Trying to understand Hardware Acceleration

[ccaru]

Hi All,

I am trying to understand how exactly H/W acceleration works in BI and how to actually verify it works. I have seen a number of threads in this regard, but I am not 100% sure whether i can figure this out properly still...

I have an NVIDIA card inbuilt into my machine
I have a recurring issue that my machine goes up to 100% without any reasonable explanation. I managed to run over 1 week at 28% average, then suddenly today it's back to going to 100% after a few minutes of run time.

In Blue Iris, I don't get any errors that H/W Acceleration is not working
In Blue Iris, I see "N" for each camera when i open the info panel - indicating that this is set up

But in NVIDIA or in Task Manager, there is nothing which shows that the GPU is actually being used. Blue Iris does not show GPU activity and NVIDIA GPU Activity applet doesn't list Blue Iris as one of the programs utilizing it.

I have 8 cameras. Up until yesterday, running 8 cameras was taking 28% CPU average/ Today, it's maxing at 100.
When I enable all cameras, I max out at 100%
When I enable 4 cameras, I get +/- 80% CPU Usage
When I enable 2 cameras, I get +/- 40% CPU Usage
1 Camera ... 20%

... So it's pretty linear... There was no change to the system, or windows update. The only thing i did, which I don't think would have made a difference, was that this morning I modified the actions on the Alert section of each camera to remove one of the actions. To be sure this didn't mess thing s up I restored the settings from 2 days ago, but no change.

Any ideas? I'm really at a loss here.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I'm no expert but I do use Nvidia acceleration on a dozen cameras with no problems.

When you configured the cameras did you set hardware acceleration in each, on the video configuration tab?

Are you watching in task manager or resource monitor to determine exactly what is causing the high CPU utilization?

What kind of CPU are you using, out of curiosity more than anything?

 

[ccaru]

- I tried both setting it specifically on each camera and default at camera level and setting it in the main settings - no difference observed. Cameras still show "N" meaning they are configured to use NVIDIA. Log shows H/W acceleration being set but no error.

As I mention above - I am watching both the Task Manager and the NVIDIA applet - none of them show evidence that h/W acceleration is being used. As regards to other apps. Nothing - this is a dedicated machine.

The CPU is an i7 2760QM.

 

[sebastiantombs]

That processor is listed as a legacy "mobile" processor which means it is designed for laptop use. Typically they are not suitable for use like an NVR because of throttling and heat issues. You may be seeing the cumulative effects of that happening. So, in task manager BI is showing 100%?

Do you have the program GPU-Z installed on the machine? That will show you the load on the video card, both the video and graphics GPUs as well as power and temperature. You didn't mention the camera resolutions, bit rates or frame rates, but with my setup I see video utilization around 10-15% and similar for the GPU. You may also want to install Core Temp to monitor the CPU, itself.

Has the driver been updated recently, either automagically or by you?

 

[ccaru]

GPU-Z : Great pointer! Thank you very much for that

So, in the past hour I have done the following:
Went into the machine's BIOS and enabled the so called "Optimus" mode
This made both the internal (Intel) and the NVIDIA Card active

I changed H/W Acceleration to Intel Beta (I tied also Intel - which seems to work, and Intel VPP, which doesn't) and I'm back to 30% CPU Usage.

However in Task Manager, I still don't see Blue Iris as using the GPU!!

In GPU-Z, at the moment, NVIDIA is running at around 57 degrees while Intel is running at 98 degrees, which seems comparatively hot, but I don't know exactly what I am looking at here!

 

[ccaru]

It get's even more mysterious .... all my H/W Acceleration at camera level automatically changed to NO at some point, so it seems like i'm not even using anything, and yet a performance increase. I really cannot understand this.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I'd suggest getting a used Dell or HP desktop and get BI off that laptop. That will eliminate all the variables that a mobile CPU bring into the picture.

 

[ccaru]

I agree, and that's where i'd like to go, but I'd like to understand first what's not working - I do not want to spend money on a new machine only to find i have the same problem!
I'm not even sure at this point what machine to go for. Most likely i won't exceed 10 cameras, and would like to keep the wattage reasonably low.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Have a look in the WiKi, in the blue bar at the top of the page. There's a detailed guide to selecting hardware and another guide for performance optimization for BI.

 

[ccaru]

thank you. yes indeed. Perhaps i am too worried that the issue is coming from a specific camera or camera H/W, but in fact, I have a mix of these and no matter what I do it seems that any camera is contributing to the effect, so it's indeed probably the computer H/W. I'll start digging for a refurbished PC...

 

[IAmATeaf]

BI will disable hardware acceleration if it detects that it’s unable to use it. I think previously having it enabled when your hardware didn’t support it would result in the main GUI crashing but since the last few big updates I’ve seen others post to say it had automatically been disabled.

 

[crw030]

Please post your system specs including RAM (this CPU can support 2 channels of RAM), and which NVIDIA card you are using. I will echo some earlier comments, I am currently migrating my Blue Iris off a i7-2600K desktop gaming CPU (which is superior in all aspects to your 2760QM). You are approaching 10 years on that processor which is quite old for a CPU. In my experience with the 2700k, the Intel® HD Graphics 3000 graphics are not supported by Windows Task Manager for GPU usage (at least I couldn't get it to work).

Separately, if you are selecting hardware Acceleration of Intel then Blue Iris will use the built-in Intel GPU on the CPU core, and not the NVidia card. You would need to select NVidia/CUDA option depending on your BI version to use the Nvidia graphics card. You can split cameras up and put a few on BOTH GPU's as well. When working properly, the newer version of Windows Task Manager will show the GPU's and their approximate load percentage, and I've seen this work on a newer system.