OBS NVENC Doesn't work Out of Box on 20.04?

Question

I just installed Kubuntu 20.04 and OBS,but NVENC doesn't seem to work for some reason even though I have nvidia-driver-390 installed and configured via System Settings.

Settings:

Error on Start Recording:

System Settings:

How can I restore OBS's hardware NVENC support?

Hardware Specs:

sarah@LesserArk:~$ inxi -Fx
System:    Host: LesserArk Kernel: 5.4.0-31-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.18.5 
           Distro: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP ENVY 17 Notebook PC v: 097E110000405E00000620100 
           serial: <superuser/root required> 
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1968 v: KBC Version 93.52 serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: Insyde v: F.70 
           date: 10/20/2017 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 41.2 Wh condition: 41.2/41.2 Wh (100%) model: Hewlett-Packard Primary status: Full 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-4702MQ bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Haswell rev: 3 L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 35120 
           Speed: 2050 MHz min/max: 800/3200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2050 2: 2152 3: 2027 4: 2090 5: 2067 6: 2128 7: 1956 
           8: 2096 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:02.0 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: nvidia v: 390.132 bus ID: 01:00.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: modesetting,nvidia unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz, 1920x1080~75Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GT 750M/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.132 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus ID: 00:03.0 
           Device-2: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:1b.0 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-31-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Wireless 7260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 5000 bus ID: 07:00.0 
           IF: wlp7s0 state: up mac: e4:70:b8:f8:99:b8 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel 
           port: 3000 bus ID: 0f:00.0 
           IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: a0:1d:48:fa:67:c0 
           IF-ID-1: tun0 state: unknown speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 3.21 TiB used: 1.18 TiB (36.8%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: MQ01ABD100 size: 931.51 GiB 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: LITE-ON IT model: LMS-24L6M-HP size: 22.37 GiB 
           ID-3: /dev/sdc vendor: Seagate model: ST2000LM015-2E8174 size: 1.82 TiB 
           ID-4: /dev/sdd vendor: Samsung model: SSD 860 EVO 500GB size: 465.76 GiB 
           ID-5: /dev/sde type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: U3 Cruzer Micro size: 1.91 GiB 
           ID-6: /dev/sdf type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Gaming Xbox 360 size: 7.48 GiB 
RAID:      Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci v: 3.0 bus ID: 00:1f.2 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 398.61 GiB used: 208.93 GiB (52.4%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sdd2 
           ID-2: /home size: 398.61 GiB used: 208.93 GiB (52.4%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sdd2 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 14.90 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdd3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 63.0 C mobo: 60.0 C gpu: nvidia temp: 55 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 466 Uptime: 1h 34m Memory: 15.57 GiB used: 7.12 GiB (45.7%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: 9.3.0 Shell: bash v: 5.0.16 inxi: 3.0.38

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 30 '21 at 23:11

1

In my case, I only installed this package and it works now.

sudo apt-get install libffmpeg-nvenc-dev

answered Nov 30 '21 at 23:11

mike_herny

11

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 02 '20 at 03:14

I installed Ubuntu 20.04 on a fresh machine last night. I did not install an NVidia driver from the NVidia website but rather used the one provided as additional drivers like you did

The OBS installation was done as outlined in the installation steps on the wiki, which means first installing FFmpeg and then adding the obs ppa. Here, NVENC is working out of the box.

In the past on Ubuntu 16.04, I had to compile everything myself (FFmpeg and all its dependencies and then obs) to get NVENC working. The versions I'm using right now are

ffmpeg/focal,now 7:4.2.2-1ubuntu1 amd64 [installed]
obs-studio/focal,now 25.0.8-0obsproject1~focal amd64 [installed]

The difference I notice is that I'm using a more recent NVidia driver. Maybe this helps you to debug the issue.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 14 '24 at 21:16

In my case, the issue was that my NVIDIA card does not support NVENC.

Here's how I verified it:

Checked the GPU model: I used the command nvidia-smi to identify the brand and model of my GPU.
Verified NVENC support: I visited NVIDIA's NVENC support page and checked if my GPU model was listed as supporting NVENC. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 10 '20 at 22:04

I was strugling with the same issues. To me, with a I7 processor (intel) and a GeForce 210 installed, I realised that was in use the 340 nvec driver. So, I removed it and tryed to install the 390 one. After restart the machine all was very easy and worked properly. But, this is very strange I know, if I get the new machine informations, I realised that is in use the Xserver-Xorg-video-noveau (open-source) driver!! So, the mistery is going on, but at this time, I'm happy ('cause I can now make the good use of OBS software). Pazigrafio

OBS NVENC Doesn't work Out of Box on 20.04?

4 Answers4