nVidia not used for encoding H.265

General Support / Questions Hardware Encoding
1

MCEBuddy running fine. Upgraded to a new nVidia 2060. No HW encoding love. What am I missing?

INFORMATION> 2020-10-28T23:23:08 MCEBuddy.Transcode.Convert → Converting with Handbrake, type: HardwareOnly, gpu: {
“hardwareBrand”: “NVidia”, “codecType”: “Encoder”,
“hardwareCodecPresent”: true, “h265Codec”: true, “h264Codec”: true
}
INFORMATION> 2020-10-28T23:23:08 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithHandbrake
→ Setting up General conversion parameters : --decomb --loose-anamorphic --verbose=2
→ Setting up PreDRC
→ Setting up input file name parameters
→ Setting up video conversion parameters : --start-at duration:0 -e x265 --encoder-preset medium -q 26
→ Is preset video size → False
→ Setting up crop parameters
→ Handbrake auto video cropping
→ Checking if video resizing required
→ Setting up aspect ratio if required
→ Setting up bitrate and quality parameters
→ Setting up audio conversion parameters : -E ffac3 -R auto -B 256 -D 0 -a 1,2,3,4,5
→ Selecting Audio Track : -1
→ Letting handbrake choose best audio track
WARNING> 2020-10-28T23:23:08 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithHandbrake
→ Cannot get Audio and Video stream details, continuing with default Audio Language selection
INFORMATION> 2020-10-28T23:23:08 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithHandbrake
→ Setting up volume adjustment : 0.4dB
→ Setting up PostDRC
→ Setting up Audio channels
→ Requested to limit Audio Channels to 2
→ Setting up Output filename
→ Replacing user specified parameters
INFORMATION> 2020-10-28T23:23:08 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithHandbrake
→ Converting the video - Main conversion
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:10 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake
→ Hardware encoding appears to have hung, no progress in the last 300 seconds.
This is likely due to an unstable Graphics Display Driver. Try updating or using a stable Graphics Display Driver.
Terminating process.
ERROR> → Unrecoverable error encountered. Process likely hung, killing it
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:10 [repeat]
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:11 [repeat]
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:11 [repeat]
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:11 [repeat]
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:11 [repeat]
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 [repeat]
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 [repeat]
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 [repeat]
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 [repeat]
ERROR> → Process hung, killing process
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake
→ Hardware encoding appears to have hung, no progress in the last 300 seconds.
This is likely due to an unstable Graphics Display Driver. Try updating or using a stable Graphics Display Driver.
Terminating process.
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithHandbrake → Handbrake conversion failed
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithHandbrake → Conversion of video failed
ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 MCEBuddy.Transcode.Convert → Handbrake did not convert successfully, using fallback if configured
INFORMATION> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithFfmpeg → Checking for Unsupported profile for container / codec combination
INFORMATION> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 MCEBuddy.Transcode.Convert → Converting with FFMpeg, type: HardwareOnly, gpu: {
“hardwareBrand”: “NVidia”,
“codecType”: “Encoder”,
“hardwareCodecPresent”: true,
“h265Codec”: true,
“h264Codec”: true
}
INFORMATION> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithFfmpeg → Setting up General conversion parameters : -threads 0
→ Setting up PreDRC
→ Setting up input file name parameters
→ Setting up video conversion parameters : -ss 0 -vf yadif=0:-1:1,hqdn3d -vcodec libx265 -preset medium -crf 26 -map 0:v -sn
→ Is preset video size → False
→ Setting up crop parameters
INFORMATION> 2020-10-28T23:28:12 MCEBuddy.VideoProperties.VideoInfo → Getting crop information using FFMpeg
WARNING> → FFMpeg Crop Detect Process Error - retrying with MEncoder
ERROR> → No response from process for 300 seconds, process likely hung - killing it
ERROR> → Process hung, killing process
WARNING> → MEncoder Crop Detect Process Error - cropping will not take place
INFORMATION> 2020-10-28T23:34:52 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithFfmpeg
→ FFMpeg found no video cropping
→ Checking if video resizing required
→ Setting up aspect ratio if required
→ Setting up bitrate and quality parameters
→ Setting up audio conversion parameters : -acodec ac3 -ab 256k -map 0:a
→ Selecting Audio Track : -1
→ Letting ffmpeg choose best audio track
→ Cannot get Audio stream details, continuing with default Audio Language selection
→ Setting up volume adjustment : 0.4dB
→ Setting up PostDRC
→ Setting up Audio channels
→ Requested to limit Audio Channels to 2
→ Setting up Output filename
→ Replacing user specified parameters
→ Converting the video - Main conversion
WARNING> → Ffmpeg conversion failed, retying using GenPts
WARNING> 2020-10-28T23:48:48 MCEBuddy.Transcode.ConvertWithFfmpeg → Ffmpeg conversion failed with hardware decoder, retrying with without hardare decoder

The conversion then proceeds, but no HW speedup since it’s reverting back to CPU encoding.
Any hints on what to look for when I turn up the log details?

2

From the logs:

ERROR> 2020-10-28T23:28:10 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake
–> Hardware encoding appears to have hung, no progress in the last 300 seconds.
This is likely due to an unstable Graphics Display Driver. Try updating or using a stable Graphics Display Driver.

3

I’m using the latest one WHQL one from nVidia. I’ll post later the exact version, and the GeForce Experience app is telling me I am up to date.

4

Unfortunately latest isn’t the greatest with graphics drivers. @RBoy has written many WHQL drivers in his life and can has often mentioned that one shouldn’t update graphics drivers unless necessary as new drivers often introduce bugs which the WHQL certification doesn’t always catch.

See the list of recommended drivers versions, these are based on community feedback about the most stable drivers for hardware encoding:

5

It seems to have been a driver issue, as the next nVidia driver update seems to have fixed the issue. I am running driver version 457.30 with an RTX2060. I can confirm that the GPU is being utilized by MCEBuddy in the Windows performance monitor of Task Manager.

However, what I notice is that the GPU is only being used during the final transcode phase and not at all during any of the comskip ad-detection or demux phase, only the last step of remuxing the video and audio tracks into the MKV. I had hoped the GPU would be used for more of the processing. That said, it definitely processes that last step at about a 10x improvement (~50 fps vs ~500fps). The demux phase still takes just as long, though. Also, running Handbrake standalone also detects and uses the GPU.