Simple x264/x265 Launcher v3.02 (2022-06-16)

[Chumbo]

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

Okay, I have added the option to the preferences.

I was about to +1, but I see you caved. Good call.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

Okay, I have added the option to the preferences.

Thank You.. Great option.. Can confirm its working in low now.

[VideoFanatic]

Is there any way you could please add a sound alert functionality so that when a new item in the queue starts encoding it will play a sound or a popup message?

This would be useful because at the moment I do restoration with Avisynth. I find that if an encoding starts at the same time I try to mux a file or do something else CPU intensive then the encoding speed will drop to up to half the normal speed and when CPU intensive task has finished the encoding speed does not go back to normal. An encoding could be half way finished before I realise it was encoding at half speed.

If I got an audio alert, I could check that the video was encoding at the correct speed. If it wasn't then I could abort it and start it again after I've finished doing my CPU intensive task.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by holygamer

Is there any way you could please add a sound alert functionality so that when a new item in the queue starts encoding it will play a sound or a popup message?

This would be useful because at the moment I do restoration with Avisynth. I find that if an encoding starts at the same time I try to mux a file or do something else CPU intensive then the encoding speed will drop to up to half the normal speed and when CPU intensive task has finished the encoding speed does not go back to normal. An encoding could be half way finished before I realise it was encoding at half speed.

If I got an audio alert, I could check that the video was encoding at the correct speed. If it wasn't then I could abort it and start it again after I've finished doing my CPU intensive task.

Indeed, I could add that as yet another option, disabled by default - so people don't go mad about those sound effects

[VideoFanatic]

That would be much appreciated, thanks.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by holygamer

That would be much appreciated, thanks.

(BTW: It seems you are still interpreting the FPS indicator in the wrong way, although we had discussed that before)

[Dion]

This version seems to require the use of the new x264 build. Is there a reason for that?

Simple x264 Launcher v2.17 (2013-07-05)

[LoRd_MuldeR]

The minimum supported version is forced to the latest revision from the "stable" branch. Currently that is:
http://git.videolan.org/?p=x264.git;...857f413a60b896

This is done in order to prevent people from using old/outdated revisions with known bugs. Also the GUI is developed and tested with up-to-date x264. Using some very old build may not work well.

But if you insist in using some outdated build, this requires exactly one line of code to change

[Dion]

Was just more of a general wondering. I use custom x264 builds with your launcher. And they wouldn't work. So I had to grab the latest custom. But yes it would be nice to not have this restriction.

It was only one rev down from the latest too. So it wasn't that out of date.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by Dion

Was just more of a general wondering. I use custom x264 builds with your launcher. And they wouldn't work. So I had to grab the latest custom. But yes it would be nice to not have this restriction.

It was only one rev down from the latest too. So it wasn't that out of date.

I have added a CLI option to skip the version check. Use at your own risk

[Atombossler]

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

I have added a CLI option to skip the version check. Use at your own risk

Hi Lord Moulder.
I would also like to make some feature requests.
1. editable profiles in some kind of mask would be comfortable.
2. adjustable delay after encode finish to proper unload heavy gpu tasks (1-10 sec.), causes possible hickups now time by time.
3. Some sort of network render feature
But however, nice work till now!

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by Atombossler

1. editable profiles in some kind of mask would be comfortable.

Profiles are defined by the H.264 standard, so we cannot edit them.

But if you are talking about templates, you can simply load a template by selecting from the "template" combobox, then edit everything as desired and finally save your changes via "Save As" button.

Not sure what else you may need...

Originally Posted by Atombossler

2. adjustable delay after encode finish to proper unload heavy gpu tasks (1-10 sec.), causes possible hickups now time by time.

Once the x264 process terminates there is nothing left that would need to time to "unload".

Don't know what you mean with "hickups", but it seems there is something wrong either with your system or your input chain...

Originally Posted by Atombossler

3. Some sort of network render feature

Not supported by x264. Feature that is not supported cannot be exposed in the GUI

(In theory it would be possible to run multiple encoder instances on different machines and finally stitch together the individual pieces. But besides the fact that this is totally not compatible with 2-Pass RC, it's far out of the scope of this application)

[AGKnotUser]

I'm using an AVS script which takes a long time to start up due to it's indexing a large vc1 file. x264 Launcher times out during this indexing. Could you add an option to either defeat or lengthen the timeout period?

Thanks.

[Atombossler]

@AGKnotUser
Just index this file before you use it.

@LoRd_MuldeR
Yes, Templates Is what I meant.
For example how do I change the order of the templates?

The Graphics Card Ram needs time to unload because the before transfered data has to be removed after processing finished.

I know x264 doesn't support a network render feature.
However you can split the job into little chunks via Avisynth and stich it together as you said.
I never made 2-pass RC, so not neccessary.
But I guessed it's out of reach for the little gui.

[AGKnotUser]

Originally Posted by Atombossler

@AGKnotUser
Just index this file before you use it.

Yes I know that. It's what I've been doing. It just would be a little easier if I could let Simple x264 Launcher do it instead.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by Atombossler

Yes, Templates Is what I meant.
For example how do I change the order of the templates?

You can't change the order. The templates appear in alphabetic order.

Originally Posted by Atombossler

The Graphics Card Ram needs time to unload because the before transfered data has to be removed after processing finished.

As soon as a process terminates, all of its memory gets released automatically and immediately. That's a core principle of all modern OS.

[Atombossler]

That's true.
And in 95% of times it works well.
But sometimes not and it's recognizable that the RAM still is unloading.
I don't know how reliable those tools are (hwinfo, gpu observer), but it takes 1 or 2 seconds to finish (RAM usage falling).
Well, it should'nt behave like this but it does.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Well, as soon as the x264 process terminates, that RAM is "free" by definition. Even if some kind of lazy/delayed clean-up is going on, that RAM still has to be treated as free memory. So if another process tries to allocate that memory, right after the previous process has terminated, it may encounter some delay in the memory allocation, yes. But it must not encounter any "out of memory" issues. If it does, this would indicate some serious flaw in the driver code!

Adding an "artificial" delay doesn't make much sense to me. Whether you encounter the delay during the memory allocation or you encounter an additional delay before process creating doesn't make much of a difference. Except that the "artificial" delay will be encountered always, even when it isn't required at all. For most users adding an artificial delay will only be pointless and annoying. Also we have no idea how long the delay has to be...

[Atombossler]

Annoying if it can't be disabled and unknown delay could be adjustable from 0-5 sec in preferences.
In general this setting is disabled by default so nobody have to be annoyed.
I know that people ask for that feature in other encoding app as well so it's not only me who need that kind of feature.
But feel free to ignore it.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by Atombossler

Annoying if it can't be disabled and unknown delay could be adjustable from 0-5 sec in preferences.
In general this setting is disabled by default so nobody have to be annoyed.
I know that people ask for that feature in other encoding app as well so it's not only me who need that kind of feature.

Adding new features, even optional ones, adds more complexity to the application. I won't do this, unless there is a compelling reason. Especially when it comes to such "ugly" workarounds.

As explained before, there is no advantage in adding an "artificial" delay before the next process is created. Whether you experience the delay, because the process takes a little longer to allocate the memory or because the process creation is delayed artificially be the GUI, makes no difference. Except that in the latter case we need extra complexity in the GUI code. That plus we might be waiting longer than necessary (or we even might be waiting for nothing).