Has nvenc Change over Time?

[ron spencer]

I like to rip my movies to a video server. I have an i5, so it is fine for 1080p stuff...specifically I will reencode movies that have forced subs to "burn" them into the video when needed (via Handbrake and via software encoding). This is problematic for x265 and 4K rips though...it just takes too long, so I use nvenc. I was wondering, do newer graphic cards have "better" video encoding characteristics for this type of encoding? That is, has nvenc changed over the years to make it better? I currently have an older EVGA GTX 1050Ti and it seems to do a nice job with nvenc and x265 hardware encoding in Handbrake. I'm just wondering if a new GPU upgrade will only decrease render time, or would it make the encode itself better as well via a "newer" nvenc.

If a newer card would be beneficial overall, what would be a good non-super-duper-high-end one?

Thx

[jagabo]

NVENC has gotten better over time. I can't tell you how much between your 1050Ti and a new RTX card. But it doesn't matter. It's virtually impossible to get an RTX card now unless you are buying a new computer.

[johns0]

It's not impossible to buy an rtx,just really expensive if you buy off ebay.I'm waiting till evga sends me an email when they get supplies in.

[Sharc]

I was wondering, do newer graphic cards have "better" video encoding characteristics for this type of encoding? That is, has nvenc changed over the years to make it better? I currently have an older EVGA GTX 1050Ti and it seems to do a nice job with nvenc and x265 hardware encoding in Handbrake. I'm just wondering if a new GPU upgrade will only decrease render time, or would it make the encode itself better as well via a "newer" nvenc.

Yes, definitely. HW and algorithms have improved.

An obvious difference between 1050ti (Pascal) and newer cards (Turing, Ampere) is that the newer cards support B-frames for HEVC (H.265), while the 1050ti supports B-Frames for AVC (H.264) only.
More here:
https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new

Also, the algorithms seem to have improved with SDK10.
http://developer.download.nvidia.com/video/gputechconf/gtc/2020/presentations/s21337-n...l-flow-sdk.pdf
https://docs.nvidia.com/video-technologies/video-codec-sdk/nvenc-video-encoder-api-pro...ame-phencoding

Recently jdobbs did exhaustive comparison tests for x264 vs NVEnc with interesting and surprising findings for HD AVC encoding with his GTX1660 (Turing)
https://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1929974&postcount=30232
https://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1930266&postcount=30244

In my own tests with my older 1050ti I couldn't quite match his results. The file size in my tests was 15....30% bigger for NVEnc for similar PSNR or SSIM compared to CPU x264 for my 1050ti. So I conclude the newer cards perform better wrt speed AND quality. Nevertheless I am quite happy with the quality vs filesize I get with the 1050ti for HD AVC encodes.

[sneaker]

NVENC has gotten better over time. I can't tell you how much between your 1050Ti and a new RTX card. But it doesn't matter. It's virtually impossible to get an RTX card now unless you are buying a new computer.

RTX encoder isn't improved over previous gen anyways. RTX 3090 has the same encoder as e.g. GTX 1660.

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new

[ron spencer]

NVENC has gotten better over time. I can't tell you how much between your 1050Ti and a new RTX card. But it doesn't matter. It's virtually impossible to get an RTX card now unless you are buying a new computer.

RTX encoder isn't improved over previous gen anyways. RTX 3090 has the same encoder as e.g. GTX 1660.

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new

Hmmm....so does this mean that my 1050Ti is not that far behind? I usually just feed it a ton of bitrate, as I am not that interested in saving much space. Again I am really only interested in "burning" forced subs into the video file with maximum quality. Perhaps the 1050Ti with high bitrates is enough?

Again, I do not need a $1000 card upgrade, especially if the only real differences can be accounted for by added bitrate.

Thanks for the responses so far!

[sneaker]

Hmmm....so does this mean that my 1050Ti is not that far behind?

It doesn't mean one or the other. You can look at what Sharc posted and decide from that (He also postet the Matrix as I see now .. ). But if you are currently happy (as you said) I don't really see any need to upgrade.

[Sharc]

Hmmm....so does this mean that my 1050Ti is not that far behind? I usually just feed it a ton of bitrate, as I am not that interested in saving much space. Again I am really only interested in "burning" forced subs into the video file with maximum quality. Perhaps the 1050Ti with high bitrates is enough?

What are you missing then with your 1050ti if compression hardly matters?

[ron spencer]

Hmmm....so does this mean that my 1050Ti is not that far behind? I usually just feed it a ton of bitrate, as I am not that interested in saving much space. Again I am really only interested in "burning" forced subs into the video file with maximum quality. Perhaps the 1050Ti with high bitrates is enough?

What are you missing then with your 1050ti if compression hardly matters?

Interesting question. It seems like if I am giving enough bitrate, then it hardly matters what card I use for nvenc encoding. So I guess the interest lies with maybe getting something quicker or, perhaps down the line, compressing a bit.

Accordingly, the conclusion would be that if I am utilizing enough bitrate for these "forced sub burned encodes" to get a resulting file that is similar in size to the original, then the GPU used really does not make a difference. It is only if I wanted something half the size that a more modern card may be of benefit.

Does this sound correct? Happy New Year!

[gta5]

sadly no improvement with rtx30 wait for rtx40

[ron spencer]

sadly no improvement with rtx30 wait for rtx40

what do you mean?

[johns0]

Means that the rtx series are not any better for encoding than previous versions.

[Zero-11]

sadly no improvement with rtx30 wait for rtx40

what do you mean?

30 series has the same encoder as the 20 series which starts with the 1650 super

[ron spencer]

Thank you all for the comments. I'll stick with what I have since I am not interested in really reducing file sizes.