NVIDIA H264/H265 decoder/encoder monitoring

By Michał Sobczak 13 August 2025 1 min read

You can use either –query-gpu option:

Bash

nvidia-smi --query-gpu=utilization.decoder --format=csv

Example output:

Text

utilization.decoder [%]
9 %

Or dmon:

Bash

nvidia-smi dmon

Example output:

Bash

# gpu    pwr  gtemp  mtemp     sm    mem    enc    dec    jpg    ofa   mclk   pclk 
# Idx      W      C      C      %      %      %      %      %      %    MHz    MHz 
    0      -     40      -      3      2      0     19      -      -   3504   1290

With little explanation:

Text

sm:  CUDA streaming multiprocessor?
mem: GPU memory
enc: encoder in NVENC
dec: decoder in NVDEC