Optimizing video decoding performance on your computer

Security Desk can detect and use compatible hardware to accelerate video decoding. Hardware acceleration enhances performance, especially when viewing multiple high-definition H.264 streams.

What you should know

For information on recommended video cards and performance benchmarks, see the Security Center System Requirements Guide.

NOTE: Security Desk does not support hardware acceleration in Windows XP.

To optimize video decoding performance on your computer:

  1. To optimize the operation with NVIDIA video cards, ensure the following:
    • The video card is a compatible model.
    • The monitor or projector used to display video is plugged into this video card.
    • The installed driver is the latest available from NVIDIA's official web site.
  2. To optimize the operation with Intel Quick Sync, ensure the following:
    • Your CPU supports Quick Sync; see http://ark.intel.com to confirm.
    • The integrated video card on your CPU is a compatible model.
    • A monitor is plugged into the motherboard's integrated output.
    • The Intel integrated graphics is enabled in the BIOS.
    • The installed driver is the latest available from Intel's official site.
    NOTE: On high-performance computers, NVIDIA GPU decoding works better when Quick Sync is disabled.
  3. To troubleshoot problems with multiple screens and multiple GPUs, ensure the following:
    • If Scalable Link Interface (SLI) mode is available, disable it.
    • If you have multiple NVIDIA video cards, connect each monitor to a different card to use them in parallel.
    • If you have video cards using different drivers (AMD, NVIDIA, Intel), set a monitor connected to an NVIDIA card as the primary monitor.
    • If both integrated and discrete video cards are available, and if your NVIDIA video card meets the recommended requirements, disable your integrated video card in the BIOS. Having the integrated card available hinders the discrete video card performance.
    • After installing Security Center on laptops using NVIDIA OPTIMUS technology (combined Intel and NVIDIA GPUs), you must launch each video-intensive application (Security Desk, Genetec™ Video Player, and so on) to register them as applications that require NVIDIA GPU. After the initial setup, the application always uses the NVIDIA GPU.