MP 7,1 Hardware encoding of HEVC works on 7.1 Mac Pro, right?

[AndreeOnline]

Quick question after having been more absorbed by hardware acceleration on my 5.1 Mac Pro:

I don't think HW acceleration of HEVC worked on the 7.1 Mac Pro out of the box at launch. But since it's now working on my 5.1 in Big Sur (albeit with Open Core), I'm assuming everything works on a vanilla Mac Pro 2019 with a Vega Pro II.

Am I right?

Thanks!

 

[chfilm]

Quick question after having been more absorbed by hardware acceleration on my 5.1 Mac Pro:

I don't think HW acceleration of HEVC worked on the 7.1 Mac Pro out of the box at launch. But since it's now working on my 5.1 in Big Sur (albeit with Open Core), I'm assuming everything works on a vanilla Mac Pro 2019 with a Vega Pro II.

Am I right?

Thanks!

I can run a test for you, how?

 

[jasonmvp]

I don't think HW acceleration of HEVC worked on the 7.1 Mac Pro out of the box at launch.

HEVC hardware encoding was available on the 7.1 from launch. I'm not sure what brought you a conclusion otherwise. I've cranked out a number of h.265/HEVC files all handled in hardware, no sweat.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Much appreciated!

Depending on your software of course.... if you have Resolve you can drop any clip on a timeline (hopefully you already have a project or two up and running) and on the 'Deliver' page chose h.265 as export format, check 'use hardware acceleration if available'

Then set it to UHD and export. If HEVC encoding works, the export should progress realtime-ish. If not, you might see the first few frames export at a promising speed and then after a short while you'll end up between 0-3 fps. Or similar... I don't have any expericene with the newer Mac Pros.

Another way might be to check via an app like Videoproc. I don't use, like or endorse the app myself, but it's been used in the Open Core community to go into its settings that have a graphical interface that shows if the app thinks your computer has h.264 and h.265 hardware encoding enabled:

It's free to download and pretty quick to enter it's settings. But that is perhaps if the Resolve method isn't convenient and you still are curious.

Regardless, thanks for reaching out!

 

[AndreeOnline]

HEVC hardware encoding was available on the 7.1 from launch. I'm not sure what brought you a conclusion otherwise. I've cranked out a number of h.265/HEVC files all handled in hardware, no sweat.

You posted while I was writing above, so I hadn't see it. Anyway:

I remember (but now you're making me doubt that) the initial reviews not having success with encoding of HEVC and that they were waiting for driver support.

But I'll take your good news and consider your answer a 'yes'.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Ah, I realise what the crux is now: I say HEVC but I specifically mean the HDR flavour where we typically export to UHD HEVC in 10bit. It's the 10 bit part that has always been problematic.

I should say that 10bit isn't working on my 5.1 either, but at least the 5700 XT cards should support it—and there was a rumour a long time ago that support was coming "shortly".

 

[chfilm]

Much appreciated!

Depending on your software of course.... if you have Resolve you can drop any clip on a timeline (hopefully you already have a project or two up and running) and on the 'Deliver' page chose h.265 as export format, check 'use hardware acceleration if available'

View attachment 1680312


Then set it to UHD and export. If HEVC encoding works, the export should progress realtime-ish. If not, you might see the first few frames export at a promising speed and then after a short while you'll end up between 0-3 fps. Or similar... I don't have any expericene with the newer Mac Pros.

Another way might be to check via an app like Videoproc. I don't use, like or endorse the app myself, but it's been used in the Open Core community to go into its settings that have a graphical interface that shows if the app thinks your computer has h.264 and h.265 hardware encoding enabled:

It's free to download and pretty quick to enter it's settings. But that is perhaps if the Resolve method isn't convenient and you still are curious.

Regardless, thanks for reaching out!

Hmmm so the above mentioned method it blazes through the export in no time at all. Do you want me to try out somehow the 10 bit hdr part? If so, how do I do that?

 

[AndreeOnline]

Hmmm so the above mentioned method it blazes through the export in no time at all. Do you want me to try out somehow the 10 bit hdr part? If so, how do I do that?

If you have things up and running: a minimal change.

Just go down a bit in the settings. The 'encoding profile' says Main. Click the dropdown and select Main10. This creates a 10bit HEVC, which is what I'd use for UHD HDR content for my OLED TV for instance.

Thanks!

And a small clarification: this just makes the export 10bit, not HDR per se. But it's the 10bit flavour of the HEVC encoding that is troublesome, not the HDR color space or gamma.

 

[chfilm]

If you have things up and running: a minimal change.

Just go down a bit in the settings. The 'encoding profile' says Main. Click the dropdown and select Main10. This creates a 10bit HEVC, which is what I'd use for UHD HDR content for my OLED TV for instance.

Thanks!

And a small clarification: this just makes the export 10bit, not HDR per se. But it's the 10bit flavour of the HEVC encoding that is troublesome, not the HDR color space or gamma.

Did the test in Resolve, a 50 second video took 29 seconds to export.. so is the HW acceleration active? I assume so?

 

[OkiRun]

Did the test in Resolve, a 50 second video took 29 seconds to export.. so is the HW acceleration active? I assume so?

I also did test in Resolve, a 1 minute 7 second video took 49.57 seconds to export using the settings OP designated.

 

[jscipione]

I would be surprised if HEVC hardware accelerated encoding did not work out of the box on a Mac Pro 7,1. It should be able to use hardware in the T2 chip to encode, and may use your video card instead if that’s faster. The hack that open core implements to enable HEVC encoding on a 5,1 comes from iMac Pro which works the same way.

 

[AndreeOnline]

I would be surprised if HEVC hardware accelerated encoding did not work out of the box on a Mac Pro 7,1. It should be able to use hardware in the T2 chip to encode, and may use your video card instead if that’s faster. The hack that open core implements to enable HEVC encoding on a 5,1 comes from iMac Pro which works the same way.

The T2 chip is limited to 8bit HEVC encoding as far as I know.

But the 'faster-than-realtime' results above are great. For me it's not about saving a second here and there.... it's about not losing eons of time due to lack of support.

My 5.1 Mac Pro is HW acceleration enabled with open core, but 10bit HEVC exports are still in the 0-2 fps range where an 8bit export would be 20-ish fps for UHD. This is with a Vega Frontier Edition 16GB card.

I knew that the 5000-series cards, like my iMac with 5700 XT and the newer MPX modules for Mac Pro have good support for HEVC, but I wasn't so sure about the Vega Pro II cards.

 

[riggieri]

The T2 chip is limited to 8bit HEVC encoding as far as I know.

But the 'faster-than-realtime' results above are great. For me it's not about saving a second here and there.... it's about not losing eons of time due to lack of support.

My 5.1 Mac Pro is HW acceleration enabled with open core, but 10bit HEVC exports are still in the 0-2 fps range where an 8bit export would be 20-ish fps for UHD. This is with a Vega Frontier Edition 16GB card.

I knew that the 5000-series cards, like my iMac with 5700 XT and the newer MPX modules for Mac Pro have good support for HEVC, but I wasn't so sure about the Vega Pro II cards.

Only Navi based cards have 10bit h265 encode enabled. Not sure if it has been enabled in OS X yet.
On my 2020 iMac, with 5700, still only software encode.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Only Navi based cards have 10bit h265 encode enabled. Not sure if it has been enabled in OS X yet.
On my 2020 iMac, with 5700, still only software encode.

Are you on Big Sur?

My similar iMac 2020 with the 5700XT is accelerated in HEVC 10bit.

With acceleration I'm exporting UHD at 34 fps and without it quickly drops to 2 fps for the same clip.

 

[riggieri]

Are you on Big Sur?

My similar iMac 2020 with the 5700XT is accelerated in HEVC 10bit.

With acceleration I'm exporting UHD at 34 fps and without it quickly drops to 2 fps for the same clip.

No only Catalina. I’ll double check again.
Really waiting for those 6800 XTs to upgrade my 7,1.
Sold off one of my Radeon VII’salready. May have jumped the gun but got more than I paid for it but I miss it in Resolve. One VII just doesn’t cut it.

 

[chfilm]

Only Navi based cards have 10bit h265 encode enabled. Not sure if it has been enabled in OS X yet.
On my 2020 iMac, with 5700, still only software encode.

How do you explain the super fast hardware export on the Vega II then?

 

[riggieri]

For 8 bit, it used the T2 chip. I don’t believe Vega architecture has 10 bit HEVC encode. I might be misinformed though.

 

[chfilm]

For 8 bit, it used the T2 chip. I don’t believe Vega architecture has 10 bit HEVC encode. I might be misinformed though.

But I tried the 10bit profile export from resolve and it was blazingly fast.. ?

 

[AndreeOnline]

But I tried the 10bit profile export from resolve and it was blazingly fast.. ?

Plus, corroborated by @OkiRun. That sounds really encouraging.

But before the feedback in this thread, I would have leaned towards 10bit needing a 5000-series card. My 7.1 isn't up and running yet as I'm waiting for some small accessories, but it will be interesting to test.

 

[jasonmvp]

For what it's worth and from my experience: testing hardware encoding on short videos isn't really going to be an accurate gauge of the performance. You really want to start testing 10 minute videos, if not longer. If you take a 10 minute video and get an export time of t/2, then you know you're seeing a hardware advantage. Don't rely on the 1-2 minute vids.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Don't rely on the 1-2 minute vids.

It should be fine. On both my vintage Mac Pro and the new iMac (when I deselect 'use hardware') the speed drops very quickly. I get maybe 3 seconds at most with an indication of 30 fps export, but then it just dies.

With clips that are around a minute or so, you'd notice the steep falloff.

If it works or not, is not based on heat or load, or anything that is time dependant. I wouldn't want to test a 4 second clip, but a minute is fine from my perspective.

 

[OkiRun]

It should be fine. On both my vintage Mac Pro and the new iMac (when I deselect 'use hardware') the speed drops very quickly. I get maybe 3 seconds at most with an indication of 30 fps export, but then it just dies.

With clips that are around a minute or so, you'd notice the steep falloff.

If it works or not, is not based on heat or load, or anything that is time dependant. I wouldn't want to test a 4 second clip, but a minute is fine from my perspective.

Sounding like you are very close to set up stage completion. Since being the OP ~ please consider posting the results for 1 minute video and 5 minute video using settings described in OP. This will help culminate the thread question. Thanks for this consideration.

 

[h9826790]

Sounding like you are very close to set up stage completion. Since being the OP ~ please consider posting the results for 1 minute video and 5 minute video using settings described in OP. This will help culminate the thread question. Thanks for this consideration.

I think OP need to provide a sample source video (it could be anything immediately available on the net).

Also post few screen capture about the exact export settings.

Therefore, all the others can run the test with the same source video, and same export settings, therefore, the result will be comparable.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Let's put a pin it in until the coming week. When my display cables show up and I'm up and running, I'll do a test and point out the key things with a few screen grabs.

But basically, you can use any UHD/4k or higher source (this doesn't have to be HEVC) in a UHD timeline. If you then on the Deliver page select h265 as encoder and the Main10 profile (ensures 10bit), you'll find out if it's working.

My iMac 2020 is pretty strong on the CPU side as well with its 10 cores. If I deselect 'use hardware acceleration' the export becomes very slow—meaning, brute force won't really mask lack of acceleration. You can measure time, but you will also see the 'fps' of export just above on the left side of the image preview on the Deliver page.

The acceleration can come from the CPU with Quicksync, the T2 chip or the graphics card. To my knowledge Intel's Quicksync and the T2 doesn't support the 10bit flavour. And when it comes to the Xeons in the Mac Pro, they don't offer Quicksync, so we're left with the the graphics card.

It might also boil down to something as simple as the T2 in the 7.1 actually supporting 10bit HEVC encoding up to 30 fps or whatever.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Small update: found an HDMI cable so that I could hook it up to a display and get going with my installs.

Moving between my apartment and the studio room, so I don't have the time to do everything properly today I think, but I did a quick test:

Imported 12K Ursa files into a UHD timeline. Primary color correction and then deliver to h.265, UHD 10bit.

With HWA I got around 15-18 fps and without I got 0-2 fps after the first few seconds with higher speed.

UPDATE: with my normal Pocket 6K footage exported as a 4K DCI, 10bit HEVC file I get 44 fps, which I'm very happy with! I'm not sure I expected this to work... good news!

So, there is some sort of acceleration in the new Mac Pro. I'll add info to this as I find out more, because I think it's also interesting/relevant for 5.1 hacks and Open Core.