GUI Graphics card Clarifications

Here is the thing. There are probably lots of different combinations of cards, computers etc that "will work" but the team at BM has done a lot of testing to bring the Resolve to market. My feeling is that even though something might work why take the chance? The last thing that I want to happen is in the middle of a supervised session things go wrong. I've been running the GT120 + GTX285 in an early 2009 2.93 8 Core and the machine screams, haven't had any serious issues at all. Talking to the Resolve team they're very very dedicated to qualifying new graphics cards and machines as they come to market and they can test them.

I have both the FX4800 and the GTX 285 (which is installed) while the FX4800 is a more expensive card and much easier to find at this point, you do get much better performance out of the 285. I tested this about two weeks ago extensively.

I know a lot of people who want to run one machine for Resolve and Color. Personally I'm not doing that but I spent all day on friday and most of yesterday testing this just to see. (I have two machines one for Color one for resolve with a KVM between them) I want to be clear what I'm about to say is not recommended by Apple and probably not by BM but all worked well. The big secret? I simply switched my monitors from being plugged into the GT120 for Resolve and plugged them into the GTX 285 to run Color. I had some problems if I tried to do this while the system was booted so if you're going to try this experiment I'd recommend shutting down first. After rebooting I was able to run Color just fine, rendering on the GTX 285 (which color will use since its the card plugged in) seemed to be as fast if not faster then the ATI 4870 that I previously had in that system. You have to run in either 8 bit or Floating point but for me is fine since I run Color in floating point even with ATI cards.

Again THIS CONFIG IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. Not what I will be doing so your milage my vary. Personally the "hacking" type approach to running these systems makes me nervous in a professional setting. I trust that BM is not just telling us what cards and machines to run just "because" but because they've spent the time and effort to really test these configurations as robust setups ready for demanding client work.

For what its worth you can find GT120s and GTX 285s on ebay for very cheap. I just looked- GT120's for about $80-100 and GTX285s for about $400. If you have the machine already spending $1500 for the software and two cards seems like a no brainer to be on a system as powerful and robust as Resolve.

Robbie Carman
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You won't be able to get a new Mac GTX 285 most likely. Most of the ones I've seen on eBay are flashed, but occasionally a used authentic Mac GTX will pop up.

Also...online resellers have a bad habit of not updating their sites, so make sure to call to see if the card is in stock before you order.

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Well, I think ts only a matter of days or weeks until we will see the new generation of nVidia for Mac. The drivers are already there in the latest OSX betas.
If you need it today and have a paid job, get the Quadro.
If you plan on building a kickass system, wait a while...

[Joseph Mastantuono] "I also noticed in Walter Biscardi's great blog that he's not running a dual GPU setup, (at the cost of some realtime functions obv.) I don't like the idea of down grading to the GeForce 120, and I would like to still be able to run Apple Color with a ATI gfx card in there."

As Luke has already chimed in here, you do require the nVidia cards to run Resolve. I had an ATI 4870 in my machine and pulled it out for the Quadro 4800.

I will say Resolve runs incredibly well with just the one GPU in there. That has been a pleasant surprise for me since we only have the one slot available for GPU in our current setup.

When we open our new facility in a few months, I will have a dedicated machine for Resolve and that machine will have the dual GPUs, at least I'm expecting it to. Just depends on how many other slots are needed for other things. But it's good to know that Resolve is a very responsive application even with the one GPU.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
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All -- Slot space can become a limiting factor. I've had very good results using iSCSI on the Mac (even on the Macmini !). I'm using the iSCSI initiator from ATTO (there is a free one from GlobalSAN, too). I use the ATTO iSCSI initiator with the PARALAN iSCSI hardware (ethernet to 68-pin SCSI bridge). And with ATTO's D2700, which is a fibrechannel-to-ethernet bridge. Qlogic also makes the SANbox 6142 (another ethernet to FC bridge hardware device). If you don't have a 'spare' slot, and need one, these may bail you out.

Hey Walter,

Thanks very much for your information. That's great news and useful to other people in this forum.

I love the irony of the latest Mac Pro doing away with the need for a Small Tree Ethernet Card but also a new product from Small Tree doing away with the need for a Mac Pro. That's beautiful :-)

Regards,

Luke Maslen
Blackmagic Design