CachyOS / CachyOS/distribution

[Bug]: ffmpeg 9.0 breaks NVENC on Pascal GPUs (nvidia-580xx, driver maxes at NVENC API 13.0)

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Description

### Kernel

7.1.8-1-cachyos

### Desktop Environment / Window Manager

KDE Plasma

### CPU

AMD Ryzen 5 3600

### GPU / Driver

NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti / nvidia-580xx-dkms 580.173.02

### Description

Since the ffmpeg 8.x → 9.0 upgrade (Aug 8, 2026), all NVENC encoding fails on Pascal GPUs. ffmpeg 9.x is built
against NVENC API 13.1 headers, which requires NVIDIA driver ≥ 610, but the nvidia-580xx branch is the last
driver for Pascal (NVIDIA EOL) and only provides NVENC API 13.0. The 610 open-kernel branch does not support
Pascal. Affected: GPU Screen Recorder 6.0.0, OBS, and any ffmpeg/nvenc consumer. Verified by testing three cached
builds against the same driver — 8.1.2 works, 9.0 and 9.0.1 both fail.

### Steps to Reproduce

1. Have a Pascal GPU (GTX 10xx) on nvidia-580xx-dkms 580.173.02 with ffmpeg 9.x installed
2. Run: ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel error -f lavfi -i testsrc=size=320x240:rate=1 -frames:v 1 -c:v h264_nvenc -f null -
3. Observe the encoder fails to open

### Expected Behavior

h264_nvenc encodes successfully, as it did with ffmpeg 8.1.2 (verified: exit 0 on the same driver).

### Actual Behavior

```
[h264_nvenc @ 0x557dc909df00] Driver does not support the required nvenc API version. Required: 13.1 Found:
13.0
[h264_nvenc @ 0x557dc909df00] The minimum required Nvidia driver for nvenc is 610.00 or newer
[vost#0:0/h264_nvenc @ 0x557dc909d900] [enc:h264_nvenc @ 0x557dc909de80] Error while opening encoder - maybe
incorrect parameters such as bit_rate, rate, width or height.
```

### Logs / Error Messages

https://paste.cachyos.org/p/2f14850.log

### Additional Context

- Same issue in Arch's extra/ffmpeg (upstream of the CachyOS rebuild): filed at
https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/-/issues — the fix belongs in the ffmpeg packaging (build
against NVENC ≤ 13.0 headers, patch the check to warn instead of abort, or ship a compat ffmpeg8).
- Test evidence (same GPU/driver/session): ffmpeg 8.1.2 → h264_nvenc works; ffmpeg 9.0-5.1 and 9.0.1-1.1 → both
fail with the identical error.
- Driver 580.173.02 is the final branch for Pascal; no driver-side fix exists.
- Current workaround: CPU encoding (-encoder cpu in GPU Screen Recorder). Downgrading ffmpeg breaks ~18
dependents (firefox, mpv, haruna, qt6-webengine…) due to the libavcodec soname bump.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Start with the Arch extra/ffmpeg packaging issue referenced here and reproduce the failure using the provided lavfi h264_nvenc command on a Pascal GPU with nvidia-580xx. Compare the cached ffmpeg 8.1.2, 9.0, and 9.0.1 results; done means the packaging decision is implemented and NVENC encoding works on the supported Pascal driver without breaking dependent packages.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
linux
Domain
build-system
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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