my Database, download 14 and give a try but not upgrade any of my 12.5 projects. I’ve got a couple of quieter weeks coming up so I will give it a work out and see how it goes. If there’s problems, I can uninstall it and download 12.5 again and then restore the old database. Like the other person mentioned, I could load up a version onto my laptop and I’ll do that in the first instance but that’s not really going to give me much of an idea about it’s performance. I find upgrading software nerve wracking! Thanks so much for your detailed reply.


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That seems to be the easiest indeed. On Mac OS you can have two versions installed side by side, but of course with the new version of the database in 14.1.1 you need to back it up if you want to be able to downgrade to 12.5

I am still working on 12.5.6 because I am not happy with 14.1

My opinion is because of the risk of losing your project database, it's a very wise idea never to try to run two versions of Resolve on the same partition. I just recently spent two months running one boot partition with Resolve 12.5 and one partition with 14, and it worked out very well... with completely different project databases.

Whatever you do, make sure you back up the drive and back up your project database whenever possible.

[Peter Chamberlain]

That seems to be the easiest indeed. On Mac OS you can have two versions installed side by side, but of course with the new version of the database in 14.1.1 you need to back it up if you want to be able to downgrade to 12.5

I am still working on 12.5.6 because I am not happy with 14.1

We expect that if you run two versions of Resolve on your system, regardless of OS, you will encounter problems and may not be able to recover your project.

Dual boot is cleanest.

I have always found that the best and easiest way to have two or more versions of the same thing is to use virtual machines. Essentially a computer within your computer. And with virtual machines you can run different operating systems right in your computer.

I have always found that the best and easiest way to have two or more versions of the same thing is to use virtual machines. Essentially a computer within your computer. And with virtual machines you can run different operating systems right in your computer.

You took the words right out of my mouth. You can install a virtual machine, install Resolve on it, configure it with its own database and then move your projects back and forth between the virtual and the host systems by exporting/importing them. And what's more, if you have the screen real estate you can actually run both of them simultaneously to see how they fare.

The only issue might be access to the GPU from the virtual machine, that's not something I've really tried and it could be a stumbling block, particularly if you try to run both simultaneously.

Anyone have experience with this?

I have always found that the best and easiest way to have two or more versions of the same thing is to use virtual machines. Essentially a computer within your computer. And with virtual machines you can run different operating systems right in your computer.

You took the words right out of my mouth. You can install a virtual machine, install Resolve on it, configure it with its own database and then move your projects back and forth between the virtual and the host systems by exporting/importing them. And what's more, if you have the screen real estate you can actually run both of them simultaneously to see how they fare.

The only issue might be access to the GPU from the virtual machine, that's not something I've really tried and it could be a stumbling block, particularly if you try to run both simultaneously.

Anyone have experience with this?

Yes lots. I run several virtual macs with resolve in production with proper gpu support since more then 2 years now. But you need a proper hypervisor not the crappy parralels or vmware fusion which dont support pcie passthru. I use kvm on unraid and can pass any pcie cards straight into the vm (like 10g , gpu, usbc etc). You can atm not share same gpu with multiple running vm's at the same time. Network cards with multiple ports you can assign individual ports to different vm's . Same for usb cards etc.
Near native performance
This way you can run OSX even on amd cpu's . No probs.
VM's are the future.