Nvidia NVDEC explained

Nvidia NVDEC (formerly known as NVCUVID^[1]) is a feature in its graphics cards that performs video decoding, offloading this compute-intensive task from the CPU.^[2] NVDEC is a successor of PureVideo and is available in Kepler and later NVIDIA GPUs.

It is accompanied by NVENC for video encoding in Nvidia's Video Codec SDK.^[2]

Technology

NVDEC can offload video decoding to full fixed-function decoding hardware (Nvidia PureVideo), or (partially) decode via CUDA software running on the GPU, if fixed-function hardware is not available.^[2]

Depending on the GPU architecture, the following codecs are supported:^[3]

• MPEG-2
• VC-1
• H.264 (AVC)
• H.265 (HEVC)
• VP8
• VP9
• AV1

Versions

NVCUVID was originally distributed as part of the Nvidia CUDA Toolkit.^[4] Later, it was renamed to NVDEC and moved to the Nvidia Video Codec SDK.^[1]

Operating system support

See also: Nvidia PureVideo. NVDEC is available for Windows and Linux operating systems.^[2] As NVDEC is a proprietary API (as opposed to the open-source VDPAU API), it is only supported by the proprietary Nvidia driver on Linux.

Application and library support

• Gstreamer has supported NVDEC since 2017.^[5]
• FFmpeg has supported NVDEC since 2017.^[6]
• mpv has supported NVDEC since 2017 by the use of FFmpeg.^[7]

GPU support

Hardware accelerated decode and encode are supported on Nvidia GeForce, Quadro, Tesla, and GRID products with Fermi or newer generation GPUs.^[8]

Board	Chip	NVDEC per Chip	MPEG-2	VC-1	VP8	VP9			H.264 (AVCHD) (except High 10)	H.265 (HEVC) 4:2:0			H.265 (HEVC) 4:4:4			AV1 4:2:0
						8 bit	10 bit	12 bit		8 bit	10 bit	12 bit	8 bit	10 bit	12 bit	8 bit	10 bit
GeForce 710A > 810A	GK208	1
GeForce GT 723A / 740A
GeForce GT 720M > 740M
GeForce GT 630 / 635/ 640 / 710 / 730
GeForce 710A / 810M / 820M	GK107
GeForce GT 640M > 755M / GTX 660M
GeForce GT 630 - 640 GeForce GTX 650 GeForce GT 740
GeForce GTX 645 -650 Ti Boost GeForce GT 740	GK106
GeForce GTX 660 - 690 GeForce GTX 760 - 770	GK104
GeForce GTX 760A/M > 880M	GK104
GeForce GTX 680M/MX > 880M
GeForce GTX 780 - 780 Ti	GK110
GeForce GTX Titan / Titan Black
GeForce GTX Titan Z
GeForce GTX 745 - 750 Ti	GM107
GeForce 840M / 845M / 940M / 940MX / 945M
GeForce GTX 850A > 960A
GeForce GTX 850M > 960M
GeForce 830A > 945A	GM108	0
GeForce 830M > 945M
GeForce GTX 920MX - 940MX
GeForce MX110 / MX130
GeForce GTX 750 / 950 - 960	GM206	1
GeForce GTX 965M	GM206
GeForce GTX 910M / 920M / 920A	GM208B
GeForce GTX 980M / 980MX	GM204
GeForce GTX 960 Ti / 970 / 980
GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GM200
GeForce GTX Titan X
GeForce MX150	GP108	0
GeForce MX230 / MX250 / MX330
GeForce GT 1030		1
GeForce GTX 1050 / 1050 Ti / MX350	GP107
GeForce GTX 1050 / 1050 Ti	GP106
GeForce GTX 1060
GeForce GTX 1060	GP104
GeForce GTX 1070M / 1080M	GP104B
GeForce GTX 1070 / 1070 Ti / 1080	GP104
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	GP102
GeForce GTX Titan X / Titan Xp
Titan V	GV100
GeForce GTX 1650 / MX450	TU117
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti / 1660 / 1660 Super	TU116
GeForce RTX 2060 / 2070 / 2060 Super	TU106
GeForce RTX 2080 / 2070 Super / 2080 Super	TU104
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	TU102
Titan RTX
A100	GA100
GeForce RTX 3050 Ti / RTX 3050	GA107
GeForce RTX 3060	GA106
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti / 3070 / 3070 Ti	GA104
GeForce RTX 3080 / 3090	GA102
GeForce RTX 4090	AD102	1
Board	Chip	NVDEC per Chip	MPEG-2	VC-1	VP8	VP9			H.264 (AVCHD)	H.265 (HEVC) 4:2:0			H.265 (HEVC) 4:4:4			AV1 4:2:0
						8 bit	10 bit	12 bit		8 bit	10 bit	12 bit	8 bit	10 bit	12 bit	8 bit	10 bit

See also

• AMD Video Core Next, AMD's equivalent SIP core since 2018
• AMD Unified Video Decoder, AMD's equivalent SIP core up to 2017
• Intel Quick Sync Video, Intel's equivalent SIP core
• List of Nvidia graphics processing units
• Qualcomm Hexagon
• Nvidia NVENC

External links

• NVIDIA VIDEO CODEC SDK

Notes and References

1. Web site: Video Decoder. CUDA Toolkit Documentation. Nvidia. 2017-11-12.
2. Web site: NVIDIA VIDEO CODEC SDK . NVIDIA Developer . 23 August 2013 . . 2017-11-12 .
3. Web site: Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix . NVIDIA Developer . . 2017-11-12 .
4. Web site: Nvidia Video Decoder (NVCUVID) Interface . November 2015 . . 2017-11-12 .
5. Web site: GStreamer Adds NVDEC NVIDIA GPU Decoding Support. Michael Larabel . 27 June 2017 . .
6. Web site: FFmpeg Lands NVDEC-Accelerated H.264 Decoding . Michael Larabel . 11 November 2017 . .
7. Web site: vd_lavc: add support for nvdec hwaccel . wm4 . 28 October 2017 . .
8. Web site: Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix [NEW]. 8 September 2020.