Do 3D video cards increase encoding proformance?

[rentachik]

I have been encoding video to compress it to fit it to my zune. I had an ATI x800 and I could encode the video about 2-4 times faster than real time. That video card recently died and now I am stuck using the on board video card.(ATI express 200m)

I have noticed a dramatic increase in the time it takes to encode a video. I am using WME 9.
Computer
Athlon 64x2 4200
1 GB ram
7200 RPM HD

Do 3D video cards make that much of a difference?

Thanks in advance,
Brad

[Video Head]

Hi Brad,

It's not that 3D video cards make a direct difference in the encoding time. Encoding is a processor intensive task. Your onboard video shares resources with the rest of the system; i.e: memory, processor cycles, etc. Your ATI x800 had it's own memory and processor...it did not task the system. It would be normal to see a noticable difference in encoding times when going from a dedicated video card to using onboard video. You can try to limit other processes when encoding or better yet, replace the ATI x800.

VH

[guns1inger]

Dropping back to onboard video should not make that much of a difference to the encoding speeds. I would be looking elsewhere for the cause.

[rentachik]

I appreciate the response. I should have also asked if there was a way to make windows media encoder use more of the available system resources. When I am encoding a video WME9 says that I am only running at about 20-30% CPU usage.

Anyone know how to make WME9 use more system resources to speed up encoding?

Thanks,
Brad

[redwudz]

I don't know that you can increase the CPU usage, but I don't use WME. If you are asking about the computer with a X2 CPU listed in your profile, you should see both cores in your Task Manager. A dual core aware encoder program should use both of them. Not often at 100% for both of them, though, except with a few encoders.

Also in Task Manger, when encoding, in 'Processes', you may be able to R click on the encoder and set the 'affinity' for both cores. But if that's possible, it's probably already set that way.

On-board video can use 200MB of RAM, depending on the card, maybe more. As long as you have about one GB of RAM, you shouldn't notice a difference. But it's also possible you have the wrong driver for your on-board video. You might check your motherboard manufacturer to see if there are updates.

And if you only have the one hard drive, adding a second hard drive may give you some encoding speed boost. Your boot drive is accessed by the OS a fair amount, and encoding to it also is not a great idea. This is much more critical with capturing than encoding, though.