Handbrake : GPU acceleration

DBabo · 10-01-2016, 02:44 PM

i know the better forum might be the handbrake's one, but i always was able to resolve my questions here - trying my luck again

I'm on HB 0.95 and have GT218 [GeForce 210] video card.

Was thinking how can i leverage it for (de)encoding videos with HB.
search on google hasn't revealed anything, but maybe i haven't looked right. the documentation on HB is "non searchable" (it seems)

Appreciate.

ondoho · 10-02-2016, 02:54 PM

'k, i had to look up what handbrake actually is: a "Multithreaded video transcoder".

so, is it actually saying anything about gpu accel, is there an actual problem?

i can't say anything definite, except this: i used to use the exact same video card, and it's absolutely low-end nvidia. chances are, it simply isn't up to the job.
would be good to know what distro, which video driver and so on.
please also paste the output of:

Code:

lspci -k | grep -iEA5 'vga|3d'

DBabo · 10-02-2016, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ondoho

'k, i had to look up what handbrake actually is: a "Multithreaded video transcoder".

so, is it actually saying anything about gpu accel, is there an actual problem?

i can't say anything definite, except this: i used to use the exact same video card, and it's absolutely low-end nvidia. chances are, it simply isn't up to the job.
would be good to know what distro, which video driver and so on.
please also paste the output of:

Code:

lspci -k | grep -iEA5 'vga|3d'

>is it actually saying anything about gpu accel, is there an actual problem?

not sure what/how to define the problem, but i saw they (used to ?) have _some_ information about the GPU processing. And as i said - i can't find it on their new site.
the "problem", or , rather - the observed behaviour - the decoding/encoding is happening on CPU. And even with 8 core it is taking its sweet time. Would be nice to have the decoding faster w/o sacrificing the quality.

Some time ago i got vlc to use the GPU and it was a "beautiful thing"

, so i'd assume the handbrake would follow the suite.
Anyway :
i'm on Scientific Linux 6.5
and lspci:

Code:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2)
	Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device 3629
	Kernel driver in use: nvidia
	Kernel modules: nvidia, nouveau, nvidiafb
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
	Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device 3629

glxinfo | grep -i vendor
server glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
client glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 210/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 340.96

now, if i were to run vlc against mkv file:

Code:

libva: VA-API version 0.32.1
Xlib:  extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
[0x7f15800069d8] pulse audio output error: PulseAudio server connection failure: Connection refused
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
[0x7f1590c95e78] avcodec decoder: Using VA API version 0.32 for hardware decoding.

Some links i came across:
1. not a good idea to use GPU
2. Dead link to the documentation

ondoho · 10-03-2016, 12:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DBabo

the "problem", or , rather - the observed behaviour - the decoding/encoding is happening on CPU. And even with 8 core it is taking its sweet time. Would be nice to have the decoding faster w/o sacrificing the quality.

not with a geforce 210.
it WAS a low-end gpu some years ago. nowadays, most integrated gpus (e.g. my intel) are actually more powerful & capable.

Quote:

Some time ago i got vlc to use the GPU and it was a "beautiful thing"

for video playback, yes.
not the same as transcoding.
which, i think, is just a task like any other, so unless you have CUDA capabilities your nvidia gpu doesn't even come into it.

Code:

glxinfo | grep -i vendor
server glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
client glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 210/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 340.96

Code:

[0x7f1590c95e78] avcodec decoder: Using VA API version 0.32 for hardware decoding.

it's all there, and that's all you'll get, at least with that graphics card.

seasons · 10-05-2016, 04:27 PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_NVENC

Long story short:
1. Handbrake devs have not implemented NVENC and have indicated they are wary of doing so because of licensing: https://github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake/issues/259
2. GeForce 210 is too old for NVENC anyway

Handbrake does support Intel Quicksync Video, but I think you have to be using the Intel GPU for it to work. Maybe you could play around with that in a live environment or a separate install.