Does Discrete GPU Help?

[Chesty47]

I am getting ready to start ripping a DVD/BD collection of 434 movies. My machine's specs are:
i7-4770K
16GB RAM
Intel HD Graphics (using the integrated graphics since I don't game, though the specs would suggest otherwise)
OCZ 512GB SSD
Windows 10 x64 w/Anniversary Update

I originally built this system to run a flight sim, but that project got put on hold. Something happened to my previous GPU and I ditched it. Now it's (the PC), getting ready to burn, baby, burn. lol

Anyhow, I wanted to know if a discrete GPU would speed things up? Not looking to get a 1080-series, but more like a 1060-series, since I don't want to spend major bucks on something I won't need later.

Using AnyDVD HD to rip disc as an .ISO to the SSD, then MakeMKV to, well, make an MKV, then Handbrake (current version), to convert to MP4 for use in a Plex server. That first step is done because I am going to put the .ISO's on a separate HDD for archival purposes, and it's a lot faster to use MakeMKV on an .ISO that's on the SSD than it is to do so on a disc in the drive. I know that the ISO/MKV/MP4 files will require lots of space (Terminator: Salvation BD, uses 55.6GB). The point is more preserving the information versus storage requirements. Keeping the MKV+MP4 will also allow me to redo a conversion if needed OR to perform a recovery should the server's array fail. Besides, storing this many physical disc's is getting really cumbersome (currently have two 30-gallon storage bins completely filled, and a third on-deck).

So that's my rant. Any USEFUL input is appreciated.

[mduell]

No.

[Chesty47]

No.

LOL...pithy.

[mduell]

Intel HD Graphics, with QuickSync, is far more useful for quick low efficiency encodes.

[Chesty47]

Intel HD Graphics, with QuickSync, is far more useful for quick low efficiency encodes.

According to the Intel HD graphics app, I have Intel HD Graphics 4600...no idea where that ranks on the chart. Just found an article on Tom's Hardware Guide about the i7-4770K/HD 4600. Switch graphic settings from quality to performance and then OC the CPU is about all I need to do.

[Chesty47]

For [Censored] and giggles, I did a quick run-through of Jurassic World (BD); results are as follows:

MakeMKV: Disc --> MKV: 31m 30s

MKV --> MP4 (Handbrake 1.0.2, Fast 1080p30 @ 24 fps, all chapters default selected; saved to folder on SSD):
Pass 1: 1m
Pass 2: 1h 35m 45s

MKV plays in Windows Movies and TV app, but no sound; no subtitles available when playing the MP4 file in the same app, but that could just be a limitation of M&TV. Admittedly, I am not familiar with these conversions, but a friend of mine is and is going to show me what he's using. He has an 80" screen and his rips look awesome, so they'll be fine on my 5.7"-65" screens.

[rollin_eng]

Could you please post your logs, instructions can be found here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=31236

[Chesty47]

Could you please post your logs, instructions can be found here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=31236

Thanks, rollin_eng, but this thread wasn't a "please help me I'm lost", post. Rather, I was just asking whether a discrete GPU would be beneficial when converting MKV's to MP4's in Handbrake v1.0.2. The results I posted were done just to show others what I was seeing on an encode with virtually none of the default selections being changed.

However, here is the log that was produced by Handbrake...

http://pastebin.com/embed_js/g5hcZH9u

[mduell]

Thanks, rollin_eng, but this thread wasn't a "please help me I'm lost", post. Rather, I was just asking whether a discrete GPU would be beneficial when converting MKV's to MP4's in Handbrake v1.0.2. The results I posted were done just to show others what I was seeing on an encode with virtually none of the default selections being changed.

It's not unreasonable at all. If the state of non-lowlatency GPU encoding wasn't so miserable, the answer could easily depend on your specific content resolution/input codec/filtering choices/encoding setttings. Better to have the information up front to give an informed answer.

[Chesty47]

Thanks, rollin_eng, but this thread wasn't a "please help me I'm lost", post. Rather, I was just asking whether a discrete GPU would be beneficial when converting MKV's to MP4's in Handbrake v1.0.2. The results I posted were done just to show others what I was seeing on an encode with virtually none of the default selections being changed.

It's not unreasonable at all. If the state of non-lowlatency GPU encoding wasn't so miserable, the answer could easily depend on your specific content resolution/input codec/filtering choices/encoding setttings. Better to have the information up front to give an informed answer.

So you're saying it (having a discrete GPU), will/could help?

Last night when converting the MKV to MP4, I had 100% utilization across all cores/threads.

[s55]

No. GPU's are bad for video encoding. Everyone has abaonded GPU encoding now.

ASIC encoding is the way forward in terms of accelerated encoding. HandBrake supports Intel QuickSync only currently, and only on Windows.

[Chesty47]

Well I guess that's good news, since my CPU is still near the top, though the IG could be better. So nothing more hardware-wise is needed, just need to optimize the encoding settings.

[s55]

Well no. QuickSync doesn't use the CPU for encoding. It's dedicated hardware that comes along with the CPU.

So, on the video tab, you can choose "h.264 (Intel QSV)" (only if available for use on your system) or "h.264 (x264)"

x264 is a software encoder that runs on the CPU and generally speakings offers optimal Quality/filesize but it's obviously slower.
QSV is hardware and is faster, but isn't as good in quality/filesize.

Both encoders are configurable, so you can trade Speed, Quality, Filesize. But as the saying goes, Pick 2 of those and compromsie on the 3rd to achieve that. Applies to both.

[Chesty47]

OK, gotcha...I was confusing some of the settings you were talking about with driver/hardware settings instead of the settings in Handbrake. The few encodes I've done, I haven't even messed with the video codec option; just left it at H.264. Takes a 30-40GB MKV and gets down to about 6GBs. Probably just going to have to convert a bunch of discs to .ISO's and then batch convert them to MP4 while I be in beddy. Ain't no one got time for dat! lol

[mduell]

If the state of non-lowlatency GPU encoding wasn't so miserable

So you're saying it (having a discrete GPU), will/could help?

No, it's miserable.

[Chesty47]

If the state of non-lowlatency GPU encoding wasn't so miserable

So you're saying it (having a discrete GPU), will/could help?

No, it's miserable.

Yeah, that seems to be the consensus.

[Chesty47]

Just wanted to give y'all an update of what I've seen by switching to the H.264 (Intel QSV) setting.

Note: Every entry for H.264 (24 FPS), Handbrake was processing the entire MKV. The other two tests, Handbrake only processed the main movie. When done, I tested the quality of the rip by streaming the movie from my Xeon-based Plex server over CAT6 to an Xbox360 Slim, played on a 55" plasma HDTV...

CPU:

• IQSV: Mid-70% to mid-80%. System was very responsive.
• H.264 (24 FPS): CPU was maxed out and system was sluggish.
• H.264: Same. All CPU cores maxed.

GPU:

• IQSV: It hit nearly 1.5GHz!
• H.264 (24 FPS): Was around mid-500MHz.
• H.264: Same.

CPU Temps:

• IQSV: Mid-50s.
• H.264 (24 FPS): Mid-60s.
• H.264: Same.

Framerates:

• IQSV: Left alone this time and it hit over 140, nearly 150.
• H.264 (24 FPS): I manually set to 24 FPS; pretty much what I saw.
• H.264: Same old story.

Filesize:

• IQSV: 7.68GB.
• H.264 (24 FPS): 6.31GB.
• H.264: 5.22GB.

Encode time:

• IQSV: 32 minutes.
• H.264 (24 FPS): 96 minutes, though this was processing the entire MKV.
• H.264: 77 minutes.

Video Quality:

• IQSV: Perfect, though no closed captions or other languages; I guess I'll learn that part sometime later, lol. When I say perfect, I mean perfect as in you couldn't tell that you weren't watching it on a BD player. Unless you were like 3" from the screen, lol.

I'm just gonna assume that the video quality on the other two settings are going to be just as good, so not even going to bother with them...IQSV is the clear winner- filesize is close enough, quality is excellent, and the encode time is off-the-charts awesome. Gotta give a big thanks to all of the Ol' Timer's in here for pointing out IQSV to me; it's going to be a YUGE time saver.

All I know is that my friend, who's ripping his stuff from a Mac, is gonna be hella jealous when I tell him that I can do three movies in the time it takes him to do one, lol.

[RobD]

I am also getting ready to re-encode my entire movie library due to the fact I burned in subtitles and want to make them optional since my Roku units can select it. My old WDTV players couldn't do that, so I had to burn-in.

My encoding used to be done on my Plex server, which is dual Xeon X5672 processors. I just picked up an Intel NUC6i5 series (Skylake) with the 1.8GHz i5 but more importantly the Iris 540 graphics. I thought the Iris 540 with the 48 EUs and 64MB of dedicated memory would blow the HD 530 with 24 EUs and no memory out of the water. Not so in my benchmarks. But both Intel graphics definitely beat out 8 cores of 3.2GHz in processing, but not in quality.

Here is my current chart using the movie Rent (2005) as a source. On my Good column, I am looking at pixel shifting of the gym floor at the 51:50 mark in the movie. Y means no shifting, M is moderate, and N means I just don't like it. I'm still trying to find the right settings for QuickSync that make me happy and don't use a ton of space.

Here is my chart - sorry it isn't perfectly clean, it wasn't easy to get an Excel sheet to convert to spaced text... Oh yeah, it's all in Handbrake 1.0.2.

Code: Select all

Rent (2005) DVD 480p, only keeping English subtitles and audio tracks
Dual Xeon X5672 = 3.2GHz QC Westmere-EP
NUC i5-6260U = 1.8GHz DC Skylake Mobile w/Iris 540 @ 300MHz/950MHz
P310 i7-6700 = 3.4GHz QC Skylake Desktop w/HD 530 @ 1150MHz

                                  CPU       Xeon P310     Intel QSV   NUC  P310              MediaInfo
Profile                         Size   Good Time Time     Size   Good Time Time             Audio      Subtitle
Original ISO                    5.99GB Y    -             -      -    -    -
MakeMKV                         5.34GB Y        1         -      -    -    -                AC-3/AC-3  VobSub
Fast 1080p30                    810MB  Y       15   13    0.97GB N       10    5            AAC        mp4s
H.264 MKV 480p30                0.98GB Y       17   15    1.15GB N             4            AAC        VobSub
H.264 MKV 720p30                889MB  Y       16   14    1.10GB N             4            AAC        VobSub
H.264 MKV 1080p30               788MB  Y       16   13    0.97GB N             5            AAC        VobSub
H.265 MKV 480p30                762MB  Y            62    1.05GB N       11    9            AAC        VobSub
H.265 MKV 720p30                                          947MB  N       11   10            AAC        VobSub
H.265 MKV 1080p30                                         855MB  N            10            AAC        VobSub
High Profile                    1.60GB Y       18         1.73GB N       11    5            AAC/AC-3   mp4s
HQ 480p30 Surround              1.80GB         34         1.86GB N       13    5            AAC/AC-3   mp4s
HQ 720p30 Surround              1.61GB M       26         1.68GB N       11    5            AAC/AC-3   mp4s
HQ 1080p30 Surround             1.46GB M       26         1.58GB N       10    5            AAC/AC-3   mp4s
Roku 480p30                     0.99GB         17         1.15GB N       10    4            AAC        mp4s
Roku 720p30 Surround            1.29GB M       17         1.53GB N       10    5            AAC/AC-3   mp4s
Roku 1080p Surround             1.21GB Y       17         1.40GB N        9    5            AAC/AC-3   mp4s
Roku 2160p30 4K Surround        936MB  Y       77         1.09GB N       11   10            AAC/AC-3   VobSub
Super HQ 480p30 Surround        2.17GB         11         2.27GB M       11    4            AAC/AC-3   mp4s
Super HQ 720p30 Surround        1.87GB Y       61         2.04GB M       10    4            AAC/AC-3   mp4s
Super HQ 1080p30 Surround                                 1.86GB N       10    5            AAC/AC-3   mp4s

H.264 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP14                           2.50GB         10                 AAC/AC-3   VobSub
H.264 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP16                           1.85GB N        9                 AAC/AC-3   VobSub
H.264 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP16 Quality                   5.11GB Y       12                 AAC/AC-3   VobSub
H.264 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP18                           1.44GB N        9                 AAC/AC-3   VobSub
H.264 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP18 Quality                   3.81GB Y       11                 AAC/AC-3   VobSub
H.265 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP16                           1.75GB N       12                 AAC/AC-3   VobSub
H.265 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP16 Quality                   1.75GB N       31                 AAC/AC-3   VobSub
H.265 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP18                           1.33GB N       11                 AAC/AC-3   VobSub
H.265 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP18 Quality                   1.32GB N       30                 AAC/AC-3   VobSub
Super HQ 480p30 Surround Intel QSV High 3.1               2.27GB N       10                 AAC/AC-3   mp4s

[Chesty47]

Are these times in minutes? What other settings are you using to get the FS so low? Also, 6GB for an ISO; is that DVD or BD?

[RobD]

Yes, the times are in minutes and this is a DVD ISO - takes too long to test a BluRay so I'm working with a DVD for now to find that perfect setting for me. Just using the stock profile listed in the left column, if I made a change it is denoted in the profile name. So, for instance "H.264 MKV 480p30 Intel QSV QP16 Quality" means I picked the "H.264 MKV 480p30" profile, changed the video codec to the "H.264 (Intel QSV)" setting, changed the QP to 16 and moved the Encoder preset to Quality.

I noticed a typo - the second line it says "Handbrake" - that was supposed to say "MakeMKV", which would be just a conversion from the ISO file to just the main movie into an MKV container. I'll try to run a few more encodes and update the table to give better comparisons.

[rollin_eng]

If your just encoding a DVD using 1080 and 720 presets are a waste of time.

Could you please post your logs, instructions can be found here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=31236

[RobD]

I have updated the table in my my post above to have a good selection of times of both CPU and QSV encoding, and the times are in minutes.

rollin_eng - I'm not asking for any kind of support on my encoding, and I don't have the logs on over 60 encoding jobs between 3 different computers. Suffice to say it was the same source ISO file, the same Handbrake 1.0.2 release version, Windows 10 64-bit, and the CPU and video chips are documented at the top of my table. Most of the table is stock profiles, the QSV portion was just changing H.264/H.265 to the Intel QSV equivalent and changing nothing else on the Video tab.

[rollin_eng]

rollin_eng - I'm not asking for any kind of support on my encoding, and I don't have the logs on over 60 encoding jobs between 3 different computers. Suffice to say it was the same source ISO file, the same Handbrake 1.0.2 release version, Windows 10 64-bit, and the CPU and video chips are documented at the top of my table. Most of the table is stock profiles, the QSV portion was just changing H.264/H.265 to the Intel QSV equivalent and changing nothing else on the Video tab.

I understand, but without any logs people have no idea what your source is and if any filters are on and needed etc etc.

While 60 logs aren't necessary it might be useful to see some of them.

[RobD]

I have taken my current table and included two logs files into this post in Benchmarks: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=35912