Locked SLI

[yooper]

Trying to find any video converter software that will support SLI. I am trying to decide if setting up SLI would be worth the trouble.
thanks in advance

 

[Cyler]

This is a complex question and I will try to avoid a complex answer. The short answer is no, you don't need SLI but you could benefit from 2 cards under conditions.

SLI and Nvenc/Cuda are 2 different things and don't work together. SLI is meant for rendering only (Cards alternating frames), while Cuda is for computing and nvenc to use the hardware compression engine for videos and so when you enable SLI you cant use both of the cards for computing. Your other problem is that nvenc for consumer cards, due to limitations in its API cant handle more than 2 streams concurrently if I remember well.

Here is where things get weird. Since for encoding, you need only the hardware video compressor, you can get dissimilar cards (like a 2060 and 1650 or a 1070 and 1050) and get almost the same video compression performance as both cards use the same hardware encoder.

To fully utilize such setups you need to run 2 instances of a program like FFmpeg using 2 different videos, one on each card. But you won't accelerate 1 single video to encode at twice a speed.

 

[yooper]

This is a complex question and I will try to avoid a complex answer. The short answer is no, you don't need SLI but you could benefit from 2 cards under conditions.

SLI and Nvenc/Cuda are 2 different things and don't work together. SLI is meant for rendering only (Cards alternating frames), while Cuda is for computing and nvenc to use the hardware compression engine for videos and so when you enable SLI you cant use both of the cards for computing. Your other problem is that nvenc for consumer cards, due to limitations in its API cant handle more than 2 streams concurrently if I remember well.

Here is where things get weird. Since for encoding, you need only the hardware video compressor, you can get dissimilar cards (like a 2060 and 1650 or a 1070 and 1050) and get almost the same video compression performance as both cards use the same hardware encoder.

To fully utilize such setups you need to run 2 instances of a program like FFmpeg using 2 different videos, one on each card. But you won't accelerate 1 single video to encode at twice a speed.

thank you for the quick response. I was trying to think of a way to speed up a program like Topaz Ai.

 

[Cyler]

thank you for the quick response. I was trying to think of a way to speed up a program like Topaz Ai.

As proof of what I said above, this is from topaz AI labs.

So a lot depends on your type of work. If you have multiple videos, you will benefit by encoding them in parallel, If you want only 1 video to encode faster with 2 cards, it won't work. Sli for sure is not needed as it will mask the second card and remember you don't even need identical cards. Keep in mind that programs such as Topaz do a lot more than encoding video so they will benefit from higher Cuda core count and larger memory pool, for doing various effects like upscaling, deblur, etc. So in your case, a higher spec card might be better than 2 medium cards since you also do processing and not encoding only.

If the above answered your question lets us know so we can close the thread.

 

[fantom]

or divide Your video in two .... do what You need to do /like cyler/AI Labs said/ ... when done, stitch it together,

 

[yooper]

thank you, looks like I will be using just one card then. thanks for the replys.

 

[vdogeek]

Sounds like all is good here now, thanks to all that ptched-in! Closed and tagged completed.