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