Improve timeline switch speed

I often use two timelines stacked and switching between them is very laggy in Resolve.

[Peter Chamberlain]

Which OS and Resolve version are you on?

how many clips in each timeline?

I have also run into slow loading/switching timelines Across 3 windows 10 machines over several different projects now. What I have observed:

1. Color Graded only timelines switch relatively quick even when switching between 6 different, 90 minute 4k timelines of Red 6k raw. Under 5 seconds
2. Editing a similar timeline as above, timelines still switch under 10 seconds.
3. Once audio editing has started on a similar timeline. Load times explode.
a. Basic clip level gain adjustments took loading/switching from a few seconds to over 30 seconds.
b. Keyframing audio and adding SFX and Music clips to timeline further increased load/switching
times even more.
c. Adding 3rd party plugins: izotope, ERA, or Acon Digital noise reduction on a clip level cause
timelines to take over 3 minutes to load or switch. I'm sure other plugins cause similar
slowdowns but I don't use many 3rd party plugins. Caching audio does not improve loading times.
Neither does Bouncing the audio clips.
4. Watching the task manager while switching/loading a timeline.
a. CPU usage is very low. 4/16 cores less than 60% and the rest are idle.
b. Ram usage very very slowly increase from the usual 12-14GBs to 17-18GBs out of 64GBs
c. Network usage to project server is very low less than 10% of capacity.
d. Network usage to media server is also low. Less than 50% of what I see during playback.
My current setup:
3x Windows 10 machines (specs in signature)
Mac Mini project server: gigabit Lan
Freenas Media server: 40gb ethernet

Thanks Jeremy - your hint in 3c helped me sort out the issue.

For me, the slow timeline switching was being caused by a particular audio VST plugin that I usually have added on my master track: Izotope Ozone 9. Try disabling all your audio plugins (preferences > audio plugins > disable all). If that helps, then re-enable your audio plugins one-by-one until you see which ones are the culprits.

If you know your issue is not audio plugins, then try to think if you use any other plugins that take a while to open up in the color panel or in the edit panel. This was the case with Ozone for me - it took way longer than my other audio plugins to load. I'm guessing that every time you switch to a new timeline, Resolve is attempting to load all your plugins used that timeline - and if any one of them is a slow plugin then that may result in slower load times for each timeline.