GPU/Hardware Encoding/Acceleration FAQs

General Support / Questions Hardware Encoding
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This topic is a compilation of the FAQs related to GPU and Hardware encoding

1. What platforms and devices are supported for GPU encoding

MCEBuddy supports Intel (QuickSync), NVidia (NVENC/CUDA) and AMD (VCN/VCE/AMF) which are used for decoding and encoding H.264, H.265/HEVC and AV1.

See FAQ 2 for driver requirements

To use Intel QuickSync

  • H.264 hardware encoders, Intel Sandy Bridge (1st Generation Core) or newer chipsets
  • H.265 hardware encoders, Intel Broadwell (4th Generation Core) or newer chipsets
  • AV1 hardware encoders, Intel ARC Graphics, Meteor Lake (1st Gen Ultra Core), Arrow Lake (15th Generation Core) or newer chipsets

To use NVidia NVENC encoders

  • H.264 hardware encoding, CUDA hardware capability version 3.0 or later (Kepler or newer)
  • H.265 hardware encoding, CUDA hardware capability version 5.2 or later (Maxwell GM2xx or newer)
  • AV1 hardware encoding, CUDA hardware capability version 8.9 or later ( Ada Lovelace AD1xx or newer)

List of hardware encoding compatible NVidia GPUs: Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix | NVIDIA Developer and nVidia Hardware Transcoding Calculator for Plex Estimates

For Pascal based cards used driver 376.51. See this post - Hardware Acceleration with new Nvidia Pascal based cards

To use AMD AMF/VCE/VCN

  • H.264 hardware encoding, Radeon 7700, R7 250E, FirePro, Radeon R5 or newer GPU
  • H.265 hardware encoding, Radeon RX 400, Radeon R9, FirePro W7100/S7100X, Vega/II, Navi or newer GPU
  • AV1 hardware encoding, Navi 3x, Radeon RX 7000 or newer GPU

2. What are the stable graphics drivers for Intel QuickSync, NVIDIA NVENC and AMD AMF/VCE/VCN

QuickSync: These drivers have been uploaded for your convenience here:

Windows 7/8.1 (build 15.33.30.3958)
32bit - Dropbox - Intel_10.18.10.3958 x86_15.33.30.3958.exe - Simplify your life
64bit - Dropbox - Intel_ 10.18.10.3958 x64_15.33.30.3958.exe - Simplify your life

Windows 10 (build 15.40.8.64.4281)
Dropbox - Intel_Win_10_8_7_10.18.15.4281_x64.zip - Simplify your life

Windows 11 (DCH driver build 30.0.101.1340)
Dropbox - igfx_win_101.1340.zip - Simplify your life

NVIDIA: Requires driver version 531.61 or higher drivers (nvenc API v12.1+)

Win 7/8.1 (v441.66) - https://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/Quadro_Certified/441.66/441.66-quadro-desktop-notebook-win8-win7-64bit-international-whql.exe

Win 10/11 (WHQL DCH v552.22) - > https://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/Quadro_Certified/552.22/552.22-quadro-rtx-desktop-notebook-win10-win11-64bit-international-dch-whql.exe

Nvidia Pascal based cards used driver 376.51. See this post - Hardware Acceleration with new Nvidia Pascal based cards

AMD: The stable driver tested is v26.20.12028.2 (which is part of Windows Update)

Win 10 - Dropbox - amd-radeon-v26.20.12028.2-Win10x64.zip - Simplify your life

Other stable drivers are given below (see FAQ 10)

3. My conversion keeps hanging when I enable Hardware Encoding

If the conversion works when you disable Hardware Encoding (Conversion Task Settings → Advanced Settings → Expert Settings → Enable Hardware Encoding) then most likely your driver is unstable (since the encoding is done via the graphics driver).

See above to get the most stable graphics driver.

4. How do I know if MCEBuddy is using hardware acceleration

This is a two step process, first find out if your system and driver support hardware acceleration and then check if the encoder is using it.

DETERMINING HARDWARE CAPABILITIES:

Open the conversion log after the conversion is complete. To check if hardware encoding is supported look for these words:

Detected hardware encoder capability ->

It will be followed by the details of all the hardware encoders (Intel, NVidia, AMD) detected and the supported capabilities (e.g. h264Codec, h265Codec, av1Codec etc). true will indicate that that capability supported (if both the hardware and graphics drivers meet the requirements) and false will indicate that it’s not supported.

If your INTEL QUICKSYNC encoder is being used for encoding, in your log look for any of these words

h264_qsv, hevc_qsv, av1_qsv, qsv_h264, qsv_h265, qsv_av1

If none of these words are there then the QuickSync hardware encoder is not being used even if your driver supports it.

If your NVIDIA NVENC encoder is being used for encoding, in your log look for any of these words

h264_nvenc, hevc_nvenc, av1_nvenc, nvenc_h264, nvenc_h265, nvenc_av1

If none of these words are there then the NVENC hardware encoder is not being used even if your driver supports it.

If your AMD AMF/VCE/VCN encoder is being used for encoding, in your log look for any of these words

h264_amf, hevc_amf, av1_amf, vce_h265, vce_h264, vce_av1

If none of these words are there then the AMF hardware encoder is not being used even if your driver supports it.

5. Suddenly my encoding time is taking very long or for some video it takes a long time

Very likely your Intel driver is buggy and is causing issues. Use the recommended version in FAQ 2 and it should resolve your issues. Latest drivers are not always the most stable or faster drivers.

If you have a problematic driver, the symptoms may vary, from slow encoding to hanging the system, crashing the system or error messages in the logs. An example of a buggy driver or if you’re running heavy graphics apps/games while using hardware encoding can take the wind out of the Intel driver and causing it to run out of resources, you might see things like this in the log:

2014-04-15T20:43:36 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → Encoding: task 1 of 1, 0.02 %[20:43:36] qsv_enc_init: using ‘hardware (1)’ implementation, API: 1.3
2014-04-15T20:43:36 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → Error code -1, av_qsv_wait_on_sync 642
2014-04-15T20:43:36 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → Error code -1, av_qsv_wait_on_sync 642
2014-04-15T20:43:36 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → Encoding: tasError code -1, av_qsv_wait_on_sync 642
2014-04-15T20:43:36 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → Encoding: task 1 of 1, 0.06 %not enough to have 10 sync point(s) allocated
2014-04-15T20:43:36 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → ERROR: qsv: Not enough resources allocated for QSV encode

6. My system crashes or my system hangs or I see many errors in my log file when I try to convert a video

If you driver is buggy it can cause unknown issues with your system, because the encoding is done in the video driver and the video driver runs in the kernel space it can use the system to become unstable or even crash. The best way to determine if the video driver is causing the issue is to TURN OFF hardware encoding on the Conversion Options → Expert Settings and then see if the symptoms go away. If do they try to update to a stable driver.

7. Is OpenCL and QuickSync hardware encoding auto enabled OR I’ve enabled quicksync/Intel GPU in the bios but it still says QuickSync is not present?

MCEBuddy will auto detect if you have an Intel QuickSync enabled chipset and enabled QuickSync encoding.

  1. If you have an Intel chipset and another graphics card and MCEBuddy is not detecting the QuickSync, use the Fake Monitor trick (Intel Quick Sync Video on Desktop PC with PCI-E graphics card) to enable the Intel graphics chipset and get MCEBuddy to recognize it.

If you have OpenCL support in your driver, you will need to manually enable support for it since it’s performance varies from system to system and there is no way for MCEBuddy to tell it will make the system faster or slower.

  1. If you have an older CPU like a Pentium/Core/Core 2 and good graphics card from Nvidia or ATI, then you may want to add -U the end of the handbrake-video line in the profile. This will enable hardware decoding. This ONLY works if the GPU is more powerful than the CPU, it will reduce the performance on new CPU’s which are much more powerful at decoding compared to graphics cards.
  2. If you have a newer graphics card (very powerful) which supports OpenCL 1.1 then add -P to the end of the handbrake-video line in the profile. This works if you’re using cropping reducing the video size (or the profile is using lookahead). Again, this will help only with a powerful graphics card with OpenCL drivers. If used on a weak graphics card it can reduce performance.

MCEBuddy cannot auto OpenCL since it is graphics card vs CPU dependent. MCEBuddy can only auto enable QuickSync if detected.

8. My encoding is taking a long time even with hardware acceleration enabled or my FPS appears to be slow/low

GPU encoding performance depends upon many factors which can impact the FPS or time taken to encode. These include:

  1. Profile being used
    • filters in the profile can slow down the conversion if the filter is not supported by the GPU as the CPU will have to handle those filters
    • 2-pass takes more time
    • higher bitrates take more time
    • slower presets take more time
    • enabling cropping and optimizing video quality takes more time
  2. Input and output resolution, HD and high resolutions take significantly longer times
  3. Your GPU and CPU are being used by other processes or you have multiple simultaneous conversions. Check your GPU and CPU utilization using the CPUZ and GPUZ tools while encoding
  4. Check your hardware chipsets being used, some chipsets are faster than others
  5. Check your video driver, buggy or slow video drivers are the primary cause of slow encoding
  6. Enabling hardware decoding on newer CPU’s can slow down the conversion because it can take more time for the video data to be transferred from the CPU to the GPU and then back to the CPU for pre-processing. Hardware decoding works best on older slow CPU’s or when you don’t have any pre-processing (filters, cropping, resizing etc) involved, i.e. decode followed by encode
  7. Sometimes OpenCL settings are incompatible and may cause a slow down in the performance if manually enabled

Depending upon the above factor GPU frame rates (FPS) can vary from 25FPS to 1200 FPS which typically represent a 5x to 100x increase in comparison to non-hardware acceleration performance.

Here is a performance comparison: Hardware v/s Software Encoding Performance Benchmarking

9. What are the other stable drivers for NVIDIA NVENC

The other stable drivers for NVIDIA NVENC/CUDA reported/tested are:

419.67
These drivers are available here:
Windows 10 64bit - NVIDIA Creator Ready Driver | 419.67 | Windows 10 64-bit | NVIDIA

Install the above using the Setup files

10. What are the other stable drivers for Intel QuickSync

The other stable drivers for QuickSync reported/tested are:

22.20.16.4944 (aka 15.65)
These drivers have been uploaded for your convenience here:
Windows 10 64bit - Dropbox - Intel_W10_win64_15.65.3.4944.exe - Simplify your life

Install the above using the Setup files

21.20.16.4839
Windows 7/8.1/10 - Download from Microsoft Update Catalog

Extract the cab files and then install the above by running the file IgxPun.exe

10.18.14.4414 (this is reportedly also the faster performing driver)
These drivers have been uploaded for your convenience here:
32bit - Dropbox - win32_153631.4414.exe - Simplify your life
64bit - Dropbox - win64_153631.4414.exe - Simplify your life

Install the above using the Setup files

10.18.10.3621
These drivers have been uploaded for your convenience here:
32bit - Dropbox - Intel_Win7_8_8.1_32_10.18.10.3621.zip - Simplify your life
64bit - Dropbox - Intel_Win7_8_8.1_64_10.18.10.3621.zip - Simplify your life

10.18.10.3379
These drivers have been uploaded for your convenience here:
32bit - Dropbox - Intel_10.18.10.3379_x86.zip - Simplify your life
64bit - Dropbox - Intel_10.18.10.3379_x64.zip - Simplify your life

The above are ZIP files (repackaged from Windows Update CAB files) and you will need to extract the files and then manually install them through the device manager using the steps below:

  1. Extract the ZIP file contents into a folder (x86 or x64 depending upon your system)
  2. Open Device Manager (from Control Panel)
  3. Look for Display Adapters
  4. Expand it, (note the NAME of your graphics card you will need this in Step 12)
  5. Right click on your Intel graphics device and select Update Driver Software
  6. Select Browse my computer for driver software
  7. Select Let me pick from a list of device drivers from my computer
  8. Click on Have Disk
  9. Click Browse and select the folder where you extracted the file driver files in Step 1
  10. Select the setup information file igdlh and Click Open
  11. Click OK
  12. Select your Graphics card (see the name you noted in Step 4), name SURE you select the correct name here or it won’t work
  13. Click Next. If it gives a Update Driver Warning about Device driver is not recommended … go back and select the right Device Name. Do NOT proceed with the wrong device name as it may crash your system.
  14. It’ll give a warning about Windows can’t verify the publisher, click Install this driver anyway
  15. It’ll install the driver, you may need to reboot
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Just a heads up the nvidia gt 1030 does not support nvenc (hardware encoding). This is the only current exception to the rule that I know of.

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