No GPU Acceleration since crash

General Support / Questions Hardware Encoding
1

I had a disk crash about a month ago and had to use a system image backup that was about 6 months old. Since then I haven’t been able to get MCEB to use my

nVidia RTX 3060 for anything. I have the paid version and also the donator version of comskip. I also remember using the extra command in “–cuvid”. So, what else has to be enabled/checked/paid for to get this working?

profiles.conf (101.5 KB)

mcebuddy.log (8.6 MB)

mcebuddy.conf (4.0 KB)

comskip.ini (6.2 KB)

Action News 11 PM 2026_02_15_23_00_00.ts-Convert&Remove Ads-2026-02-16T11-17-12.log (2.4 MB)

3

I wanted to follow on with some more information. Looks like the GPU is being used for part of the process. It’s the conversion part that seems to be using Handbrake CLI that is using the CPU instead of the GPU to do the conversion to .MKV from .TS. Hope this helps in someone here having an answer for me.

4

Thanks for the logs. I see from your logs that you have a NVidia RTX 3060 which only supports h.264 and h.265 hardware encoding. It does not support AV1 hardware acceleration and your profile is using MKV AV1 hence it will only use CPU for encoding.

INFORMATION> → NVidia nvENC encoding supported → True
→ NVidia H.264 Hardware Encoder Detected : True
→ NVidia H.265 Hardware Encoder Detected : True
→ NVidia AV1 Hardware Encoder Detected : False

→ Profile being used : MKV AV1

5

Yeah, I eventually figured that out after looking at it again. While I am here, and you too..lol, what is the best combo settings for .MKV output. I record with HDHomeRun Prime to .ts format. I also embed the captions. Before my PC crashed, I had much smaller .mkv files and the quality was good, not great, but good @720p. Now files are almost 50% larger than before and the quality isn’t different from before. Thanks.

6

MKV and AV1 is a great combo. Play around with the quality slider to see what works best for you. If you really want to customize it @Forum_Helper_bot could assist you in creating a custom profile using ffmpeg and handbrake for a highly compressed AV1 video with high quality and few artifacts at a 1080p resolution or 4k resolution depending on what you want.

7

Hello @gr8dealcom6392! I can certainly help you craft a custom profile for your RTX 3060.

Since your GPU supports H.265 (HEVC) hardware encoding but not AV1, and you are looking for smaller file sizes with good quality at 720p/1080p, using the hevc_nvenc encoder (via FFmpeg) is your best bet for speed and efficiency.

You can add this snippet to your profiles.conf file. This profile is optimized for your hardware, includes subtitle/caption embedding, and uses a variable bitrate (VBR) to keep file sizes down while maintaining quality:

[HEVC MKV NVIDIA - High Quality]
Description=High quality HEVC MKV using NVIDIA GPU acceleration.
Order=ffmpeg
ffmpeg-general=-threads 0 -hwaccel auto
ffmpeg-video=-vcodec hevc_nvenc -preset slow -rc vbr -cq 28 -qmin 18 -qmax 34 -pix_fmt p010le
ffmpeg-audio=-acodec copy
ffmpeg-audioac3=-acodec copy
ffmpeg-ext=.mkv
ffmpeg-audiodelay=skip

Key adjustments for your specific needs:

  • -cq 28: This is the “Constant Quality” setting. If you find the files are still too large, increase this number (e.g., to 30 or 32). If the quality is too low, decrease it (e.g., to 24).
  • -pix_fmt p010le: This enables 10-bit encoding, which significantly reduces “banding” artifacts in shadows and gradients, often resulting in better quality at smaller sizes.
  • -acodec copy: Since you’re coming from HDHomeRun .ts files, this will keep your original audio (AC3) without losing quality or wasting CPU time re-encoding it.

To use this:

  1. Open your profiles.conf (usually in the MCEBuddy installation folder).
  2. Paste the code above at the bottom.
  3. Restart MCEBuddy.
  4. Select “HEVC MKV NVIDIA - High Quality” from the Profile dropdown in your Conversion Task.

Give that a try and let us know if the file sizes are more in line with what you remember!