<p>I am new to After Effects. Just did my first real project - lots of fun. I am not that happy with my encoding output quality. Is it true that having a CUDA video card - i.e. rendering in hardware - improves QUALITY of output as well as speed? How much of a difference does it make?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-01T00:19:36.790Z
It can give a significant speed boost, but I don't believe you'd see better quality -- rather a little bit the opposite in my experience, for a given bit rate.
Jim Mack
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-06T15:48:51.933Z
I read somewhere on line that the video card makes a difference in quality of encoding output. But it makes absolutely no sense to me and I am very skeptical.
clarkland
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-04-06T16:31:53.617Z
Because it can increase speed, you can get better quality given the same encoding time. You can trade quality for encoding time whether or not you're using a CUDA card, and since CUDA is faster the tradeoff would be less costly. Maybe that's what what you read was referring to.
Jim Mack
<after-effects><video-editor><video-quality><hardware>
CUDA video card
clarkland
# CUDA video card

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-03-31)

I am new to After Effects. Just did my first real project - lots of fun. I am not that happy with my encoding output quality. Is it true that having a CUDA video card - i.e. rendering in hardware - improves QUALITY of output as well as speed? How much of a difference does it make?

**Tags:** after-effects, video-editor, video-quality, hardware

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: It can give a significant speed boost, but I don't believe you'd see better quality -- rather a little bit the opposite in my experience, for a given bit rate.  
> **username_0**: I read somewhere on line that the video card makes a difference in quality of encoding output. But it makes absolutely no sense to me and I am very skeptical.  
> **username_1**: Because it can increase speed, you can get better quality given the same encoding time. You can trade quality for encoding time whether or not you're using a CUDA card, and since CUDA is faster the tradeoff would be less costly. Maybe that's what what you read was referring to.  

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## 0 answers

