NVIDIA NVENC is a feature included in NVIDIA graphics cards that can help reduce the workload on the CPU for certain tasks, such as video encoding, which are usually quite heavy. In this article you will learn a little more about this feature and how you can use it.
What is NVENC?
NVENC technology makes use of the NVIDIA GPU that collects the frames and audio to encode the video, that is, convert them into a video format that the graphics processor can decode.
The graphics card is freed from this process thanks to this technology, and the processor too, since it could perform the video encoding through the shading calculation.
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Due to the high power consumption of this technology, shader computing is not an option for video encoding.
It was first featured on GeForce GTX 600 series GPUs with Kepler architecture, and this technology requires one of these GPUs or newer to function.
NVENC is a video encoder that resides in the graphics card’s local memory, known as VRAM, because the image buffer is generated and stored there.
The graphics card uses this memory exclusively, and the video encoder must have access to its content.
Since NVENC performs hardware encoding and decoding directly on the GPU, as we discussed a moment ago, the CPU is relieved of this compute-intensive work.
Because it has many more cores, NVENC is optimized to handle video data and, for the reasons mentioned above, achieves much higher throughput, as well as higher performance per watt.
Thanks to these units we can watch videos on our Smartphones . There is no performance difference between the PC version of this type of drive and other hardware versions in terms of performance.
Therefore, it makes no sense for a PC to use tens or even hundreds of watts to perform the same task as a mobile phone.
NVENC has a limitation if using a GeForce, but they only support two video encoding streams regardless of how many graphics cards are installed, so even in Quad-SLI setups only two videos can be encoded at the same time.
On professional graphics cards there are up to 21 streams per graphics card, depending on the model and compression quality.
NVENC works well on various operating systems including Windows and Linux. Of course, you will need to have the GPU drivers installed on your system in order to use this technology thanks to your Nvidia graphics card.
Using this feature will free up a lot of processor resources when recording our game play and streaming it over the network, allowing for better performance and increased FPS.
If you have an NVIDIA graphics card, you will be able to take advantage of this feature. Underpowered CPUs are especially affected by this problem, as we have already mentioned above.
NVENC supports a limited number of streams, so care must be taken when streaming content to live streaming platforms, as we may see our processors throttle as a result of a third or fourth encoder operating in real time.
NVENC vs NVDEC: Which is better?
NVDEC (NVIDIA Video DECoder) complements NVENC (NVIDIA Video Encoder) to perform the reverse operation, that is, to decode instead of encode.
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In the early 2000s, video encoders were integrated into graphics cards, leading to the creation of NVDEC (NVIDIA Video DECoder).
Since then, NVDEC has been the preferred choice for video decoding tasks on NVIDIA graphics cards. It was not necessary to purchase an MPEG-2 decoder card to watch DVD video when it was released. By the time HD arrived, GPUs already had coprocessors capable enough to handle the job.
With the Kepler architecture , NVIDIA’s NVDEC had a fresh start, and with each generation since then, it has increased its performance.
For starters, Maxwell GPUs came with the GM107 Maxwell, followed by Maxwell GM20X GPUs and Pascal GP10X GPUs, the fourth generation with the GTX10X, the fifth with the GV10X, the sixth with the TU117 Volta architecture, and the sixth with the Turing TU10X and TU116.
The Ampere architecture debuted with the seventh generation, which includes the RTX 30 series. Each generation of NVIDIA GeForce cards includes an enhanced NVENC and NVDEC, which handle new video formats to encode and increase the number of resolutions and frame rates of the previously supported formats.
This is a feature that grows over time, thanks to NVIDIA’s work on improving the unit that encodes the video, since NVENC does not refer to the GPU itself, but to a small processor or accelerator inside the graphics card.
And it is very likely that little by little we will see more of these accelerators to offload more and more tasks from the CPU, GPU, and other units in order to achieve better performance.
Such as some of the graphics card technologies that NVIDIA and AMD have been launching , which offload certain memory access tasks to the CPU, a task that before these technologies required the attention of the CPU.
Now, with them, you can focus on other work. The same goes for the encoding and decoding of videos thanks to NVDEC and NVENC.
Now you know what NVIDIA’s NVENC and NVDEC are and how you can squeeze it into your computer. Don’t forget to comment.
Zahid Khan Jadoon is an Interior Decorator, Designer and a specialized Chef and loves to write about home appliances and food. Right now he is running his interior designing business along with a managing a restaurant. Also in his spare time he loves to write about home and kitchen appliances.