Upgrading from version 16.1.2 to 17

I'm still on Resolve version 16.1.2 and am wondering if there is a way to make use of the new title effects in Resolve version 17 without transferring my project to version 17 yet. I have completed everything except the titles and am concerned that the settings, grades, etc. will not transfer correctly if I upgrade and render in version 17. Alternatively, would there be any issue with rendering in version 16 and then simply importing the rendered media in a new project in version 17, adding the titles (since they don't interact with the underlying media/audio), and then just rendering with titles with the imported media? My concern there is that there will be quality loss in the video/audio.

Thank you for any suggestions!

Going from your version 16 to 17 is not difficult but there are some very important points to address. Your GPU, if it is an Nvidia one, must have a compute capability of at least 3.5, as Resolve 17 uses CUDA 11 which will not work on anything less than this. You will also need to make sure your GPU driver is up to date.
The most important thing to do is export a copy of your vers 16 database before installing 17. The version 16 database is not compatible with vers 17, and vice versa. So if you need to go back to version 16 you can. Version 17 will prompt you to update your database.
I've never had any problems with older projects after a version upgrade.

You can check the compute capability of Nvidia GPUs here. https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus

am concerned that the settings, grades, etc. will not transfer correctly if I upgrade

I don't think that's a legitimate concern. With proper backups in place, you're safe to upgrade.

All right, thank you for bringing those points to mind- I'll try to wrap up what I need in version 16, but if not, I'll upgrade to 17 on a newer machine to ensure it can work smoothly, backing up the database prior of course.