Messages posted by DragonKing

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Don't doubt it at all, in fact one can still by PD15 directly from CL today. Your description sounds like CL Media Suite package which would only by PD16 today. So yes, outdated sale by CL relative to current PD19 offering.

The new Nvidia drivers with WIN10 are the DCH drivers, WIN10 thing. They are much harder to uninstall and revert to the standard driver which is all that was in existence at 411.70. When attempting this one often gets the error you quote occurred, even though 411.70 is fully compatible with your GTX 1060 and you have to go through additional steps as you did. You can check which version of driver is installed by the Nvidia Control Panel, System Information, and then look at Driver Type:, it will state Standard or DCH. Sounds like you got things reverted back and it should say "Standard" now when the 411.70 driver is installed. You can install the standard current 456.55 driver too which the clean install would work and minimize a few steps. Optodata simply step 2 in post not adequate if in fact you are toggling between DCH and Standard drivers.

Jeff

I do appreciate the information on how I got such a bad deal, even if it doesn't make me feel any better. Feels like CyberLink is just milking me for money...selling a product that doesn't work fully anymore 8 months after buying it? That should be illegal. It's not like I bought some ancient software off Ebay.

Quote New PD versions are typically released in Sept, and the version number is one less than the year. For example, PD19 was just released in 9/2020 and PD15 came out in 9/2016. In Jan 2018, PD16 was the current product so I don't know why you ended up with PD15. Maybe you bought it in Jan 2017 instead?

If you decide not to upgrade, there's a much simpler way to swap nVidia drivers, but no way to remove the requirement to do so if you want to use your nVidia GPU for both gaming and video producing with PD15.

The only thing you need to do is perform a "clean installation," which is described as the second step in this post. You may want to use other nVidia utilities/drivers beyond the graphics driver, but as long as you check the clean installation box, the only thing you'll need to do is reboot.

As you noted it's also a good idea to prevent WU from automatically updating the driver.

The driver installer throws an error before event getting to where I can select custom install. I have to be sure the old version is uninstalled, first.

My receipt very clearly says the order date is 1/11/2018. Besides that, I know it is true, because I remember I got it a few months after getting married, which was end of 2017. It was part of an upgrade that CyberPower sent me which included PowerDVD 17, MediaExpresso, Power2Go and PowerDirector 15 Deluxe.

Quote PD15 is 4 years old and will never be patched again. The simpler solution is to get PD16-19 or the subscription version (365) so you can use current nVidia drivers.

Yes, there's a cost to update - but there's also a cost in having to constantly shift system configurations to use it for gaming or video editing. Only you can decide which one you'd rather pay (or put up with).

I bought PowerDirector brand-new directly from Cyberlink in Jan 2018 (I'm looking at my receipt right now). 411.70 was released in Sep 2018. I only got 8 usable months out of my software. What a waste.

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As was mentioned, use the 411.70 Nvidia driver and don't update. Compatible with WIN10 and both 1060 and 1070. That is the most recent driver that still supports the older version of NVENC which PD15 used and the hardware encode feature can be utilized on the "Produce" page, left column, lower third, "Hardware video encoder". The pref box you show does not control NVENC hardware encoding.

Jeff

Oh, I should have been asking if there was no way to do that without rolling back to the old driver. I'm also a gamer. So, constantly flipping back and forth is a total pain. Rolling back in particular is difficult, because as soon as you uninstall the current one, Windows installs its version, which is still newer than 411.70. If you uninstall that one, Windows immediately searches Windows Update for a driver, and installs that same Windows version.

So, the process to roll back is:

Uninstall NVidia driver

restart computer

Disabled your network card

uninstall Windows graphics driver from Device Manager

restart computer

install 411.70.

Turn off Microsoft Updates (so it won't automatically update to a newer version).

enable your network card.

What a pain. When I bought this software 2 years ago, the key selling point to me on PowerDirector was that it can use my Nvidia card. You have to jump through so many hoops for that to work now, I don't think it counts. PowerDirector 15 does not support encoding with your Nvidia card. *sigh*

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Unfortunately, you've been misled concerning PD15 hardware encoding. If you have a Nvidia GPU, you updated driver past 411.70 which PD15 is not compatible with for hardware encoding. PD15 does not use CUDA for encoding, but NVENC.

Jeff

So then, is there no way to use my Nvidia GPU to render? I just tried rendering, and with OpenCL, the GPU was never used. With the above workaround and CUDA selected, it occasionally used up to 5%

I just came across this YouTube video online, which shows what you can do to get CUDA cores to be an option in PowerDirector15.

The instructions seem counterintuitive, but it did make the CUDA option appear for me in PowerDirector15. I haven't had a chance yet to try actually rendering video with that option, to make sure it is actually using my GPU. If you don't want to watch the video, here is the summary:

Open NVIDIA Control Panel

click Manage 3D settings

click Program Settings

Select Cyberlink Power Director

Change CUDA-GPUs from "Use global settings" to "Use these GPUs" and uncheck (I know, counterintuitive) your GPU.

Click OK. These will take a few seconds, but the row will update to say "CUDA - GPUs...None".

Click Apply (also takes a few seconds)

Open PowerDirector15, go to Settings/Hardware Acceleration, and you'll see "Enable NVIDIA CUDA technology..." as an option.

Note: This did not require a restart. I've tried this on both my NVIDIA computers. One is using a GTX1070, and one is using a GTX1060 3GB. One is using Game Ready Drivers, and one is using Studio Drivers.

PowerDirector 15 with CUDA enabled