Hardware acceleration enabled in Project settings, greyed out in render export

[Rafaelgvalynt]

As above, I've tried everything, updating GPU, 1080 ti, updating premiere, adding supported cards text file to folder, and still always has the gpu acceleration feature greyed out in render "not available". Any help would be tremendously appreciated as this is affecting my career lol.

[Peru Bob]

Have you tried updating or rolling back your graphics driver directly from the video card manufacturer’s site?

What number version of Premiere Pro?

What operating system?

Are you using any effects that use GPU acceleration?

[Rafaelgvalynt]

CC 2018 latest updated, I'm using elements 3D, windows 8.1 pro, I've tried multiple versions of drivers for the GPU.

GPU acceleration shows up in the project settings, but when selectin h.264 it says software only and is greyed out.

[Peru Bob]

See here:

Hardware Acceleration is Unavailable - H.264 Encoding

[Rafaelgvalynt]

Thank you Peru Bob​ I'm using dual xeons, is there a version I can roll back to to regain hardware acceleration in h.264 with this CPU?

[RjL190365]

Your dual Xeon CPUs do not have integrated graphics at all, and therefore do not support QuickSync. As a result, all H.264 encoding will be software only no matter what.

As I stated to another user, one cannot have hardware H.264 acceleration at all in Premiere Pro CC if he has a CPU that requires a discrete GPU to even work at all. Nor can he have H.264 hardware acceleration at all if he has any AMD CPU. Your dual-Xeon PC requires a discrete GPU just to even function at all. In addition, if the user has a qualifying CPU but has disabled the integrated Intel HD, UHD or Iris Graphics to allow the discrete GPU to function properly, then QuickSync will also be disabled, and therefore Premiere's H.264 encoder will default to the software-only mode.

And only i3, i5 or i7 CPUs that have integrated Intel HD, UHD or Iris Graphics support QuickSync at all. Celeron- and Pentium-branded Core-based CPUs, although utilizing the same technologies as the Core i-series CPUs, do not support QuickSync at all.

And only the 2018.1.x or higher versions of Premiere Pro CC support hardware acceleration in the H.264 encoder. Older versions of Premiere Pro CC do not natively support QuickSync, and therefore all H.264 encoding is by default software only in those older versions of Premiere.

[Rafaelgvalynt]

If I were to upgrade to a threadripper CPU, hardware acceleration on h.264 would still not function and remain software only correct?

Was wondering why playback at 1080p was so choppy with 16 cores and a 1080ti.

[RjL190365]

Rafaelgvalynt  wrote

If I were to upgrade to a threadripper CPU, hardware acceleration on h.264 would still not function and remain software only correct?

Was wondering why playback at 1080p was so choppy with 16 cores and a 1080ti.

H.264 encoding will remain software only with Threadripper as it is not an Intel CPU. It is an AMD CPU.

Playback is not the same as encoding. In your case, choppy playback despite the high-end GPU is due to the fact that the all-core Turbo clock speed of your dual Xeons is too low. You see, Premiere relies heavily on CPU clock speed, in addition to making some use of multithreading. Unfortunately, going with one of the lower-end multiprocessor-capable Xeons will entail major sacrifices in the number of cores and/or all-core Turbo clock speed. In other words, a high number of total CPU cores cannot fully compensate for the lack of sheer clock speed.

And the 1080 Ti isn't of much help in your situation because your two CPUs combined are still too weak for that GPU. Remember, component balance is very important in a video editing system! You do not want either the CPU or the GPU to be significantly more powerful (performance-wise, not power-consumption-wise) than the other.

[Rafaelgvalynt]

Well looks like this machine became solely a 3D rendering station haha, thank you very much for the detailed answers!