Accelerated tasks
- Preview, thumbnails and Ad-Detective can use D3D11VA for MPEG-2, H.264, HEVC, AV1 and VP9.
- Supported FFmpeg Vulkan paths are probed for FFV1 and ProRes decode/transcode.
- Optional full transcode can use available NVENC, Intel Quick Sync, AMD AMF or Vulkan FFV1/ProRes paths.
- Smart-render boundary GOP encoding always uses the validated software encoder.
Machine-specific self-test
The test opens the real device and codec path, measures representative work and validates decoded/encoded output. From 1.0.35, each Windows hardware encoder self-test runs in a separate process. If an encoder crashes or stalls, its test is marked failed and the remaining comparisons continue. Hover over the failed GPU result for its diagnostic reason. This does not claim to repair the underlying GPU driver. Recommendations are stored separately for MPEG-2, H.264, HEVC, AV1, VP9, FFV1 and ProRes because one GPU/driver can perform differently by codec.
Safe defaults
Hardware preview decode can fall back automatically after a backend failure. Full-transcode hardware encoding is off by default and uses at most one adapter, so the app remains suitable for single-GPU and software-only systems.
Retest when conditions change
Run the test after a GPU/driver/FFmpeg upgrade or when a codec becomes jerky. Faster is not the only criterion: visual correctness, frame count and player compatibility must also pass.