About Hardware Acceleration¶
This topic discusses the platforms and the codecs for which hardware acceleration is supported.
How To Enable Hardware Acceleration¶
See Hardware Acceleration for an example on how to enable the hardware accelerated codecs in your code.
Supported Codecs¶
HEVC / H.265 Encoding¶
Hardware acceleration for HEVC H.265 video encoding is currently supported only on NVIDIA 2nd generation Maxwell GPUs.
AVC / H.264 Encoding¶
Hardware acceleration for AVC / H.264 video encoding is supported on Intel CPUs with Intel® Iris and Intel® HD Graphics technology, NVIDIA GPUs, and AMD GPUs and APUs.
Hardware Platforms¶
Hardware acceleration is supported on following platforms:
Intel® Quick Sync Video (QSV) on Windows
NVIDIA NVENC fixed-hardware encoder on Windows
AMD Video Coding Engine (VCE) on Windows
Intel® Quick Sync Video¶
Intel® QSV is available on select Intel processors with integrated Intel® Iris and Intel® HD Graphics technology. To use Intel® QSV, you must install the correct Intel® HD Graphics Driver for Windows.
If you are uncertain which Intel® Processor is in your computer, we recommend using the Intel® Processor Identification Utility or Intel® Driver Update Utility to identify your Intel Processor.
Available on:
Intel® Core 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th generation processors
Intel® Core M processors
Intel® Celeron processors with Intel® QuickSync Video
Intel® Pentium processors with Intel® QuickSync Video
Intel® Atom processors with Intel® QuickSync Video
NVIDIA NVENC¶
NVIDIA NVENC is available on Kepler and Maxwell class NVIDIA GPUs. NVIDIA Maxwell 2nd generation GPUs also support HEVC / H.265.
NVENC I (Kepler)¶
Supports:
HD 1080p, H.264 / AVC high-profile (YUV420, I/P/B frames, CAVLC/CABAC)
8x H.264 encode throughput 1080p @ 240fps (1x = 1080p @ 30 fps)
H.264 / SVC (temporal)
Display Encode Mode (DEM)
Available on Kepler GPUs (GK104, GK106, GK107, GK110, GK110B, GK210, but not GK208):
GRID K1 / K2 / K340 / K520
Tesla K10 /K20 / K20X / K40 / K80
Quadro 410 / K420 / K600 / K2000 / K2000D / K4000 / K4200 / K5000 / K5200 / K6000
Quadro K500M / K510M / K610M / K1000M / K1100M / K2000M / K2100M / K3000M / K3100M / K4000M / K4100M / K5000M / K5100M
Quadro NVS 510
GeForce GT 710 / 720 / 730 / 740
GeForce GT 640M / 645M / 650M / 660M / 745M / 750M / 755M / 760M / 765M / 770M / 780M / 825M
GeForce GTX 645 / 650 / 650 Ti / 650 Ti Boost / 660 / 660 Ti / 670 / 680 / 690 / 760 / 760 Ti / 770 / 780 / 780 Ti
GeForce GTX 670MX / 675MX / 680M / 680MX / 860M / 870M / 880M
GeForce GTX Titan / Titan Black / Titan Z
GeForce GT and GTX GPUs are limited to 2 encode sessions per system
NVENC II (Maxwell 1st Gen.)¶
Supports:
All NVENC I features
HiP444 profile (YUV444, Predictive Coding, I / P frames)
16x H.264 encode throughput 1080p @ 480fps (1x = 1080p @ 30 fps)
Available on Maxwell 1st Gen. GPUs (GM107, but not GM108):
Quadro K620 / K1200 / K2200
Quadro M600M / M1000M / M2000M
Quadro NVS 810
GeForce GTX 745 / 750 / 750 Ti
GeForce GTX 850M / 860M / 950M / 960M / 965M / 970M / 980M
GeForce GTX GPUs are limited to 2 encode sessions per system
NVENC III (Maxwell 2nd Gen.)¶
Supports:
All NVENC II features
HEVC / H.265 encoding
4K UHD 2160p @ 60 fps H.264 encoding (2160p60)
Available on Maxwell 2nd Gen. GPUs (GM200, GM204, GM206, but not GM208):
Tesla M6 / M60
Quadro M4000 / M5000 / M6000
Quadro M3000M / M4000M / M5000M
GeForce GTX 950 / 960 / 970 / 980 / 980 Ti
GeForce GTX 965M / 970M / 980M
GeForce GTX Titan X
GeForce GTX GPUs are limited to 2 encode sessions per system
NVENC IV (Pascal)¶
Supports:
All NVENC III features
HEVC / H.265 Main10 10-bit encoding
4K UHD HEVC / H.265 encoding
8K HEVC / H.265 encoding
Available on Pascal 1st Gen. GPUs (GP100, GP102, GP104, GP106, GP107, but not GP108):
Quadro P400 / P600 / P1000 / P2000 / P4000 / P5000 / P6000 / GP100
Tesla P4 / P40 / P100
GeForce GTX 1050 / 1050 Ti / 1060 / 1070 / 1070 Ti / 1080 / 1080 Ti
TITAN X / Xp
AMD Video Coding Engine¶
AMD VCE is available on a wide set of discrete GPUs as well as APUs, ranging from high-end servers all the way down to low-end chips. To use AMD VCE you must install the correct AMD driver. The easiest way to do that is via the AMD Driver Autodetect Tool.
VCE 1.0¶
Capabilities¶
HD 1080p H.264 / AVC (YUV420 I/P frames) encoding
Availability¶
Available on GCN 1.0 (Graphics Core Next 1.0 / GCN 1.0 / GCN 1st Gen):
Cape Verde, Curacao, Trinidad, Tahiti and Oland GPUs¶
Radeon HD 7900 / 7800 / 7700 GPU series
Radeon R5 240 GPU
Radeon R5 330 / 340 GPU
Radeon R7 240 / 250 / 250X / 265 GPU
Radeon R7 340 / 350 / 370 GPU
Radeon R9 270 / 270X / 280 / 280X GPU
Trinity and Richland APUs¶
A10 58XX / 68XX APU
VCE 2.0¶
Capabilities¶
All VCE 1.0 features
H.264 / SVC (temporal)
H.264 YUV420 (Intra and Predictive, I / P / B frames)
H.264 YUV444 (Intra Only, I frames only)
Availability¶
Available on GCN 1.1 (Graphics Core Next 1.1 / GCN 1.1 / GCN 2nd Gen):
Bonaire and Hawaii GPUs¶
Radeon R7 260 / 260X GPU
Radeon R9 290 / 290X / 295X2 GPU
Radeon R7 360 GPU
Radeon R9 360 / 390 / 390X GPU
Kaveri, Kabini, Temash, Beema, Mullins, Carrizo-L APUs¶
A10 7850K APU
A8 7410 APU
A6 1450 / 7310 APU
A4 1200 / 3850 / 5350 / 7210 APU
E2 7110 APU
E1 2650 / 7010 APU
VCE 3.0¶
Capabilities¶
All VCE 2.0 features
4K UHD 2160p @ 30 fps H.264 encoding (2160p30)
High quality video scaling
Availability¶
Available on GCN 1.2 (Graphics Core Next 1.2 / GCN 1.2 / GCN 3rd Gen):
Tonga and Fiji GPUs¶
Radeon R9 285 GPU
Radeon R9 380 GPU
Radeon R9 Nano / Fury / Fury X / Fury X2 GPU
Carizo APUs¶
A10 8700P APU
A8 8600P APU
FX 8800P APU