Question / Help Is it practical for me to install a 2nd GPU dedicated to NVENC Twitch Streaming?

[revolverr]

My question is whether or not it's practical to install an EVGA GTX 750 Ti in combination with below specs dedicated to NVENC Twitch Streaming. Would I get my normal fps in R6 Siege with this gpu dedicated to streaming, and my other gpu dedicated to the game as if I weren't streaming? If so, I'll have some other questions. Thanks!

Specs:
Ryzen 7 1700
EVGA GTX 1070
16 GB DDR4

 

[BK-Morpheus]

Nope, won't help at all.
It's possible, that gaming and streaming performance will even get worse (as the PCIe lanes might drop from x16 to x8 with two cards installed).

 

[CaptaPraelium]

You should get the same framerates in game while using NVENC on the same card. I Have you set "CUDA - Force P2 state" to "Off" using Nvidia profile inspector? If not, then using NVENC will downclock your VRAM when encoding, which wil result in a drop in framerate.

 

[FerretBomb]

NVENC is a separate section of the GPU core from that used by your game or OBS. It will have no impact on your game, and adding a second card adds a great deal of un-needed complexity and transfers across the PCIe bus to move textures and video frame information from card to card, even if having two GPUs doesn't cause your mobo to run each slot at 8x mode which will only make the problems it creates EVEN WORSE.

In short, no. Adding a second GPU just to do NVENC encoding is actually actively harmful. Don't do it. If you are doing it, stop and remove the second card ASAP.

 

[BK-Morpheus]

To get some light on the "Force P2 state when using CUDA" topic:
You will need an old version of the nvidia inspector tool, to change that setting.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/...gpu-memory-to-downclock/post/5158554/#5158554

 

[CaptaPraelium]

No, the latest version does it just fine. https://ci.appveyor.com/project/Orbmu2k/nvidiaprofileinspector/build/artifacts

 

[BK-Morpheus]

Good to know. Version 2.13 didn't have the option. 2.13.10 does have it again.

 

[Nathan Parola]

NVENC is a separate section of the GPU core from that used by your game or OBS. It will have no impact on your game, and adding a second card adds a great deal of un-needed complexity and transfers across the PCIe bus to move textures and video frame information from card to card, even if having two GPUs doesn't cause your mobo to run each slot at 8x mode which will only make the problems it creates EVEN WORSE.

In short, no. Adding a second GPU just to do NVENC encoding is actually actively harmful. Don't do it. If you are doing it, stop and remove the second card ASAP.

Sometimes, especially with OBS, my GPU will clock to 99% while playing graphically intense games and NVENC will get effected. Performance in-game will drop a few frames and OBS Studio will lose frames.

 

[Osiris]

That is why you limit the fps in the game, to avoid it using all of the GPU power.