No GPU / Cuda in Media Encoder while Available for Premiere Pro

[FilmXR]

Hi there, have RTX 3070 8 Gb and not sure when I've lost a possibility to use CUDA as a renderer for Media Encoder. Since moving to 2022 package I guess?

Want to install 2021 as well and check, but if not, what might be solutions?

[R Neil Haugen]

MediaEncoder should work fine with that GPU. Now, this is for GPU-accelerated effects.

Premiere and Me do not use the GPU for general encoding work as they reserve the GPU for those particular effects processing.

And H.264 encodes are an entirely different thing, and don't have anything to do with the GPU mostly. So if you're talking about in say the Summary section of the Export dialog, seeing "software only" ... that refers to whether your CPU has the internal bits to do H.264 hardware encoding. Confusing, but not at all the same thing.

Neil

[Andy 1968]

Neil,

You have posted several times that Premiere Pro does not use the GPU for encoding and decoding H.264. What do you think Nvenc is for? Premiere Pro can use Nvenc to encode decode H.264. I do not have a demo of Media Encoder using Nvenc or Quick Sync but I do have a demo of Premiere Pro using Quick Sync and Nvenc. I have posted it below.

Nvidia's Nvenc uses the GPU to encode and decode H.264. The CUDA cores are used for the visual effect like PIP, motion blur and color correction. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L-erwmRxAU

[R Neil Haugen]

Andy, Premiere's use of GPU is rather segregated. Yes, it can, with the right CPU, motherboard, and GPU, use some GPU resources for basic encoding. As you correctly point out.

But it will *not* simply use the GPU as an additional resource to the CPU, as many users expect.

And as RJL190365 so capably covers from time to time, the mix of computer bits to get the most H.264/5 encoding possible is very arcane. Not many of us have a perfect CPU/mobo/GPU combo to get that.

Plus, the majority of user comments here about GPU use are expecting that the GPU is simply an addendum to the CPU.

And that is incorrect.

Neil

[Andy 1968]

Quick Sync and Nvenc are getting better and better but even my old GTX 1060 can perform rather well when editing 4K H.264 with Nvenc enabled as seen in the video below. Perhaps an RTX 3070 can playback 8K H.264/265. Without Quick Sync or Nvenc the CPU is forced to work much harder causing the CPU to get hot and also forcing the CPU fan to wind out. 

Which is better for encoding H.264/265 the Intel Alder Lake CPUs or an RTX 3070? I don't know but I like the fact that Premiere Pro gives us the option to use Nvenc or Quick Sync.