# NVIDIA GPU CUDA support and H.264



## BestNoob (Oct 20, 2016)

It looks like that OBS Studio is not using the NVIDIA CUDA feature or GPU for most actions ?
Why ? I recognized that the only case OBS is using NVIDIA features is with the NVENC Encoder.
With x264 OBS is only using the CPU.

Can you please add CUDA/GPU Support for all codecs, encoders and containers that are supported ? ?


That would be great thank you.


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## Rodney (Oct 20, 2016)

No.

To be more precise: you can't just slap CUDA on x264, it doesn't work that way. I think there are some h.264 implementations that use CUDA for acceleration but it isn't really all that great.


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## c3r1c3 (Oct 20, 2016)

Using CUDA for h.264 was so bad NVidia killed it themselves. Yes, they actually put out a driver saying that feature was gone and it will never be coming back.


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## BestNoob (Apr 28, 2018)

Rodney said:


> No.
> 
> To be more precise: you can't just slap CUDA on x264, it doesn't work that way. I think there are some h.264 implementations that use CUDA for acceleration but it isn't really all that great.





c3r1c3 said:


> Using CUDA for h.264 was so bad NVidia killed it themselves. Yes, they actually put out a driver saying that feature was gone and it will never be coming back.



You know the old WEBM Video Converter before they quitted CUDA support ?
With this tool i was able to compress a 5GB VIdeo File to 300MB without Quality loss and this in 6 MINUTES of Converting !! My CPU needs 30 Minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQYkbwuP5iA

It was the most amazing and best thing ever seen in my VIDEO editing live.
So dont say its poor. I dont saw another program with this mighty power of converting without Quality loss and FULL HD Support on YouTube.

CUDA and GPU Support for Streaming & Converting is the most powerful thing ever.


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## c3r1c3 (May 2, 2018)

1. No one said that you can't use CUDA for codecs, or that it won't work. It's just that h264/x264 (the codec you explicitly mentioned in your first post) WAS in NVidia's driver and they killed it because it sucked. Again, you can use CUDA for various codecs, and some map better to the GPU Architecture than others. h.264 is one that doesn't.

2. OBS uses FFMPEG and libx264 for the various codecs it supports, so the only way to get CUDA support in the various codecs is to bug the various codec library developers (the libx264 guys, the OpenJPEG guys, etc.) and the FFMPEG people to implement it. Asking here for it won't get you anywhere.

3. The issue with CUDA support is that it only works on NVidia GPUs, yet the (possibly vast) majority of GPUs used in gaming are Intel integrated GPUs, which means you're asking for a TON of work to be done by the wrong team (see point #2 above about who to bug for CUDA codec support), for a standard (CUDA) that is only supported by 1 of the 3 GPU manufacturers...

Side note: Yes, when it comes to discreet GPUs, NVidia is king, but with AMD's APUs and Intel iGPUs, Nvidia will soon be 3rd in the GPU race (and I'm saying this as someone who only owns NVidia GPUs), so putting all that work into a 3rd place company's proprietary standard isn't a good use of resources.


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