A method, system, and computer program product that exploits motion hints associated with rendered video frames. These motion hints are provided to a video encoder to guide a motion-compensation prediction process performed by the video encoder. Specifically, these motion hints can be used to better position a search window in a reference video frame to better capture the motion of a block of pixels in the reference video frame. Because the search window is better positioned in the reference video frame, the memory required to perform the encoding process can be reduced without sacrificing the level of encoded image quality.