Adobe Pr and Me not using the eGPU (Nvidia GeFOrce GTX 3060 Ti) for rendering / export

Hello all

I need a Technical Ace to help me with the following please...

PROBLEM:

Adobe Pr and Me are not using the eGPU (Nvidia GeFOrce RTX 3060 Ti) for rendering / export...
The eGPU is running and is active, OS recognises and uses it, performance monitor shows its activity.
However Pr and Me are just ignoring it when rendering.

I previously had a Radeon RX 5700 XT in the GPU that Pr and Me did use,
however, its drivers seemed unstable on win 11, causing complete OS crashes (freezes).
So I bought the Nvidia based card above in the hope it would work better...

I need help to understand why Pr and Me is ignoring the eGPU

PC SYSTEM:

- Dell XPS 13", 8th gen i7, 16 GB Ram, 2 TB PCIe Nvme SSD, 2018 model (Dell 9370)
- Ports: 2 TB3, 1 USB C
- BIOS & Drivers all up to date
- Windows 11 Pro, with Adobe Creative Cloud suite, incl Pr, Me, LrC, Ps, etc.
- OS and Adobe Suite are all healthy and up to date w. patches and fixes
- Plenty of space on the storage...

eGPU:

- Unit = Raser Core X, connected to the Dell XPS via a TB 3 port,
- Card = Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB
- Driver = Nvidia Studio Driver

SETTINGS:

1. Nvidia Control Panel...

     I Used: Advanced 3 D Settings selected (after the card seems unused in Adobe), choosing:

    - Manage 3 D Settings, Program Settings, Programs Selected: Adobe Pr 2023, and Me 2023
      Both Pr and Me set to:

        - Antialiasing FXAA = ON
        - CUDA GPU = set to the Geforce GTX 3060 Ti (henceforth called Nvidia card)
        - Multi Frame Sampled AA FXAA = ON
        - Open GL Rendering GPU = Set to the Nvidia card
        - Texture Quality = Quality
        - Triple Buffering = ON

2. Adobe Pr Settings

    File, Project Settings, General:
       - Renderer = Merc PlayB Engine GPU Acc (CUDA)

    Preferences, General,
       - Media Cache: Deleted Unused Media Cache Files
       - Memory: RAM reserved for other applications = min 93 GB, Optimised for Performance
       - Export Settings:
       - Format = H.264
       - Encoding Setup: *** Software encoding ***
               - It should at this point be Hardware encoding, but Pr objects:
               - It says the system does not have the hardware setup
               - And reverts back to Software encoding
       - Profile = High, Level = 4.2
       - Use max render quality

3. Adobe Me Settings

There is a lot less to set here: Set to - Merc PlayB Engine GPU Acceleration CUDA

WHAT HAPPENS DURING ACTUAL USE:

... using both a native export out of Pr and via Me encoding:

    - eGPU and card are alive and healthy accroding to Windows 11 Device Manager
    - The graphics driver shows the driver believes that Adobe Pr / Me are both using it (in name)
    - Performance Monitor on Win 11 shows the nvidia card is also actively used by the OS
    - Performance Monitor, however, shows that the card is idling when Pr or Me is encoding / rendering 

       (not getting ANY of the workload)
    - All this while the integrated (in chip Intel GPU is running at close to 100 % in am export
      (so it is not as if the Pr export just did not include GPU content to process)
      (it should load balance between the GPUs - that is how the Radeon card was used by Pr and Me)

I rebooted several times during the setup process to ensure everything beds in and is properly updated in the OS / Registry with the application stacks.

MY THOUGHTS:

- The nvidia card should be in suppot (I bought it because that chipset was supported by adobe)
- The Pr encoding setup, enforcing Software Encoding (for some reason) may be pivotal to solving this...
- Can it be that there is a different support list for eGPU attached graphics cards?

- Is there a schoolboy error that I am making somehwere?

HELP NEEDED:

- I am completely and utterly stuck with this one...
- Do not know why the card is working fine on an OS level, but not actively used by Pr or Me?
- Please help / critique / query