nvidia move towards NVENC away from CUDA software-based NVCUVENC

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Because of its improved performance and quality, NVIDIA is focusing all future video encoding development on NVENC, which is the dedicated encoding hardware engine first added in Kepler family of GPUs. NVIDIA no longer supports NVCUVENC, which was the CUDA-based video encoder library. NVENC is replacing the earlier CUDA software-based NVCUVENC driver module. On Quadro and Tesla, 341.05 is the last driver to support NVCUVENC. NVCUVENC will not be available with GeForce after R337.

source: NVIDIA VIDEO CODEC SDK

SUPPORTED NVIDIA GPUS FOR NVENC SDK*

    NVIDIA Quadro K4000 and above ââ,¬â€œ Desktop Workstation starting from € 750
    NVIDIA Quadro K2000M and above ââ,¬â€œ Mobile Workstation starting from € 420
    NVIDIA Tesla K10 and above ââ,¬â€œ High Performance Computing starting from € 3.250
    NVIDIA GRID ââ,¬â€œ Virtual Desktops & Applications not sure if K1 (starting from € 2.120) would do or if K2 (starting from € 3.900) would be required
    NVIDIA GeForce - and all others not in the list above (Kepler and Maxwell GPUs) - Desktop and Mobile Computers ââ,¬â€œ limited to 2 encode sessions per system
            GTX980 starting from € 550

Support for HEVC (H.265) encoding on GM20x GPUs (GTX980 and future Quadro/Tesla/GRID platforms based on GM20x GPUs)

Would this exclude the GTX970 and GTX960 as a valid option?
What would be the minimum requirement for avidemux 2.6 branch to keep up with progress?

Seeing these avidemux developments:
- Encoder: nvenc through ffmpeg
- nvenc/core

As for now: just put my new video card purchase on hold

* prices shown, researched/found by me on 2015/03/29 based upon (Netherlands pricing)

[mean]

I only buy passive video card for my main desktop
So i wont be using the h265 encoding unit for some times
On the other hand, the h264 one seems to work fine with low cost cards as long as they are recent enough (and not older gen renamed)
It's not 100% working yet

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Fair enough.
I seem only to find semi-passive GM206 (GTX 960). Require 4K output for gimp photo editing.
Complete passive would be GTX 750, but these are only Maxwell GM107 instead of GM2xx.

Perhaps something like asus GTX750-DCSL-2GD5 (with display port) 750-ti has no display port. Still have some months before buying (June - July upcoming summer sales)

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Just found out, still need testing.
GT 520 is still supported with:

OpenGL Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GT 520/PCIe/SSE2 1024MB (810/535MHz)
OpenGL: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 346.47
Compiler: GCC 4.8 + CUDA 5.5

vdpauinfo:
---------
API version: 1
NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library  346.47

I'm now rebuilding avidemux against this driver.
Are other requirements needed?

[Jan Gruuthuse]

**************************
***  Optional Library  ***
***      Summary       ***
**************************
*** Video Encoder      ***
    NVENC          No
would the SDK Updated (NVENC SDK 5.0): Janurary 31, 2015 satisfy the requirements?

[Jan Gruuthuse]

installed: cuda (7.0-28)

[Jan Gruuthuse]

now trying with cuda-*-6-5

[mean]

driver >= 346
nvenc SDK 5.0

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Have both and was able to build the samples.
I understood I needed to place the file nvEncodeAPI.h into /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu
avidemux did build when it found nvEncodeAPI.h

Anything more needed from nvenc 5.01 sdk? And where do I put those?

[Jan Gruuthuse]

can't install QT4 plugins

Code Select Expand

Unpacking avidemux3-plugins-qt4 (2.6.8-150331) over (2.6.8-150329) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /home/jan/avidemux2/debs/avidemux3-plugins-QT4-2.6.8-150331-Linux.deb (--install):
trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/ADM_plugins6/videoEncoders/libADM_ve_ffNvenc.so', which is also in package avidemux3-plugins-common 2.6.8-150331
dpkg-deb (subprocess): decompressing archive member: internal gzip write error: Broken pipe
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess <decompress> returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb (subprocess): cannot copy archive member from '/home/jan/avidemux2/debs/avidemux3-plugins-QT4-2.6.8-150331-Linux.deb' to decompressor pipe: failed to write (Broken pipe)

For inspection, if required: 10.2 MB download (other users please don't install this test build)

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Today's build did install and runs: Avidemux v2.6.8 20150402 (4b502d0).

[Jan Gruuthuse]

2 encoders show up:
H264 (nvidia)
H264 (ff/nvidia)
Trying to encode with default settings, brings this pop-up window:

Code Select Expand

Cannot setup codec. Bitrate too low?

[mean]

the nvidia one is not finished

[mean]

ffnvenc should work now

[Jan Gruuthuse]

with bff0be8 still did get bitrate to low message.
showing: H264 (ff/nvidia)
no longer showing: H264 (nvidia)