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jmc2
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Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Tue Oct 29, 2019 7:36 am

I know in the old "PhysX" days Nvidia would not let you use the secondary functions of Nvidia cards if
the Nvidia card was not the main graphic card in the system.

Does Nvidia still do this?

I have a Vega 56 card and I want to use a secondary Nvidia 1660 Turing card for testing GPU video encoding.
My video programs do not support AMD GPU encoding only Nvidia.
Would hate to buy one and find out I can't use the GPU encoding unless I take out my AMD card.

"Epox Vos" mentioned that the Nvidia GPU encoding was like... X264/Medium Preset.
So something I'll have to see for myself to know if it is acceptable or not.
(I use Slow or VerySlow X264)
 
Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:49 am

Why not swap and make the Nvidia the primary card and your Vega the secondary? Any reason you don't want to/can't do this?

Why x264? hevc/x265 delivers superior results at half the file size. Yes, it might be slower but you can tweak the settings to get the same encoding time as your preferred x264 preset yet get better encoding quality.
 
jmc2
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Tue Oct 29, 2019 5:39 pm

Igor_Kavinski wrote:
Why not swap and make the Nvidia the primary card and your Vega the secondary? Any reason you don't want to/can't do this?

Why x264? hevc/x265 delivers superior results at half the file size. Yes, it might be slower but you can tweak the settings to get the same encoding time as your preferred x264 preset yet get better encoding quality.

I agree about HEVC but need to be able to just take a show or movie on a flashstick over to
a friend's house and watch it. x264.mp4 always works, HEVC.mp4s do not with older tvs.
EDIT...
VLC has a terrible time with HEVC...Very jerky!

I don't approve of Nvidia business practices as per the one mentioned and others.
But Nvidia has such a large market share that AMD is not supported in my edit programs.
So am forced to work with that. Just want to keep Nvidia's presence in my pc to a minimum.

Thanks.
 
Topinio
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Tue Oct 29, 2019 6:04 pm

jmc2 wrote:
a friend's house and watch it. x264.mp4 always works, HEVC.mp4s do not with older tvs.
EDIT...
VLC has a terrible time with HEVC...Very jerky!

I don't approve of Nvidia business practices as per the one mentioned and others.

Makes sense
But Nvidia has such a large market share that AMD is not supported in my edit programs.
So am forced to work with that.

Makes sense, sorta.
Just want to keep Nvidia's presence in my pc to a minimum.

Does not compute.

Sorry.

But, by the point at which you are looking at a GTX 1660, you might as well get a GTX 1660 SUPER given the price is the same, and at that point it's either take the minimal performance hit from the Vega 56 or step up to the RTX 2060 and get yourself an actual upgrade.

Buying a 1660 already throws away any principles and hands NVIDIA and its resellers/vendors hundreds of currency units, no point in kidding yourself that you're not supporting its shoddy business practices.
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Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:45 pm

Topinio wrote:
Buying a 1660 already throws away any principles and hands NVIDIA and its resellers/vendors hundreds of currency units, no point in kidding yourself that you're not supporting its shoddy business practices.


Not to mention supporting Nvidia's hypocritical stance that raytracing is the future. Really, Nvidia? Is that why you are screwing people over by releasing the 1660 without dedicated raytracing units? What will these people do in the future? Give you more money to move to your RTX series? F you, Nvidia! *insert gif of middle finger by Linus Torvalds*
 
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:37 am

I'm really not seeing what buying a GTX card and then minimizing its use is actually going to achieve. Once you buy it, they have your money, so realistically you have supported their business practices. I'm pretty sure JSH isn't lying awake at night obsessing over the number of people who bought his cards but refuse to use them.

A more effective way to not support NVidia's business would be to buy a used card (maybe a 1080 or similar). Then the money isn't going to NVidia, it's going to whoever is selling the card.
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jmc2
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Thu Oct 31, 2019 11:24 am

Well, Looks like I'm going to have to learn the hard way about if I'll be able to use the card the way I want instead of the way Nvidia wants.
I ordered a Gigabyte 1660 Super. Should be here Sat.. Will let you know how it goes.
 
Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Thu Oct 31, 2019 1:29 pm

jmc2 wrote:
So something I'll have to see for myself to know if it is acceptable or not.
(I use Slow or VerySlow X264)


http://aerobytepc.com/index-html/encodi ... taxrip-64/

Try using Intel QuickSync if you have at least a 2nd Gen Intel Core CPU. It might be fast enough for you to ditch the idea of having to use a separate GPU just for encoding.
 
jmc2
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Fri Nov 01, 2019 8:31 am

Igor_Kavinski wrote:

Try using Intel QuickSync if you have at least a 2nd Gen Intel Core CPU. It might be fast enough for you to ditch the idea of having to use a separate GPU just for encoding.[/quote]

Oh, my 3930 6/12HT from 2012 does not (sadly) have QuickSync. I've never had it.
Seems, if you always go for high core count you are left behind on the other goodies.
Would love to have had a bit of integrated graphics somewhere in all those 6/8/16 core cpus I have.

EDIT... just a small thing to mention. the 1650's encoder does not support "HEVC B frames" according to Nvidia's encoder option list. All the other 1600s types do. Probably unnoticeable but it's there.
(maybe the upcoming "1650 Super" will change that)

Thanks.
 
Topinio
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Sat Nov 02, 2019 1:23 pm

jmc2 wrote:
Oh, my 3930 6/12HT from 2012 does not (sadly) have QuickSync. I've never had it.
Seems, if you always go for high core count you are left behind on the other goodies.
Would love to have had a bit of integrated graphics somewhere in all those 6/8/16 core cpus I have.

EDIT... just a small thing to mention. the 1650's encoder does not support "HEVC B frames" according to Nvidia's encoder option list. All the other 1600s types do. Probably unnoticeable but it's there.
(maybe the upcoming "1650 Super" will change that)

Thanks.

Interesting, seems that TU117 (alone of the Turing generation) uses the 5th generation NVENC block from Volta not the 6th gen. one from all the other Turing's. Using B-frames should improve encoding times and reduce file size IIRC, so it's probably noticable to the point where anyone doing encoding would be noticably better off buying a 1660.

On Intel QuickSync, it's just that it's part of the iGPU block on the dies and the high-end chips don't waste silicon on integrated graphics.
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jmc2
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Sun Nov 03, 2019 6:49 am

Topinio wrote:

Interesting, seems that TU117 (alone of the Turing generation) uses the 5th generation NVENC block from Volta not the 6th gen. one from all the other Turing's. Using B-frames should improve encoding times and reduce file size IIRC, so it's probably noticable to the point where anyone doing encoding would be noticably better off buying a 1660.

On Intel QuickSync, it's just that it's part of the iGPU block on the dies and the high-end chips don't waste silicon on integrated graphics.[/quote]

One pc news round up mentioned that the upcoming Nov22 "1650 Super" will have an updated Video encoder!
I would have purchased the 1650 if it had been up to par with the other 1600s...much cheaper.
Good to know I made the right choice.

Heh, I thought the IGPUs were small and wanted one in every cpu core!
Once I looked up a picture...ouch. The space of 4 or more cores.

My 1600 Super got here yesterday. Now I've got to install it with my Vega 56 and see how everything is going to work.
Or IF everything is going to work.

Thanks.
 
Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Sun Nov 03, 2019 9:11 am

jmc2 wrote:
My 1600 Super got here yesterday. Now I've got to install it with my Vega 56 and see how everything is going to work.
Or IF everything is going to work.

Thanks.


At least you can get a taste of Nvidia's RTX demos and RTX compatible games now. Not as fast as having dedicated RTX cores but still, it should make for some nice eye candy if you are the drooling kind :)
 
jmc2
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Mon Nov 04, 2019 5:46 pm

Igor_Kavinski wrote:
jmc2 wrote:
My 1600 Super got here yesterday. Now I've got to install it with my Vega 56 and see how everything is going to work.Or IF everything is going to work.Thanks.


At least you can get a taste of Nvidia's RTX demos and RTX compatible games now. Not as fast as having dedicated RTX cores but still, it should make for some nice eye candy if you are the drooling kind :)


Thanks, I had not thought of that... hope it does not spoil me. :)

The Nvidia card NVEnc worked with no problem. So nothing locked out anymore.

My old 2012 X79 motherboard was a pain. It will only use the FIRST card it finds (Slot1 if used)
No options to tell the bios what slot to use. Had to do a bit of switching cards around to get it back on my monitor.

Nvidia card was connect to a "dummy" HDMI monitor plug.
Will have to check to see if it needs any monitor connection at all.
 
Igor_Kavinski
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Tue Nov 05, 2019 3:23 am

jmc2 wrote:
Nvidia card was connect to a "dummy" HDMI monitor plug.
Will have to check to see if it needs any monitor connection at all.


For running games/demos on Nvidia's GPU, you will need to connect it to a monitor.
 
jmc2
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Tue Nov 05, 2019 10:12 am

NVEnc...
Looks like I don't need a monitor attached or even the Nvidia Service started!
(unless I want to try out the RTX features at a very slow rate) :)

But HAD to install the Nvidia Display Drivers. Had Hoped the edit programs would
contain their own NVEnc driver...nope
 
jmc2
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Re: Does Nvidia still lock you out if card is a "secondary"

Tue Nov 05, 2019 10:50 am

Igor_Kavinski wrote:
jmc2 wrote:
Nvidia card was connect to a "dummy" HDMI monitor plug.
Will have to check to see if it needs any monitor connection at all.


For running games/demos on Nvidia's GPU, you will need to connect it to a monitor.


Heh, you can access a "dummy" monitor with OBS. I record off of mine.
Don't know what would happen if trying for RTX functions tho. Would be interesting.

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