Does a GPU encoder/decoder affect gaming performance?

[herb]

Does the presence or lack there of of a gpu encode/decode processor (like nvidia's nvenc/nvdec) have any impact on games?

 

The reason i ask this question is because i bought a used laptop with an mx570a gpu and this gpu doesnt have nvenc/nvdec. i bought this laptop really cheap and i was hoping it would be a nice boost over my integrated ryzen graphics on my 5700u in my old laptop. i did not experience a boost in performance and to some degree it seemed worse. i dont really know what could be wrong. i checked all drivers and settings and nothing seemed out of place.

 

The game i was trying to play is helldivers 2. yes i know the minimum specs are way higher than what the mx570 is capable of but i had some success with using all low setting and a generous render scale on my ryzen apu. the game looked like trash but i wanted to play it more than i cared about the graphics. on my ryzen apu i was getting 15-25 fps with the settings turned all the way down at 720p and the ultra performance render scale.

 

The part that was incredibly strange to me is that the mx570 laptop wouldnt render the game over 15 fps. i turned the settings down to the same as my ryzen system and the performance was worse! it seemed like something was locking the system to 15 fps because no matter what i did it wouldnt move from this number. i even set the settings higher and it was still at 15 fps. so going back to the original question, does an encode/decode device help gaming or is this some other issue?

[WereCat]

Yes. But by how much really depends on which codec you use and which settings. Typically the performance hit is minimal and significantly less than with CPU encoding. 

[GuiltySpark_]

It sounds like what you're asking is if just having an NVENC engine, not necessarily using it, is going to cause a performance difference and the answer is no. But that would only make sense if you were comparing the same GPU's. You're not so that really isn't a relevant argument. 

 

As for the performance, mobile parts are weird. TPU has the MX570 A significantly faster than the Vega 8 in your old APU. 

 

I'm confused what NVENC/NVDEC have to do with the question though?

[Biohazard777]

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

Yes. But by how much really depends on which codec you use and which settings. Typically the performance hit is minimal and significantly less than with CPU encoding. 

On in-game FPS?
I'd be surprised if hw accelerated decoding gets used at all, except maybe for cutscenes and such.
As for encoding sure, that could have an impact... but the OP didn't say anything about streaming/sharing his screen with others.

[GuiltySpark_]

The OP didn't mention anything about actually recording and encoding gameplay unless i'm missing something. They appear to simply be asking about the presence of such functionality affecting gameplay. 

[WereCat]

18 minutes ago, Biohazard777 said:

On in-game FPS?
I'd be surprised if hw accelerated decoding gets used at all, except maybe for cutscenes and such.
As for encoding sure, that could have an impact... but the OP didn't say anything about streaming/sharing his screen with others.

He mentioned encoding/decoding. I answered encoding... to be fair I didn't read the post, just the title and assumed he want's to encode/decode on the side while gaming which is the typical use case  

[podkall]

34 minutes ago, herb said:

Does the presence or lack there of of a gpu encode/decode processor (like nvidia's nvenc/nvdec) have any impact on games?

nope the opposite, since instead of using the slow CPU to process the display you use Nvidia's accelerated encoder to capture the screen, basically losing almost no meaningful fps,

 

basically imagine you're pulling 200fps, while recording it might drop to 190fps (max) maybe, depends on game too, like you might be running capped fps at 100 or something, and with recording it's still capped at 100 no difference,

 

you will see no difference with your bare eyes

[GuiltySpark_]

Is it me who's crazy or is everyone else misunderstanding the OP's question? 

[WereCat]

4 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Is it me who's crazy or is everyone else misunderstanding the OP's question? 

Nah we're just lazy to read sometimes and then make assumptions

[Kisai]

52 minutes ago, herb said:

Does the presence or lack there of of a gpu encode/decode processor (like nvidia's nvenc/nvdec) have any impact on games?

 

Marginally. What you're really experiencing is the thermal throttling because it's a laptop, and -any- use of the GPU will do that.

 

If you're seeing a frame rate loss when the encoder is in use, it's simply that the weak GPU in the laptop was already at it's thermal limit and using the hardware encoder just makes it hit that limit sooner.

 

That GPU has the performance of a 10 year old premium GPU (or a 5 year old baseline part,) which is why it's performance in helldivers 2 is kind of a joke. 

 

I do not recommend playing games on a laptop if it can be avoided, because of the noise, and the heat will shorten the life of the laptop unless it's quite literately the top-tier non-ultrabook models.

[podkall]

1 hour ago, herb said:

The reason i ask this question is because i bought a used laptop with an mx570a gpu and this gpu doesnt have nvenc/nvdec. i bought this laptop really cheap and i was hoping it would be a nice boost over my integrated ryzen graphics on my 5700u in my old laptop. i did not experience a boost in performance and to some degree it seemed worse. i dont really know what could be wrong. i checked all drivers and settings and nothing seemed out of place.

Ryzen iGPU isn't slow,

 

approx in relative performance it's almost as fast as dekstop GT 1030 GPU:

 

1 hour ago, herb said:

The part that was incredibly strange to me is that the mx570 laptop wouldnt render the game over 15 fps. i turned the settings down to the same as my ryzen system and the performance was worse! it seemed like something was locking the system to 15 fps because no matter what i did it wouldnt move from this number. i even set the settings higher and it was still at 15 fps. so going back to the original question, does an encode/decode device help gaming or is this some other issue?

might be another issue/cause, the mx570 is above Vega 8:

 

 

Does the mx570 laptop have worse CPU by any chance? Is CPU/GPU maxing out at 100% when playing Helldivers 2?