Sorry if this has been asked & answered, I’ve searched but not found a solution. As far as I’ve gathered from reading other posts here, the specs on my MacBook Pro meet the requirements needed for Hardware-Accelerated Streaming. Intel Core i7 CPU with Quick Sync support and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M GPU.
Yet when transcoding a video (1080p HDR HEVC in this example) I never see the GPU usage go over 3%, it usually hangs at around 1% while my CPU is practically melting. (I’ve seen the CPU usage go over 900% which I didn’t know was possible)
The dashboard indicates that Hardware Acceleration is in use (hw)
But as you can see the GPU is hardly beeing used:
Is my old MacBook Pro able to utilize the GPU properly when transcoding and if so then how. Any help appreciated.
My transcoder settings:
Transcoder quality: Make my CPU hurt
√ Use hardware acceleration when available
√ Use hardware-accelerated video encoding
No idea why the Dashboard shows hardware decoding of HEVC video (the first (hw)).
Neither of the GPUs in your system is capable of such. HEVC decoding was not introduced until later products were released.
Both GPUs can encode to H.264, so it is normal to see the second (hw).
The Nvidia GT650M is based on their Kepler technology, released in 2012. A GPU based on Nvidia’s GM206 (Maxwell 2nd Gen, released 2015), Pascal (released 2016), or later is required to decode 10-bit HEVC video.
Intel added 10-bit HEVC decode ability to their 7th Gen Core chips. Intel 3rd Gen chips with HD 4000 graphics can decode H.264, MPEG2, & VC1 using Quick Sync Graphics.
By itself, the CPU It can transcode two H.264 1080p streams. It has a Passmark of 5651. A Passmark of ~2000 is needed to transcode H.264 1080p. A Passmark of 17000 is needed to transcode 4K HEVC without using hardware acceleration.
Thanks for your very informative and thorough response.
You mentioned that 3rd gen chips are capable of decoding h.264, I couldn’t assertaine which gen mine is so I’m assuming that my Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip is not 3rd gen. It’s the same story when it comes to h.264 transcoding, the GPU usage hardly goes above 1%.
