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Hardware Encoder not available or in use error in NVIDIA Drivers 590 or higher

After installing the NVIDIA GeForce / RTX drivers version 590 or higher the following error message may appear when attempting to stream:

Hardware Encoder not available or in use

This error is caused by NVIDIA removing support for older NVIDIA Video Encoder versions, such as those used in older releases of FFmpeg.

A number of solutions and workarounds for this issue are listed below:

NOTE: The solutions below are only for the issue in NVIDIA driver 590 and higher. They are not solutions for the Hardware Encoder not available or in use message in all other cases, which are usually due to insufficient hardware available.

1. Update vMix to 29.0.0.41 or higher

This is available as a free update for all existing 28 and 29 users:

2. In the vMix Streaming Settings window change the Application setting from FFMPEG to FFMPEG6.

This option is only available in vMix 27 or higher.

3. Roll back the NVIDIA GeForce / RTX drivers to a version prior to 590

4. In the vMix Streaming Settings window untick Use Hardware Encoder

This option will increase CPU usage as a result of no longer using the hardware encoder when streaming and is not recommended unless the other three options are not possible.

Last Updated: Friday, December 5, 2025 2:05:51 PM