DaVinci Resolve 15 Crashes When Titles Added

CWhitworth · Jun 17, 2019

I have been playing with Resolve 15 for a month or so. Very powerful! I have good luck editing clips, transitions, adding dynamic zoom, audio without any trouble at all. After a couple of hours of editing my last flight, I decided to add a title to my masterpiece. Within 10 seconds of adding a title to video track above my video clip, the app just vanished, poof! At first I wasn't sure what had happened, but when I re-launched, there was my project but without any of my edits -all gone.

I tried a new project, this time adding the title to the timeline before anything else. Same result. It just crashed.

Black Magic shows recommended hardware but no minimum requirements. I bought my current PC Dell XPS Desktop Computer i7 back in Feb. It isn't a slouch but maybe not enough of a machine. I don't want to become a "pro" at this so am not interested in upgrading my PC if it is lacking for this program. The graphics are on board which points to a weakness.

Features

3.6 GHz Intel Core i7-7700 Quad-Core
16GB of 2400 MHz DDR4 RAM
AMD Radeon RX 560 Graphics Card (2GB)
1TB 7200 rpm SATA III 3.5" Hard Drive
Windows 10 Home 64bit English

Specs

Operating System: Windows 10 Home (64-Bit)
Power Supply: 460 Watt
Processor Speed: 3.6 GHz
RAM: 16 GB DDR4
Storage Drive: 1 TB 7200 rpm HDD
Network: 1 x 10/100/1000 Mb/s Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45)
Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi 5
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0
Color: Silver
Number of USB 3.0 Ports: 7

Maybe a less demanding program is in order? I don't want to go the Premiere route with it's attendant cost. Thoughts?

Thomas B · Jun 17, 2019

Did you try saving your edits, closing the file and maybe closing and restarting DaVinci before adding the title? It may be that your computer had all its RAM tied up. Windows OS often have this “memory leak”.

CWhitworth · Jun 17, 2019

At work, but this evening I will give it a try. If that is the solution, not good. Reminds of my very first editing software Pinnacle Studio 4. You had to shut off everything in the Systray to maximize available processing and it was still very unstable.

Thanks for the tip, though.

rovino · Jun 17, 2019

Is your title a separate file? What format are you using or are you trying it in Fusion?

rovino · Jun 17, 2019

rovino said:
Is your title a separate file? What format are you using or are you trying it in Fusion?

Also IIRC your system ram may be on the low end of the spectrum size wise.

Mossiback · Jun 17, 2019

Things may have changed, but Resolve does a lot of its work on the graphics card and used to require CUDA capability which is a part of the higher end Nvida cards.

CWhitworth · Jun 17, 2019

rovino said:
Is your title a separate file? What format are you using or are you trying it in Fusion?

Well, first I was doing a lesson provided by Black Magic. The first one in this guide was a "one minute movie" The lesson was well designed and really showcased many of the available tools. So I was going along pretty well and we get to the part where it instructs you to go to the effects library/titles/fusion titles/title rise fade - drop it above the given clip. I did and the top of the timeline all of a sudden displayed a very thin red line spanning the width of the visible timeline. A few seconds later, it crashed. Bummed, because it had taken me about an hour to assemble the clips, audio, dynamic zoom effect, etc to get to this point. and it was just gone.

I of course reopened Resolve and tried it again. No dice. I then opened it up again to a new project and this time dropped a non-fusion title onto the video timeline. It too, crashed after a few seconds.

I get that the software is free and I shouldn't complain but it is useless to me if I can't add text of any kind.

CWhitworth · Jun 17, 2019

Mossiback said:
Things may have changed, but Resolve does a lot of its work on the graphics card and used to require CUDA capability which is a part of the higher end Nvida cards.

This is what I am fearing. I find Resolve to be just fine and in most ways works similarly to every other non-linear program I have seen or used, but am not married to it or need most of what it can do. Just a hobbyist organizing clips from my MA.

CWhitworth · Jun 17, 2019

rovino said:
Also IIRC your system ram may be on the low end of the spectrum size wise.

I would think the video RAM of 2 Gigs is low but 16 gigs of system RAM?

Kilrah · Jun 17, 2019

Are you using the current release, and... not a cracked Studio version?

Mossiback · Jun 17, 2019

CWhitworth said:
I would think the video RAM of 2 Gigs is low but 16 gigs of system RAM?

According to the Resolve configuration guide, "DaVinci Resolve performs all image processing in the GPU" (graphics card). It further states; "For some operations, 4 GB will be sufficient. 2 GB is not recommended." 16 GB is also shown as the minimum recommended system RAM.

CWhitworth · Jun 17, 2019

Mossiback said:
According to the Resolve configuration guide, "DaVinci Resolve performs all image processing in the GPU" (graphics card). It further states; "For some operations, 4 GB will be sufficient. 2 GB is not recommended." 16 GB is also shown as the minimum recommended system RAM.

Well, there you have it! Goodbye Resolve. I will see if there is a reasonable path to get a new video card that will work. Sounds like I should be looking for a card with maybe 8 gigs of RAM to be safe. Anyone have any tips or suggestions?

Thomas B · Jun 17, 2019

CWhitworth said:
Well, there you have it! Goodbye Resolve. I will see if there is a reasonable path to get a new video card that will work. Sounds like I should be looking for a card with maybe 8 gigs of RAM to be safe. Anyone have any tips or suggestions?

Consider a dual processor video card. Get the largest capacity you can afford to avoid planned obsolescence.

CWhitworth · Jun 17, 2019

Kilrah said:
Are you using the current release, and... not a cracked Studio version?

No, downloaded from the Black Magic site.

Kilrah · Jun 17, 2019

Thomas B said:
Consider a dual processor video card.

That's basically not a thing nowadays, you can count those on one hand and there's absolutely no need to get one of them for this purpose.

MPone · Jun 17, 2019

Try to optimize your media and run at a quarter resolution. It takes less processing power.

Kilrah · Jun 18, 2019

Seems the problem is the GPU memory use for this particular title/effect. I get the same crash on a computer with integrated graphics, but on my "real" machine with a 8GB GTX1070 it's OK, and I can see the GPU mem usage by Resolve shoot up from about 1GB to 3GB when adding the effect. So 2GB of video RAM is probably not enough for this and likely some other effects.

You'll likely have similar issues with other programs.

CWhitworth · Jun 18, 2019

Kilrah said:
Seems the problem is the GPU memory use for this particular title/effect. I get the same crash on a computer with integrated graphics, but on my "real" machine with a 8GB GTX1070 it's OK, and I can see the GPU mem usage by Resolve shoot up from about 1GB to 3GB when adding the effect. So 2GB of video RAM is probably not enough for this and likely some other effects.

You'll likely have similar issues with other programs.

Would y have a less expensive option? The card you mention costs as much or more than my PC. I’m not a professional.