Editing (with Da Vinci) on my Surface Book

LhommeCornichon · Jun 27, 2019

Hi guys !

So I'm back to editing after a few years out of touch. Mainly 1080p clips and coverage (for friends, charity and myself).
Back in the days I used Premiere Pro but I don't wanna bother with a crack version of something again.
I tried a few softwares and felt in love with Da Vinci Resolve 15-free version. It's very smooth and easy to use until it keeps crashing when I'm adding something as trivia as a Fusion title.

I have a first gen Surface Book i5-6300U CPU, 8go Ram and using an external HDD. I haven't a GPU (so Intel HD Graphics 500 I guess ?). Is this the cause ? Should I give up on that software or even change my laptop ?

Thanks !

Deleted member 23893 · Jun 27, 2019

Can't speak to the specifics of Resolve as I've only used it a few times, but at one point I had a Surface Book 1st gen and it was incredibly undependable, and especially when trying to do any sort of motion graphics. (Adobe wise at least.)

GPU wise, there was one point when I was using a GPU dependent plugin in After Effects, and even tho I had the discrete GPU base, the SB would default back to running AE as an integrated intel graphics app, resulting in crashes. So a lack of the GPU might factor into what you're trying to do.

Unrelated to your problem, but I also went thru 3 replacements, as the build quality was horrible, and on occasion if I was editing anything using the GPU, and the SB got jostled the wrong way, it would cause it to think I had detached the screen, and the whole thing would crash.

Hate to say it because I spent so much on it, but I hated my surface book experience as a post-production guy. Too many moving parts, too "cleverly" designed to be dependable as an edit machine. (Sorry to vent. That laptop scarred me lol)

LordofPwn · Jun 27, 2019

My understanding is Resolve is a pretty GPU reliant piece of software but i was checking the minimum specs for 15 and it says 16GB, for fusion it recommends 32 GB so that could also be part of the problem.

Minimum system requirements for Windows

Windows 10 Creators Update

16 GB of system memory is recommended and 32 GB is recommended minimum when using Fusion

Blackmagic Design Desktop Video version 10.4.1 or later

NVIDIA/AMD/Intel GPU Driver version – As required by your GPU

RED Rocket-X Driver 2.1.34.0 and Firmware 1.4.22.18 or later

RED Rocket Driver 2.1.23.0 and Firmware 1.1.18.0 or later

you can also check out the configuration guide on their support page but basically you're going to need something much beefier GPU and RAM wise in order to really use Resolve

LhommeCornichon · Jun 27, 2019

sthef360 said:
Hate to say it because I spent so much on it, but I hated my surface book experience as a post-production guy. Too many moving parts, too "cleverly" designed to be dependable as an edit machine. (Sorry to vent. That laptop scarred me lol)

What are you using nowadays ?

LordofPwn said:
My understanding is Resolve is a pretty GPU reliant piece of software but i was checking the minimum specs for 15 and it says 16GB, for fusion it recommends 32 GB so that could also be part of the problem.

you can also check out the configuration guide on their support page but basically you're going to need something much beefier GPU and RAM wise in order to really use Resolve

Yep I checked. I thought I would be fine with light editing. It's so strange that everything CPU related works so smoothly even with an i5 and 8go Ram but when I'm rendering a fade in title for three seconds it's a nightmare. I updated the Intel Graphic cards pilotes and it stopped crashing but now it takes ages to render the most simple task.

I'm torn because I hate editing solutions as VSDC, Magix, Vegas, and I'm enjoying my experience with my Surface Book. It seems that an eGPU solution is off the table, even if I did upgrade to a SB2 (it doesn't support thunderbolt 3) and a Surface Book 2 with a dGPU is a lot of money. Damn.

LordofPwn · Jun 27, 2019

it's probably fine if you're working offline or with proxies but not for delivery if that makes sense. I personally haven't used resolve 15, or any version of resolve for editing. I think i'm still on 13 or 14 at home, and I just use it for color work. I've heard good things about editing in resolve but those impressions are from people using more expensive hardware.

LhommeCornichon · Jun 27, 2019

LordofPwn said:
it's probably fine if you're working offline or with proxies but not for delivery if that makes sense. I personally haven't used resolve 15, or any version of resolve for editing. I think i'm still on 13 or 14 at home, and I just use it for color work. I've heard good things about editing in resolve but those impressions are from people using more expensive hardware.

You lost me, I don't get that sentence :)

LordofPwn · Jun 27, 2019

LhommeCornichon said:
You lost me, I don't get that sentence :)

so offline editing is editing without the source media, usually with proxy files that are lower resolution so not as resource intensive. some cameras automatically create proxy files. other times you would create proxy files if your original media is RAW or just super hi-res. for instance the camera I have can shoot in a RAW format where every single frame is 5MB so 1 minute of video at 24fps is over 7GB. way too big to work with for most systems.

Delivery is final file output, it's usually it's own page in Resolve.

Deleted member 23893 · Jun 27, 2019

LhommeCornichon said:
What are you using nowadays ?.

Boring answer, but I moved back to a MacBook Pro as my main edit laptop.

LhommeCornichon · Jun 30, 2019

I'm on the fence on upgrading my Surface Book to a model with GPU.

Found a SB2, a used one, at 1600€ with a i7 proc, 512Gb SSD, 16Gb ram and a GTX 1050.
There's a way cheaper one with a GTX 965m and Gen 1 SB.

Still don't know if it's worthy.

On a side note something weird happened. Doing renders takes forever running across the timeline in resolve, but to gain some time I can do an export and go back to my project on Resolve and everything is rendered and works fine.

LordofPwn said:
so offline editing is editing without the source media, usually with proxy files that are lower resolution so not as resource intensive. some cameras automatically create proxy files. other times you would create proxy files if your original media is RAW or just super hi-res. for instance the camera I have can shoot in a RAW format where every single frame is 5MB so 1 minute of video at 24fps is over 7GB. way too big to work with for most systems.

Delivery is final file output, it's usually it's own page in Resolve.

Ok I get it. At least I'm working with "light" files.

sthef360 said:
Boring answer, but I moved back to a MacBook Pro as my main edit laptop.

What spec is your machine ?

LordofPwn · Jul 1, 2019

LhommeCornichon said:
Ok I get it. At least I'm working with "light" files.

if you're working with MP4 files the file size may be small but still require a lot of processing power to work with smoothly. the computer has to uncompress them.