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Newbie experiments with a GPU, learns some basics

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    Newbie experiments with a GPU, learns some basics

    Hello. I'm new here; this is my first post.

    I'm interested in using the Video Enhancer AI and Photo Enhancer AI programs, but I'm not a gamer, and when I built my PC, I didn't include a video card. Its only graphics hardware is its i7-7700K CPU and the Intel H270 chipset on the motherboard. I have ambitions to use these "AI" programs a lot, though, so I started to focus on improving their execution speed with a GPU.

    For an initial benchmark, I used Video Enhancer on a low-res 90-second video of martial arts action. I think it improved the video quality--I'm not sure, since the original is so bad, it's really just a question of whether it's less terrible now or not. But the point was, those 90 seconds of video took >9 hours to process--and that was with the "deblocking" option turned off. With that option selected, it took more than twice as long. So, only ~5 - 10 seconds of video could be processed per hour with this setup, and I set out to find a graphics card that would improve that.

    At the time, only a few weeks ago, there was still some range of cards available at various stores. I was confused by the specifications on https://www.dvdfab.cn/video-enhancer-ai.htm, though, since it has a list of supported cards but then the minimum recommended GPU (Nvidia 750Ti) isn't on that list. So I set out to do some experimenting. I thought that surely, anything with hundreds of CUDA units would substantially outperform the default graphics of my CPU and chipset. (Spoiler: Actually, no.) First I tried a <$100 card based on the Nvidia GT 710.

    (Then the following educational diversion occurred: After installing the card and its drivers, I left my video monitor connected to the motherboard's DVI socket; I wanted to keep the GPU free for computation. Video Enhancer AI "saw" the video card, so I selected it and started running the conversion. The software said that it was using the video card, but the projected running time was the same as it had been with the motherboard chipset--exactly the same, in fact, which seemed suspicious. I checked Windows Task Manager and found that there was no load on the video card, but that the motherboard chipset was running at nearly 100%. The software, in other words, was ignoring the video card, despite the options I had chosen, and despite the software's own indications while it was running. So I restarted the machine with the monitor attached to the graphics card. This time I could see from Task Manager that the program really was using the Nvidia GPU on the card.)

    My assumption that "any dedicated graphics card will be faster than the motherboard chipset" turned out to be quite wrong. The graphics card achieved less than half the performance of the motherboard chipset. And now that I realize that it's going to take a higher-end card to make any real improvement in the running time of the software, there are no cards available for any reasonable price. At least if/when the market returns to some kind of normalcy in the future, I'll know more about what I need to look for. And in the meantime I'll uninstall this video card, and use the Photo Enhancer AI program rather than the Video Enhancer.

    --best regards
    Last edited by DSatz; 12-15-2021, 06:28 PM.

    #2
    I checked Windows Task Manager and found that there was no load on the video card, but that the motherboard chipset was running at nearly 100%.
    Please zip the whole log folder and send it to us, the developer will need to check the log files first, thank you.

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      #3
      I will do that, but I have made so many experiments that your developer may have a hard time finding the relevant entries.
      Maybe it would be better if I clear the logs and re-create the situation in which the GPU was not used?

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        #4
        I did a lot of experimenting in Video Enhancer at various times, but I wanted it to be easy for you to find the log entries for the bug that I reported. So I recreated the same conditions and ran the same conversion, then (after it had run for a while) I canceled it and ZIPped up my "Logs" directory, which is attached. I also added three screen captures that show my application settings and the results in Windows Task Manager as well as Video Enhancer's main dialog.

        (The bug, again is: User sets Video Enhancer to use the GPU of the installed graphics card, but the monitor is attached to the motherboard and not to the card that has that GPU. The software then uses the motherboard's chipset instead of the GPU, and doesn't indicate any error.).

        Note that I downloaded and installed version 1.0.2.3 of Video Enhancer before repeating this experiment. The bug is still the same as before.

        --best regards

        Attached Files

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          #5
          Originally posted by DSatz View Post
          (The bug, again is: User sets Video Enhancer to use the GPU of the installed graphics card, but the monitor is attached to the motherboard and not to the card that has that GPU. The software then uses the motherboard's chipset instead of the GPU, and doesn't indicate any error.).
          NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 has less GPU memory, will fail in most cases, so we block this NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 to be used in Video Enhancer; Even it can be used, the speed will be slower than using CPU.

          i7-7700K will be faster than NVIDIA GeForce GT 710.

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