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‌Finishing editors and colorists might notice subtle differences between the image on your computer monitor on less powerful computers when Performance Mode is on versus when it’s off, which is why this setting can be disabled, either entirely or in part using checkboxes in the Playback Settings panel of the User Preferences for instances where GUI interactivity is less important than your onscreen display.‌‌

Adjusting Performance Mode

A pair of radio buttons in the Playback Settings panel of the User Preferences let you choose between Automatic (default) and Manual behaviors when you turn on Performance Mode in DaVinci Resolve.

Set to Automatic, Performance mode automatically optimizes a variety of operations in a bid to balance performance with the necessary level of image quality, for fast onscreen performance while always maintaining the highest level of quality for video output.

Set to Manual, there are three different settings you can choose to disable for instances where a particular performance tradeoff results in an undesirably noticeable reduction in image quality in Performance Mode:

— Optimized Sizing: Relates to how image resizing is handled.

— Optimized Decode Quality: Relates to how clip resolution vs. timeline resolution is handled.

— Optimized Image Processing: Relates to how image processing operations are handled.

Timeline Proxy Mode Improves Effects Performance

If you don’t want to either drop frames or play at slower than real time speed whenever the GPU Status indicator is in the red, an immediate way of improving performance is to turn on the Use Timeline Proxies option in the Playback menu. Using timeline proxies reduces processing demands by taking advantage of the resolution independence of DaVinci Resolve to lower the resolution of your clips on-the-fly, thereby increasing real time playback performance without the need to spend time caching part or all of the timeline, or create optimized media (both discussed later).

To turn Use Timeline Proxies on and off, do one of the following:

‌— Choose Playback > Timeline Proxy Resolution > Half Resolution, Quarter Resolution, or None.

— Press PROXY ON/OFF on the T-bar panel of the DaVinci control panel (Defaults to the last proxy resolution you selected from the menu. Half is the default if you haven’t selected a resolution yet.).

Turning on one of the proxy resolutions reduces the working resolution by either half or a quarter of whatever the current Timeline resolution is for your project. Working at a temporarily reduced

resolution increases your workstation’s real time performance, while the resolution independence of Resolve guarantees that every window you draw and sizing operation you make scales correctly to the actual resolution of your project.

IMPORTANT: Timeline Proxy Mode is entirely different and independent of the creation of Proxy Media as described later in this chapter. The two functions, Timeline Proxy Mode and Proxy Media, have no relation to each other.

IMPORTANT: Timeline Proxy Mode is entirely different and independent of the creation of Proxy Media as described later in this chapter. The two functions, Timeline Proxy Mode and Proxy Media, have no relation to each other.

IMPORTANT: Timeline Proxy Mode is entirely different and independent of the creation of Proxy Media as described later in this chapter. The two functions, Timeline Proxy Mode and Proxy Media, have no relation to each other.

Table of half and quarter proxy resolutions for different television frame sizes

Reducing Decode Quality Improves Raw Media Performance

The Use Proxy command will improve performance when grades and effects are responsible for your project’s slower than real time playback, but Use Proxy won’t help when real time performance is being used up by the need to debayer raw media. While you could improve playback performance by taking the time to either generate optimized media (see below) or render to the Fusion Output Cache by enabling the Smart Cache (see later in this chapter), the fastest solution is to open the Camera Raw panel of the Project Settings and reduce the Decode Quality of the raw media formats you’re using:

— Decode Quality: Camera raw formats such as R3D and F65 can be debayered at different levels of quality. For higher real time performance, you can choose a lower quality setting while you work, and then switch to a higher quality when rendering the final output.

Options for reducing resolution vary by each raw format’s differing capabilities, but at the very least include full, half, and quarter resolution (R3D and Sony Raw have options for full, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth). Exceptions include the Canon RAW, Panasonic Varicam RAW, and Phantom Cine formats, which only decode to full resolution.

If you reduce the decode quality of raw media formats in your project to improve performance, you can use the “Force debayer res to highest quality” checkbox in the Render Settings list of the Deliver page to ensure that DaVinci Resolve renders all raw formats at the highest quality available, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to change the decode quality back when it’s time to render your deliverables.

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