Re: GPU Ram for 4K projects, how much is enough?

I did this test. This was not a test of rendering ability or speed. This was simply a test to see how much having 2G of VRAM on the GPU card over 1G of VRAM would help, as far as getting the "Error running GPU algorithms. GPU memory might be exhausted" error message.

As noted, it helps a lot.

Regarding the GTX580 cards, yes, we recommend using the 3G cards over the standard 1.5G cards, since these are the 2 standard available sizes.

But you would not normally put a GTX580 card inside a MacPro chassis. You more likely will have a GTX285 or Quadro 4000 card. The Quadro 4000 is preferred, since it has 2GB of VRAM stock, making it a much better choice than the standard 1G GTX285 for high resolution timeline grading or rendering, even though the GTX285 has better performance. Now that a 2G GTX285 is available, that might be a better choice for people, if they are in the process of deciding what GPU card to get when putting together a Resolve on Mac system. For Lite users, who can't use timeline resolutions higher than 1920x1080, this is not much of an issue.

I realize that with the new NVIDIA 270.00.00 driver under Lion, you have a wider choice of GPU cards you can use, but the Mac 2G GTX285 will work in Snow Leopard or Lion with the standard Apple NVIDIA driver.

Dwaine Maggart
Blackmagic Design DaVinci Support