I cut my videos on my laptop with DaVinci Resolve, but as soon as I layer multiple effects on top of each other or work in 1080p, everything gets super laggy. It's really annoying to work with. Is there anything I can do about it, or do I just have to deal with my older device?
The problem is probably that your laptop can't handle real-time preview. In DaVinci Resolve, you can lower the playback resolution in the project settings - that helps a ton. Instead of working in full 1080p, you can switch to 1/2 or 1/4 resolution, and when you export it still comes out in full quality. That makes the actual editing way smoother. Also just reduce the playback quality (in the player at the bottom right, where the percentage is).
Second thing: check your effects. Some filters are really resource-heavy, especially if you're stacking multiple ones. Sometimes it's worth collapsing individual effect chains or only rendering to the final export at the end of the timeline instead of calculating everything live. If you're making a lot of cuts at once, creating proxies can also be useful - DaVinci has its own menu for that. That way you work with compressed versions and the export uses your original files again later.
If nothing really helps, you could also just accept that you have to wait a bit while editing and rather disable the preview during playback. It's mainly annoying while you're working anyway, not during export - and the export runs in the background anyway.
If you want to get rid of even more stuttering, try the proxy function in Resolve - it creates low-resolution versions of your clips that the program can work with much more smoothly. You'll be editing with smaller files, but once you're done, the effects render back to the original quality. That's honestly a game changer when you're working with older laptops and still don't want to skip out on effects.
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