Your GTX850M is a Maxwell architecture (GM107 chip). So it has internally the hardware (nvenc) encoder, it doesn't need to rely on CUDA to do the encoding. Latest drivers should be just fine.
IMO laptops are a waste of money for serious work, with same amount you can get 2x the performance from a desktop.
Other software might be even worse for you (like the Sony editor - won't even recognize you new card).
Since you have a laptop, make sure you are using the nVidia card with PD13 - you might need to specifically do something for that (because crappy Optimus technology).

PS: I don't understand what PD version you use, this is a PD12 thread.

i am running pd13 but there isnt much help for it and my situation. i stumbled upon this thread and you seemed very knowledgeable. i know a desktop would be a much better choice but its truly not practical as she kinda works on it when and where she can. so a laptop mad much more sense. still though are the specs of this machine not good enough to run pd13 without a problem? i thought looking at minimum requirements i blow that out of the water and figured it wouldnt even think about running it. Thanks for you help. Very appreciated

This is why i downgraded drivers http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector-ultra/spec_en_US.html?&r=1

specifically this part
NVIDIA:
GeForce 8500GT/9800GT and above
GeForce GT/GTS/GTX 200/400/500/600 Series
PLEASE NOTE: For users of NVIDIA cards who have updated to graphics driver 340.43 or later, the video hardware acceleration feature in PowerDirector is no longer available. To re-enable hardware acceleration, please download and install an earlier driver.

Bump!

I'm hoping that this great little fix for Nvidia drivers still works with the latest PD, just tried it and it appears to work I just want to edit and make pictures, walk my dog and go fishing.

Just an update that as of mid-2015, the 337.88 driver is too old to show up on the nVidia driver search page. However, you can still access it directly from here: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/75992

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DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote: Just an update that as of mid-2015, the 337.88 driver is too old to show up on the nVidia driver search page. However, you can still access it directly from here: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/75992

That's really the "notebook, M model GPU" section of drivers that CL posted on the specs page, if you want the Desktop version of GPU's it's here http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/75991
Yes, there are installer differences.

Jeff

Oops! Thanks for catching that. I was just happy to find a working download page and didn't notice the specifics. Maybe that's why HA isn't available when trying to produce with my 780Ti...

UPDATE: Still no-go for producing with Hardware Acceleration with my 780 and 337.88, but things work normally with nVidia version 344.56 and above

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DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote: Oops! Thanks for catching that. I was just happy to find a working download page and didn't notice the specifics. Maybe that's why HA isn't available when trying to produce with my 780Ti...

UPDATE: Still no-go for producing with Hardware Acceleration with my 780 and 337.88, but things work normally with nVidia version 344.56 and above

I'm not sure why you would want to use the older CUDA encoder vs the NVENC of GTX780 but it can be done. Clean original PD13 release or pre 2307 and 337.88 drivers should work with no file copy manipulations as I understand my notes.

Here are the results I had at the time for a timeline for a similar configuration with 10 of the Boats.wmv for a total timeline duration of ~2:10 producing to H.264 1920x1080/60p 28Mbps.

Encode time, 45 seconds, new dll in use, GTX970 Maxwell (344.48 drivers)
Encode time, 110 seconds, older 337.88 encoder dll in use, GTX970 Maxwell (344.48 drivers)

Jeff

I'm doing a lot of hardware benchmarking and detective work today and I wanted to cast a wide net

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DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

2307 is my earliest version PD13 (from DS3), and it doesn't allow HA with 337.88 either. Not a problem, just a confirmation of your "pre-2307" statement. No need to spend any more time on this!



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DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Just to bump this thread - I was thinking of buying PowerDirector 13 and was unable to create an AVHC DVD because of this hardware acelleration error. I have 2 GTX 970s in SLI.

I downloaded the file from the first post and that fixed the error. My CPU is still doing all the encoding (it's at 75% to 90% while encoding and the GPUs are at 3% and 0%). But at least it will encode now. Before this fix PowerDirector was useless to me for making Bluray's or any AHVC project and I wasn't going to buy it.

Thanks to the OP for the fix.

Glad to hear it. You might already know this, but PD doesn't support SLI so you'll only see activity on one GTX 970 even if you're producing videos with GPU-enabled FX.

On the other hand, if you have an Intel CPU and have the built-in HD or IRIS GPU enabled in both the BIOS/UEFI and Device Manager, then PD will use it to some extent along with one GTX 970 which can speed up production times a bit. You might also need to enable the Multi-GPU setting in the BIOS/UEFI for this to work.

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DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

I've got Windows 10 and a GT730M. The non-Windows 10 drivers don't work (so I can't get the older drivers that support GPU encoding), and the fix in the zip file posted earlier didn't work for me either. My only option under "Fast Video Rendering Technology" is Intel Quick Sync. Any suggestions to get this working? I bought this GPU specifically for video editing and I can't get it to work!

The 730M has Kepler architecture, and it should show you HA with the new 352.62 Win10 driver.

With all the driver changes you may have made, are you certain that your 730M is woring properly? Double check in Device Manager and make sure it's visible and not disabled, and that there's no yellow exclamation mark.

Also, in PD see if you have both boxes checked on the HA tab of Preferences, and also try a different output format.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think the 730M is going to be a whole lot faster than QuickSync. Here's a performance *chart* with the typical GPUs used for video editing. I could be mistaken here, but you won't be shut out of any editing unless you're using something that requires a high-end GPU, like some NewBlue FX and TitleDesigner.

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DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Ah, I see. Thanks for that. I also was able to run it with or without the DLLs added in, I just had to run PowerDirector using the GPU from the context menu. My test file actually produced faster using my Intel HD 4600 (i7-4800MQ) than my NVIDIA card, so I'm glad I'm good with or without the graphics card. Thanks for your help.

I did not copy over the nvcuvenc.dll file(s) and still got "hardware encoder" in my PD12. OS is Windows 10, drivers are 375.95. It is an Optimus Laptop as well. NVIDIA Inspector shows VPU usage as seen in the attachment and it clearly rises, when the complexity of the timeline is low (i.e. CPU has less work to do). How can that be? Feels like magic.

Note that NVIDIA Inspector also shows 0% Encoder Usage, but that might be related to that new technology mentioned in the first post.

EDIT: The last two posts already cleared it up. Keppler based cards like my GT 740M (GK208) work normally with latest drivers and Windows 10. Optimus was what gave me a headache for a while. Almost all PowerDirector versions are locked and the option to select the gfx card to run on is grayed out. Unfortunately it turned out if NVIDIA did not apply any Optimus special casing for PowerDirector it would work just fine for me.

The tool NVIDIA Profile Inspector can override the hard wired application profiles until reboot and make PD work on Optimus systems. From the "Profiles" I selected "Cyberlink Power Director". Then scroll down in the list to "Other". Change the following settings:

"Enable application for Optimus" from "SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_USER_EDITABLE" to "SHIM_RENDERING_MODE_ENABLE"
"Shim Rendering Mode Options per application for Optimus" from "(Arcsoft Media Impression, Roxio Video Converter, Cyberlink MediaShow Espresso, Cyberlink Power Director, Nero Move It, CyberLink MediaShow, Movavi Video Converter, CyberLink MediaStory, CyberLink MediaEspresso)" to "SHIM_RENDERING_OPTIONS_DISABLE_ASYNC_PRESENT"

Then click on "Apply changes" in the top right and start PowerDirector. It should be using the NVIDIA card now.