Hardware Acceleration

Speed up video encoding with GPU hardware acceleration. Recorded automatically detects and uses available hardware encoders, falling back to software encoding if no compatible GPU is found.

Supported Hardware

macOS

• Apple VideoToolbox (h264_videotoolbox) — Available on all Macs with Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4) and Intel Macs with integrated or discrete GPUs. This is the primary encoder on macOS.
• Software fallback: libopenh264 (Cisco’s BSD-licensed H.264 encoder)

VideoToolbox provides excellent quality and speed on Apple Silicon, often encoding faster than real-time for 1080p content.

Windows

Recorded checks for GPU encoders in the following priority order and uses the first one that works:

1. NVIDIA NVENC (h264_nvenc) — For NVIDIA GeForce and Quadro GPUs. Supports variable bitrate with constant quality mode. Available on GTX 600 series and newer.

2. Intel Quick Sync (h264_qsv) — For Intel CPUs with integrated graphics (most Intel Core processors). Available on Sandy Bridge (2nd gen) and newer.

3. AMD AMF (h264_amf) — For AMD Radeon GPUs. Supports VBR latency rate control for balanced quality and speed.

4. Software fallback: libopenh264 — Used when no hardware encoder is available or all hardware encoders fail.

How It Works

Hardware acceleration is enabled by default — you don’t need to configure anything. When you export a video:

1. Recorded tests each available hardware encoder with a small test frame
2. The first encoder that successfully encodes the test frame is selected
3. If all hardware encoders fail (driver issues, unsupported GPU, etc.), Recorded falls back to software encoding automatically
4. The selected encoder is logged so you can verify which one was used

Performance Comparison

Hardware encoding is typically 3–10x faster than software encoding, depending on your GPU and the export resolution:

Troubleshooting

Export is Slow

If exporting is significantly slower than expected, hardware acceleration may not be working:

• Update your GPU drivers — Outdated drivers are the most common cause of hardware encoder failures. Download the latest drivers from NVIDIA, Intel, or AMD.
• Check GPU compatibility — Very old GPUs may not support H.264 hardware encoding. See the minimum GPU requirements above.
• Close GPU-intensive applications — Other applications using the GPU heavily (games, 3D rendering) can interfere with hardware encoding.

Export Fails

If export fails entirely:

• Try exporting at a lower resolution — hardware encoders sometimes fail with very high resolutions.
• The software fallback should handle most cases, but if even that fails, check that you have sufficient disk space and memory.

Verifying Hardware Acceleration

Recorded logs which encoder was selected during export. If you’re experiencing slow exports and want to verify, check the application logs to see whether a hardware or software encoder was used.