BlackMagic’s DaVinci Resolve software made a name for itself as THE premium hollywood
color grading tool, but has been getting constant updates and improvements to the extent that
it has become a VERY powerful timeline video editor, with a decode and encode engine that
far surpasses what Adobe Premiere uses.
I’ve covered it quite a bit on my channel over the past few months - ever since picking
up my BlackMagic Ursa Mini Pro video camera - including a cool collab with Wendell from
Level1Techs.
One of the amazing features of the paid “Studio” version of Resolve is the ability to set up
a dedicated Render Server that you send your projects to for final rendering and export,
that way your primary machine is free to keep editing or do something else.
This is also really great for editing teams.
We cover more of why you might want to do this in the previous video, linked in the
description.
Also down there will be a link to an accompanying post on the Level1 Forums, as this is a very
lengthy and dense video, so you might want a written guide to follow with the video.
Come chat with us there!
Windows Installation
In this video, I’ll walk you through setting up a DaVinci Resolve render server on Windows
and showing you how to connect to it and send render jobs to it from other machines - including
Linux and Mac computers.
In another video I’ll walk you through setting the server up on Linux if that’s more your
speed.
And if there's demand, I can even do a setup guide for doing this on Mac, but there will
have to be demand for that.
Requirements
For this you will need a few things.
I’m using Windows 10.
Also, you’ll need a dedicated GPU.
If you’re using Nvidia, you’ll need the proprietary drivers for your card installed
- I installed the 4.17-ish drivers at initial setup, but there are newer ones available.
You can use AMD cards, but Resolve will not utilize both Nvidia and AMD cards for the
software in the same machine.
And you’ll have best results with Nvidia graphics cards and NvEnc acceleration - at
least for now.
Make sure you’re on the latest drivers for your graphics card.
That will be helpful in general.
Choosing parts How you build out your render server is ultimately
up to you.
My first render server build was my old AMD FX-9590 rig with a Noctua NH-D15 cooler, 32GB
of RAM and a Nvidia GTX 970.
I added a GTX 750ti to it to test GPU scaling, as well.
With Wendell at Level1Techs HQ we built a ridiculous render machine with the AMD Threadripper
2970X, 64GB of RAM and 4 GPUs!
2 2080ti cards, a 1080ti, and a 1080 - or something like that, though the PSU could
only support 2 GPUs at a time without kicking off during render.
We tried.
With our testing and the sample projects I put together, we saw minimal scaling in actual
render times with multiple GPUs and jumping from 1080ti’s to 2080ti’s - but especially
if you’re working with beefy 8K RED footage or something like that, multi-GPU will definitely
benefit timeline performance while editing - but then you want those in your editing
machine before adding more to your rendering machine.
The benefit being that even if your render machine renders slower than your editing PC,
your editing PC is free to keep working.
I would recommend aiming for a minimum of 32GB of RAM in your render PC, 64GB preferred
- as Resolve with 4K or higher footage can chew through RAM and VRAM.
But again, prioritize specs in your editing PC for timeline performance first.
The specs you need mostly depends on the videos you’ll be making.
The decoders and encoders you’re using and the accelerations they can utilize, the kinds
of effects, transitions, and scaling you’re doing, etc.
With the higher-end NLEs, there’s no hard rule of “X program can’t utilize more
than Y resources” - different workloads have different needs.
I can make Resolve 100% max out my main system’s 64GB of RAM, 11GB of VRAM and all 36 threads
on my i9, but that doesn’t mean a more normal 8-core CPU won’t work wonders for you in
the software.
My new rig I just built during my Gamdias Talos P1 RGB case review features the Intel
Core i7-6900K, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX RAM at 3000Mhz, the GTX 1080 and 970, and
a super fast NVMe SSD from Adata XPG, as well.
This will be both a render server and streaming rig, and has the specs to back it up!
Build whatever you want.
Installing Resolve
Thankfully, installing Resolve on Windows is fairly straightforward, you’ll just need
to pay attention while running the installer.
Download the DaVinci Resolve Studio installer from BlackMagic’s website.
Thankfully Studio users don’t have to type in all our personal information each time,
we can just hit “Download only.”
Run the installer.
When prompted, make sure you check ALL of the boxes for which features to install.
Especially important is PostgreSQL, (I always say this wrong) as that is what we will need
to make the Remote Rendering workflow work.
Also, if you plan on using 10 gigabit networking, set up and configure your specific NIC to
make sure things are running properly before proceeding.
Configure Networking
Once done, you need to let PostgreSQL through Windows Firewall.
If you have third-party firewall software set up, you’ll have separate steps for that
software.
For allowing access through the Windows Firewall, hit the Start button and type “Firewall.”
Click on “Windows Defender Firewall”.
Click “Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall” on the left.
Click where it says “Change Settings” and approve the UAC security prompt.
Click “Allow another app…”
Click “Browse” next to path and find the “psql.exe” file located in:
C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.5\bin Replace “9.5” with whatever version number
happened to install for you.
Click “Add” and check the box for Private or Public - or both, depending on your network
setup.
You will want to allow access through the firewall for Resolve's executable if it wasn't
done during installation, as well.
Click “OK” and save and close the Firewall window.
This needs done on all machines you wish to interact with DaVinci Resolve’s shared database
and remote rendering.
Next, you’ll want to set up file sharing between your two PCs.
I’m editing on Windows and rendering on Linux, but it’s probably easier to just
communicate between Linux or between Windows boxes, firewall providing.
I also store my footage on Synology NAS drives, and mounting these on Linux can be finicky.
I primarily use mapped network paths in Windows Explorer, but Resolve cooperates better if
you map shares to drive letters.
So I kinda recommend doing that even if you only use them for Resolve.
When you’re at “This PC”, open the options ribbon and select “Map Network Drive.”
Browse to your file share, give it a drive letter and a name, and you’re good to go!
If your mapped drive letters are different across machines, Resolve lets you assign an
alias to the mount on the render machine so it can know that X: on your editing machine
is really Y: on your render machine.
If you can’t connect to shares between the PCs, your Firewall rules and networking isn’t
set up correctly.
Disabling the Firewall entirely can usually fix this, but isn’t a solution for everyone
obviously.
You’ll have to dig into matching your Workgroups, Private or Public network rules, etc. and
make sure the two PCs can chat before Resolve can connect.
Project Database/Server
It’s time to actually launch DaVinci Resolve.
Activate with your license key, or make sure your USB dongle is inserted before launching.
Go through setup.
We’re going to set up a Project server that manages and sees the project files.
Both the editing client and the render server need to be connected to the same Project database
- and the projects imported or created on that database, but the database server does
NOT need to be running on the render server itself.
That just makes it easier when you're on a two system setup.
Some editing studios use a Mac Mini with its fast storage as the project database server.
I’m not really sure why you’d want that as a separate node in your configuration,
but it is possible, so keep that in mind.
Let’s make a shared database.
Once you’ve installed Resolve, on Windows you have an actual “Resolve Project Server”
shortcut.
Run that.
You may need to go ahead and run Resolve itself and get it activated before this.
Be sure to approve any Firewall Exception prompts that may appear along the way.
In the Project Server window, click “New Database” at the top.
Give it a name.
Once created, click on it in the database list and click “Enable Sharing” at the
top.
Approve the UAC prompt for editing the config file, and you’re good to go.
Open Resolve itself, and expand the “Databases” side panel.
Click on “New Database.”
In the window that appears, click the “PostgreSQL” radio button.
Choose the name of your server and hit “Connect.”
Once your new Database is made and selected, you’ll have an empty project list, or an
auto-generated “Untitled Project.”
(Leave that one there.)
If you need to move projects from a local database or another PC’s database, select
the project in its appropriate database project manager, right click and hit “Export”.
Save the file.
This can take a good amount of time for bigger projects, and it doesn’t really indicate
that anything is happening.
If the program becomes unresponsive, leave it for a bit until it’s done.
Once finished, navigate to your new shared Database, right click in the empty space and
hit “Import.”
Select that file.
Again, this may take time and become unresponsive, or take a lot of time, let it do its thing.
You may have to re-link your footage the first time you open it after moving it between databases.
Simply select your footage in the Media workspace, right click and choose “Relink media”
and navigate to the folder its stored in.
Next, you want to connect to your shared Database on your editing client computer on the same
network.
Open Resolve’s Project Manager, click “New Database” and leave it on “Connect”
this time.
Choose the PostgreSQL radio button.
Type the name, IP address, username, and password that you just set on the render server (or
project server) and hit Add.
You will need the local IP address of the render machine.
To get this, open a command prompt window and type:
Ipconfig And hit enter
Typically the network device you want starts with 192.168 - but this may differ depending
on your networking.
But if it is something else, you probably already know what you're doing.
If PostgreSQL is set up properly on both machines and your networking is cooperating, it should
add the server and you be good to go.
If not, check on your PostgreSQL configuration.
On Windows you will have to add PostgreSQL allowed access through your Windows Firewall
on both machines.
Now, whenever you make new projects, you should create them in the shared database from the
start and be good to go so both computers can see the projects.
Resolve Settings Now go ahead and open that “Untitled Project”
- as we need to change some settings in Resolve.
Click the DaVinci Resolve menu and click “Preferences.”
I recommend watching some guides or reading the manual to fully optimize these for your
machines, but I’ll cover relevant ones here.
Under “Memory and GPU”, set how much memory you want Resolve to have access to - you’ll
know if you need specific settings for this, otherwise all of it is probably fine.
Leave “GPU Processing Mode” on Auto unless you have a reason to do otherwise, but check
“Use display GPU for compute” unless you have a reason to do otherwise.
If you don’t do this, on single-GPU systems, you’ll just end up doing all your rendering
in software CPU mode only.
Here you can also make sure your GPUs are detected properly.
You can use multiple GPUs - no need for SLI or anything, you can mix and match within
the Nvidia platform, but Resolve only utilizes CUDA, and thus Nvidia GPUs for the time being.
It can work with AMD GPUs, but it can't use both AMD and Nvidia GPUs within the same system,
so build them with the same platform in mind.
Go to “Decode Options” and make sure all the boxes are checked.
This is fine on Windows, but “Use GPU for BlackMagic RAW decode” causes glitching
and crashing on Linux at the moment.
Of course, if you are never going to utilize Blackmagic’s RAW codec from their cameras
this isn’t an issue, but worth checking anyway.
Make sure the other 3 boxes are checked.
Next, go to “Media Storage.”
Here, add your local network share and your footage locations.
The “Mount” column is where the storage mounts are located according to the render
machine itself.
“Mapped Mount” lets you input a secondary mount location, which will be where it is
mounted on your editing machine.
Since I use Windows to edit and Linux to render, on my render machine the “Mount” is the
local share and my Synology NAS mount on Linux and then “Mapped Mount” locations are
the drive letters they are mounted to on Windows.
That way Resolve knows where your footage is supposed to be across both machines.
If you’re using Windows on both machines, just make sure your drive letters are set
up properly.
While you can render to a network storage location or even your editing PC from your
render machine - you’ll get the best performance out of writing to a drive local to the rendering
machine.
I recommend setting up a shared “Renders” folder on the render machine, mounting that
on your editing PC, adding those to the Media Storage locations in Resolve and setting your
projects to render there during export for the best performance and fastest renders.
I’ll cover this more in the next section.
This concludes the initial setup, now I’ll show you how to manage render jobs and some
important notes.
Sending a Remote Render
Now that we have the Database set up, you’re able to create and edit projects.
To prepare your render server for remote rendering, open that “Untitled Project” in your shared
Database, then go to the “Workspace” menu and choose “Remote Rendering.”
This will let you monitor queued render jobs, the progress of the ongoing render, etc. - but
does not let you interact with the software.
At the time of recording, the DaVinci Resolve manual still references a special Remote Rendering
workspace accessible by right-clicking the empty space in the Project Manager that acts
more as a smaller que - BUT this is outdated.
This workspace is no longer available, and you must open an empty project and use the
Workspace menu to access it.
BlackMagic staff are aware of the issue and will update the manual in time.
You can also launch a headless remote render server by sending the launch command via a
command prompt with “-rr” at the end.
So navigate to the “DaVinci Resolve” folder in program files and sending “Resolve -rr”
But this is 100% headless, you don’t even get terminal-based feedback as to how renders
are progressing or anything, so I don’t like this approach.
Once you’re ready to render something, it’s time to head to the “Deliver” tab in Resolve
(on your editing computer).
Give your render a file name.
For “Location” you want to browse to a directory mapped and listed in Resolve on
both machines.
Again, I recommend telling it to render on a local drive inside the render machine for
best performance.
Make sure you have write access to that folder in your folder sharing settings.
Choose your format settings and hit “Add to Render Queue.”
BEFORE you hit “Start Render”, click the little signal or wireless-looking icon next
to the queue entry and choose the name of your render server.
The project has to be open from within the PostgreSQL database for this to show up.
It’s also worth noting here that in a big multi-editor and multi-server workflow, you
can actually just tell it to render on “any available machine” which might have some
workflow benefits for you.
There are a couple VERY important considerations with your video format, however.
On Windows, Resolve can utilize its own “Native” H264 encoder, but this is not available on
Linux.
If you try to send a render job to a Linux render server with the “Native” encoder
option selected for H264, it will error out because that encoder is unavailable on the
server.
The same thing applies if you send a Nvidia encoder job to a machine without a Nvidia
GPU.
Also, if you’re editing on Mac, ProRes export in Resolve is unavailable on Windows and Linux.
But DNxHR is a fantastic multiplatform mezzanine codec that works on them all and renders quite
fast in Resolve.
If you’re using third-party OFX Plugins, you need to make sure they’re installed
across all involved machines.
Conclusion Hopefully with this guide, updates notwithstanding,
you are able to set up and run your own DaVinci Resolve render server and start offloading
your render tasks, or allowing for more efficient team work.
If something is not working right - typically it has to do with PostgreSQL or Windows Firewall
configuration, so I’d start there.
BlackMagic’s forums are always there for help from other users, and check out my post
in the Level1 forums as well, all linked below.
Down there also includes links to my other videos on the subject.
While you’re there, hit the like button if you found this guide helpful, subscribe
for more tech education, and consider supporting on Patreon, Donorbox, YouTube channel memberships,
paypal, Ko-Fi, etc. and join our Discord server.
I’m EposVox and I’ll see you next time.