NVIDIA Unlocks More Video Encoding Capabilities On Its GeForce GPUs Dating Back To Maxwell

NVIDIA recently relaxed some video encoding limitations it had on its GeForce GPU lineup which have now been unlocked.

NVIDIA GeForce GPUs had a limitation lifted from most GPU families, tracing back to the Maxwell generation. These limitations have silently been removed by NVIDIA and now allow for increased video encoding for up to five streams simultaneously. While streaming up to five streams at once seems unreal, this step towards easing down software limitations, especially for consumer-based graphics cards, has now opened up further accessibility that was once closed off.

NVIDIA's NVENC encoding and decoding were limited to some degree by the company on GeForce GPUs, whereas the data center and enterprise-level graphics cards do not have the same limitations. The limitation could be lifted by using external software to patch the NVENC/NVDEC codecs for increased streams. As of March 18th, NVIDIA has increased the streams to five simultaneously.

Prior to this update, NVIDIA's GeForce GPUs could only process up to three streams simultaneously but the new enhancement adds two more streams to the encoder, as reported by the NVIDIA Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix.

The current generations allowed for the increased stream encoding range from the company's second-generation Maxwell, Pascal, Turing, Ampere, and the current Ada Lovelace graphics architectures except for the MX-series (MX110, MX230, MX130, MX150, MX250, MX330, MX350, and  MX450), which are known for media playbacks, such as HD video, and Adobe Flash games (during the Macromedia generation of Flash). Also, the NVIDIA GT 1030 GPU is not supported. However, the new list has GPUs from the last eight years.

One interesting note in the NVENC and NVDEC tables is that while it shows each codec and video quality, it never reveals the average screen resolution they are testing against. Most commonly, sizes of 1920 x 1080 px are most widely used, but the company has not officially revealed from their tables the actual size tested for the encoded and decoded streams. This is also not to say that all NVIDIA graphics cards are supported. With streaming up to five sources simultaneously, users should expect some issues with speed when attempting such a feat, especially of each manufacturer's limitations.

Suppose you have not updated your NVIDIA graphics drivers before March 18th, 2023 to receive the new capabilities of your graphics card. In that case, updating the latest drivers from the NVIDIA drivers and support page is recommended. Also, remember that some GPUs are not supported, & refer to the Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix page for full details.

News Sources: Tom's Hardware, NVIDIA Developer Site, NVIDIA Drivers Page