Media Transcode Benchmark and hardware acceleration

This benchmark requires Windows 7 (and later) as it contains Media Foundation transcode (MFT) support. Unfortunately older versions of Windows do not contain API that allows 3-rd party software to use hardware encoders. For example, DXVA can only be used for hardware decoding but not encoding.

MFT powers the drag/drop feature that allows Windows 7 (and later) to transcode files on the fly to your mobile devices.

Please note that "Hardware Accelerated" is just a hint to Windows to use a hardware encoder if available. Even if one (or more) are installed, they may support different video/audio formats (either input or output) so a software encoder may still be used.

HEVC / H265 support requires Windows 10. Older versions may support it through proprietary application they don't support it through Windows.

For hardware accelerated support you need a video driver and transcode add-on (if available):

• AMD/ATI: you need Catalyst 10.x or later and AVIVO transcode support. Please note that UVD is enabled with 2 or less cores ONLY. Yes, that means that on a system with more cores, UVD will not engage so software transcoding will be used.

   

• nVidia: you need ForceWare 196.xx drivers with transcode support. You can try drag & drop transcoding in Windows 7 to check it is not GPGPU accelerated.

   

• Intel: you need Gen 2 Intel Core CPU (2011) with Integrated Graphics or later with QuickSync enabled.

  Note: Celeron or Pentium brands of Gen 2 CPUs may have QuickSync disabled in hardware (along with AES, VT, AVX, etc.). Sandra cannot force enable any features disabled at hardware level.