Resolve opened, but before your project even loads, a GPU Configuration Warning stops you. In most cases the graphics card is fine - Resolve is simply pointed at the wrong GPU or the wrong processing mode. Here is the complete fix, in the right order.
DaVinci Resolve does almost all of its image processing on the graphics card, not the CPU. So when it starts and cannot configure the GPU the way it expects, it warns you immediately instead of letting you edit on a crippled setup. The warning looks scary, but read it calmly: it is usually a settings problem, not dead hardware. Work through the fixes below in order - the first two solve it for most people.
The dialog is not just an error, it is a shortcut. Click Update Configuration and Resolve opens Preferences directly on the GPU page. If you already closed the dialog, open it yourself:
Auto sounds safe, but Auto is exactly what guessed wrong on your machine. The next two fixes replace the guess with a definite choice.
Untick the Auto checkbox next to GPU Processing Mode and choose the mode that matches your graphics card:
The classic warning appears when Resolve wanted CUDA or Metal but silently fell back to OpenCL because the preferred path failed. Forcing the correct mode tells Resolve exactly which door to use - and if that door is genuinely broken, you now get a clear, honest error instead of a vague one.
Now untick Auto under GPU Selection and look at the list of GPUs Resolve found. On laptops and many desktops there are two entries - a weak integrated GPU (Intel UHD, Intel Iris, AMD Radeon Graphics built into the processor) and your real dedicated card (NVIDIA GeForce RTX, AMD Radeon RX and similar).
If the warning is gone after the restart, you are done. This one change - telling Resolve which card is the real one - is the single most common fix for this warning.
If the mode and the selection are correct but the warning returns, the next suspect is the driver. Resolve checks the driver before it trusts the card, and a driver that is too old for your Resolve version produces messages like Unable to run in CUDA mode as the installed NVIDIA driver is incompatible.
Sometimes the warning is telling the truth about the hardware. Resolve needs a GPU that supports Metal (Mac), CUDA (NVIDIA) or OpenCL 1.2 or later, with enough video memory for your footage. Very old cards - early 2010s models especially - fall outside that list, and no setting can change it.
Before spending money, confirm it properly: check your exact card model against the minimum specifications Blackmagic publishes for your Resolve version on its support page. If the card is genuinely unsupported, the realistic options are a newer graphics card, or an older Resolve version that still accepted your card - with the understanding that you give up newer features. Do not keep reinstalling Resolve; the software is not the broken part.
The video shows this exact warning being cleared live - which setting changed, which driver was installed, and how to confirm the fix held after a restart.
▶️ Watch Full VideoBecause Resolve could not initialise your graphics card the way it expects - it picked the wrong GPU, fell back from CUDA or Metal to OpenCL, or found a driver it cannot work with. It is a configuration problem first and a hardware problem only in a minority of cases.
Update Configuration only opens the Preferences page. The fix becomes permanent when you set the correct processing mode, select your dedicated GPU manually, save, and restart Resolve. If the cause was an old driver, the warning returns until the driver is updated.
Not properly. Resolve's colour, effects and playback engines are built on GPU processing. With no usable GPU it may refuse to start, fall back to painfully slow CPU processing, or fail during rendering - a supported graphics card is a real requirement, not a recommendation.