Xubuntu 18.04.3 + KDEnlive 19.08 appImage + NV GTX 1070 = easy hw accel vid render?

[esbeeb]

Noob question here:

I'm just about to buy an NVidia GTX 1070 (the nicest card my budget will allow). This will be the only GPU in the box.

A fresh install of Xubuntu 18.04.3 comes with a Linux 5 kernel. Once the proprietary drivers for NVidia for Linux are installed, I'd like to use the latest KDEnlive 19.08 appImage, and have Hardware-accelerated rendering "Just Work". Is this a sane plan?

Naturally, in KDEnlive, I'll pull down Settings -> "Run Config Wizard", where there is a nice button for "Check hardware acceleration", which I will press, before attempting a render.

Is this combination reasonable? When I search around looking for an answer, all I see are all sorts of tales of woe (many of which are perhaps out of date now) about some software component or another in this equation not having mature-enough software support yet.

Here it is, late 2019, have all the stars aligned now (CUDA support in the proprietary NVidia drivers, KDEnlive, and all libraries in between the two), for this to "Just Work" in the straightforward manner I expect?

[tildearrow]

Sadly, this does not seem to be the case yet.
Kdenlive's GPU acceleration support is still in early stages, and limited to specific effects (very few).

[esbeeb]

Thanks for the reply. I actually ended up ordering a 1060 instead, which is considerably cheaper. No need for that extra CUDA-crunching goodness of the 1070 anytime soon. (Unless of course, there's some other non-linear Open Source Video editor out there, which beats KDEnlive in it's ability to do hardware-accelerated hardware rendering, in which case, I would appreciate hearing about it). Blender maybe?

[tildearrow]

No, there isn't (yet). Every single open-source video editor I have used does not support GPU acceleration. (which is why I was forced to make my own, however it's not useful ATM and definitely not user-friendly)
If I remember correctly, Blender actually only supports GPU acceleration for its Cycles engine, and not for the VSE (Video Sequence Editor, the video editing part of it) or nodes.

[esbeeb]

Again, Thanks for the reply.

Dear NVidia, please note that I just spent 40% less on one of your graphics cards; I went from a GTX 1070 down to a GTX 1060, because you can't be bothered to contribute to projects such as KDEnlive, making the hardware acceleration work properly for rendering. Maybe if you crunch the potential increased sales numbers from people like me, you might see that it's actually worth your while to invest developer effort into getting the GPU-specific features all working properly in software such as KDEnlive, in order to drive up Video card sales on platforms such as Linux.

NVidia, please don't allow Linux users to have the unpleasant experience of buying one of your higher-end graphics cards, only to be disappointed to find they can't utilize the advanced features that the cards are capable of, in the common software where a newbie would expect it to "Just Work", like in KDEnlive.

[tildearrow]

because you can't be bothered to contribute to projects such as KDEnlive, making the hardware acceleration work properly for rendering.

The actual truth is that Kdenlive's GPU acceleration is limited on AMD as well. It isn't NVIDIA's problem, but the developers'. GPU acceleration for video editors is mostly restricted to proprietary software...