Using RTX A400 with Nvidia Broadcast

Tech
1

I got an Nvidia RTX A400 today and want to share some experiences with it.

Currently, it is in a Razer Core X eGPU case to test it.

I’m testing it with my work notebook and Windows 11 Pro: an HP Zbook Power 15 G8 (i7 11800H, UHD/Nvidia T600 4GB, 48GB RAM). The eGPU is connected to the Thunderbolt 3 port on an HP Thunderbolt Dock G2, which also connects a 4K 60Hz HP Z27 monitor and a couple of USB devices (no drives). So, everything else is less than ideal for performance.

What I found:

  • The first connection crashed the kernel. Studio driver version 552.86 was already installed. After reboot, the device manager didn’t show the card. I installed the driver again, and around the end of the setup process, it showed up in the device manager with an exclamation mark. After a reboot, the A400 shows up as ‘working properly’, but now the T600 is ‘no suitable driver’, right-click, and the automatic driver installs the ‘Nvidia’ driver (not WU). After reboot, all three GPUs work.
  • Nvidia Broadcast works
  • Nvidia Audio/Video Effects don’t. Elgato camera control and wave link complain that RTX 2060 or higher is needed. OBS shows the audio filter greyed out.
  • OBS streamed five encodes to Twitch (1080p60, 720p60, 480p30, 360p30, 160p30)
  • 3d mark warns that ray tracing benchmarks will not work because of a lack of VRAM
  • 3d mark Time Spy 2002 (Graphics 1831/cpu 4272) running on the laptop display

I tried multiencode with the T600 4GB and a T400 4GB; they only did three encodes, while a 3060 Ti 8GB did five.

2

Possibly dumb question: Did you download the SDKs? NVIDIA Broadcast Software Integrations: Download Resources
Checking w/ my Nvidia rep if A400 can run the SDKs/FX

3

No, that’s not a dumb question. Yes, I did install it before, using it with the 3060, and after getting the warning, I reinstalled it.

It might be just a thing because the A400 is relatively new. I bought it to replace a P600 2GB in the Plex server, but I want to see what this card can do. It is the cheapest low-profile single-slot card, which will fit in SFF PCs (165mm length) and has tensor and ray tracing cores—not many, but they are there.

I am tempted to order an A1000, but then there is the RTX 2000e on its way, which ticks more boxes but isn’t in stock yet.

Whoever reads this far might wonder why he is obsessed with the small cards. I am moving stuff around in my home lab. Two SFF PCs, a Ryzen 4750g and an i5 10500, are jobless at the moment. One thought is to make one of them into an OBS streaming/recording station.

Intel A310 and A380 fit, but most old corporate SFF PCs don’t have resizable bar enabled or even the option in the BIOS/UEFI. I speak of older machines that pop up after three to five years of service in offices on eBay and other platforms.

intel A310/A380:
Sparkle SA310C-4G Arc A310 ECO 4GB 156mm single-slot
ASRock 90-G4NZZ-00UANF Arc A310 Low Profile 4GB 169mm
Sparkle SA380G-6G Arc A380 GENIE 6GB 145mm
ASRock 90-G46ZZ-00UANF Arc A380 Low Profile 6GB 169mm

Low-profile 3050 and 4060 cards are dual-slot.
4060s are too long and need 8pin PCIe power, which needs space (which most power supplies in SFF PCs don’t have):
Gigabyte GV-N4060OC-8GL 182mm
ASUS 90YV0JL0-M0NA00 4060 LP BRK 188mm

3050s don’t have PCIe power connectors. But are too long, with one exception:
MSI V812-023R GeForce RTX 3050 LP 6G OC 174mm
Gigabyte GV-N3050OC-6GL GeForce RTX 3050 OC Low Profile 6G, 181mm
ASUS 90YV0KQ0-M0NA00 RTX3050-O6G-LP-BRK 182mm
Zotac Gaming ZT-A30510L-10L GeForce RTX 3050 LP 161mm ←

The length problem is not a problem with low-profile workstation cards. They are designed to fit these HP/Dell/Lenovo SFF machines.

Sadly, the newest AMD product in this form factor is the W6400, which doesn’t have VCN.

Nvidia has Turing cards T400 2/4GB, T600 4GB, T1000 4/8GB. Ampere RTX A400 4GB, A1000 8GB, A2000 6/12GB. Ada Lovelace RTX 2000 16GB, 4000 SFF Ada 20GB.

4

Alright, my Nvidia guy says the SDKs should work on any Nvidia RTX GPU w/ tensor cores. Perhaps it’s a shortsighted whitelist that doesn’t recognize your GPU, yeah :confused: