Hardware Encoder and CUDA...

TrueBlue1981

Newbie Joined: Jul 09, 2013 07:00 Messages: 17 Offline

Solved by

Jul 04, 2015 06:18

I am yet another nVidia user who has lost the use of the hardware encoder due to recent nVidia driver changes.

I have however, done the "fix" as described somewhere on this site, where by you replace a DLL file with another, and thus enabling CUDA and such in CUDA-cenabled software.

Now, up till a few days ago, everything was working fine. The problem I am having is that although the hardware encoder is enabled on formats such as MP4 and M2TS, if I use a custom profile I created for YouTube, the hardware encoder option disappears.

This mostly goes for M2TS. I believe a custom MPEG-4 profile still has the hardware encoder enabled. But when I select the custom M2TS profile I created, the hardware encoder disappears.

Ordinarilly, I'd ignore M2TS and go for MP4 anyway. However, I render a lot of videos for YouTube, and for some bizarre reason, YouTube takes an eternity to even START processing MP4. Yet with M2TS, processing hits 95% after the upload has completed, so I've stuck with M2TS.

I've replaced the DLL file just in case, but made no difference. I'm currently using the most up-to-date version of PowerDirector 12, but I've also tried with PD13 and the results are the same.

I use Windows 7 Ultimate x64, 2.6GHz Core2Duo, 4Gb RAM and a dual nVidia 9800m GTX 2Gb video card. I know I don't meet the requirements for HD rendering, but the laptop runs PD12 perfectly fine.

Anyone have any ideas as to why hardware encoding works with a custom MP4 profile but NOT a custom M2TS file? Both profiles are exactly the same, with the settings... just a different output file.

Many thanks and such. Dell XPS M1730
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Intel Core2Duo (T9500) @ 2.60GHz
nVidia 9800m GTX SLi x2, 1GbMb per core, 2Gb SLi
4Gb DDR2 (PC6400) RAM
750Gb Western Digital HDD
PD12 12.0.3403.0

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Jul 04, 2015 11:51

TrueBlue1981, Since HA feature was apparently working for you, maybe it can be corrected. I'm not asking you to make any changes, just seeking a little more information. If comfortable, launch regedit and migrate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CyberLink\CES_FunctionLogger\Data
and then do a screen capture and post the pic. Don't make any changes to your registry, just exit. I'd like to see this prior to making any guess on how to assist.

I'm guessing one can get PD12 working again, but PD13 current version and HA encoding will probably be a no for such a platform. I'm a little surprised that CUDA HA encoding was really very beneficial time wise on your platform to desire it, just live with CPU encoding.

Jeff

PureChaosX

Newbie Location: Planet Earth Joined: May 13, 2015 14:50 Messages: 24 Offline

Jul 04, 2015 16:19

Thanks for the reply.

I've (hopefully) attached a screenshot of the contents of the registry path you asked for.

The contents is unedited, and is (I assume) the same as it was when PowerDirector 12 was installed.

I should also note, that a custom MKV profile is also missing the Hardware Encoder option when I come to render the video, so now both MKV and M2TS are affected, but not MP4.

Thanks,
Alex

ALSO, just noticed I've signed in with the WRONG account, HAHA. TrueBlue1981 is still me, but for some reason I got the account details mixed up.


Filename	registry.png	Download
Description	Registry
Filesize	500 Kbytes
Downloaded:	84 time(s)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jul 04. 2015 16:26

Windows 10 Pro x64
MSi P45T-C51 Motherboard
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 OC'd @ 3.0GHz
6Gb RAM
nVidia EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC 2Gb
500Gb SanDisk Ultra II SSD
Western Digital Blue 500Gb HDD x2

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Jul 04, 2015 16:42

Thanks, yes that's the info I desired, and it's what I figured.

To my knowledge these variables are not really part of the basic install and get set depending on your hardware and what's been a successful encode process. The options set to 1 are no longer available. Why this happened on your system I'm not sure. With what you have described, you could try setting these two back to zero.

NV_MKV[H264,AC3]_1280x720p
NV_TS[H264,AC3]_1280x720p

The top one affects Nvida for MKV and the next for m2ts.

Ideally they all should be zero, except for the OpenCL as the 9800m does not support OpenCL.

Jeff

PureChaosX

Newbie Location: Planet Earth Joined: May 13, 2015 14:50 Messages: 24 Offline

Jul 06, 2015 17:22

Thanks for the suggestion.

I gave it a try, and although I haven't tested it by rendering a video yet, after changing the registry settings, the option for using the Hardware Encoder is back with MKV and M2TS formats!

A big thanks is in order, JL_JL... so, many thanks. Windows 10 Pro x64
MSi P45T-C51 Motherboard
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 OC'd @ 3.0GHz
6Gb RAM
nVidia EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC 2Gb
500Gb SanDisk Ultra II SSD
Western Digital Blue 500Gb HDD x2

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Jul 06, 2015 19:33

Let me know if it works once you try to actually encode with HA.

As a side note, I'd suggest not run PD13 and try to HA encode with that, unless of course you want to manually reset these variables. From what I can figure out PD13 current version is not compatible with HA on your 9800m, even with your older dll's copied.

Jeff

PureChaosX

Newbie Location: Planet Earth Joined: May 13, 2015 14:50 Messages: 24 Offline

Jul 09, 2015 12:49

I've just been trying to render an 18 video, with strange results.

I've tried rendering in M2TS with HA enabled, but noticed that the time remaining had jumped from around 50 minutes to 1hr 45m for some reason.

I eventually discovered that the rendering time was increasing because it had actually STALLED. The rendering had just stopped dead and wasn't moving.

The MBs produced, the MBs remaining and the percentage produced hadn't moved for several minutes, indicating the video rendering had indeed halted. It always seemed to stall at 0:58:09... 58 seconds and 9 milliseconds. I also opened Task Manager to check the CPU usage for PDR12.exe, and it had dropped to normal usage. So yes, the rendering, despite still seemingly going, had stopped.

I tried several times just in case it was a one-off anomaly, but nope. Always at the same spot. I checked the video, nothing wrong with it as far as I could tell.

So I rendered WITHOUT the hardware encoder... and... it renders beyond the point where it would normally stall. So I'm guessing there is a (serious?) problem with the hardware encoder, either with PowerDirector 12 or my laptop (or both). Windows 10 Pro x64
MSi P45T-C51 Motherboard
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 OC'd @ 3.0GHz
6Gb RAM
nVidia EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC 2Gb
500Gb SanDisk Ultra II SSD
Western Digital Blue 500Gb HDD x2

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Jul 09, 2015 13:24

Overall, it appears the reset of the flags did as desired and you have the ability to tick the HA box again during encode and the encode
process appears to use HA.

I would try HA encoding with just as series of the PD12 sample files (nature.mpg) to verify functionality. Many things in a real timeline often cause issues with HA. From certain effects being applied, to powertools speedup factors, to video clips to name a few. CPU encoding has always been much more robust with PD from what I've seen.

With the above sample timeline evaluate how effective the HA is with your 9800m relative to CPU encoding. It simply may not be elapsed time advantageous.

Jeff