Intel Open-Source Vulkan Driver Merges Initial AV1 Decode Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Open-Source Vulkan Driver Merges Initial AV1 Decode Support

Merged this Friday night for Mesa 25.0 is initial Vulkan Video AV1 decode support for Intel's open-source "ANV" Vulkan Linux driver...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Vulkan-Video-AV1-Decode

[lyamc]

Every time I see something like vulkan getting some feature I just think that it's great because there's even less of a reason to use anything Directx adjacent.

[the-burrito-triangle]

Correction: Tiger Lake (and Rocket Lake) is "Gen 11" CPU with "Gen 12" / Xe GPU. Alder Lake has Gen 12 CPU with Gen 12.5 GPU, IIRC. Just saying.

[Atirage21]

My intel i5 5300u (5th generation - Broadwell ) with hd 5500 have also support of vulkan only in linux (not in windows due to missing driver). So it would be maybe the oldest cpu with av1 after? https://www.intel.com/content/www/us...fications.html

[the-burrito-triangle]

Every time I see something like vulkan getting some feature I just think that it's great because there's even less of a reason to use anything Directx adjacent.

Well, as far as GPU video decoding goes... I don't see this being very power efficient on Intel parts: 1) Intel has terrible Vulkan performance (while OpenGL perf. is fantastic). 2) Intel has a hardware video decoding engine on die. Considering points 1) and 2), the native HW decoding is going to be more performant. Now, if there is a CODEC *not* supported by the HW decode engine, then great; let's do this Vulkan stuff. But Xe first gen GPUs already support VAProfileAV1Profile0, so unless this AV1 Vulkan decoding adds support for more profiles, it really is a waste of effort.

[the-burrito-triangle]

Here's the output for a RKL Xe (GT0, 32EU) iGPU:

VAEntrypointVLD=HW decode
VAEntrypointEncSlice=HW encode

$vainfo
Trying display: wayland
libva info: VA-API version 1.20.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri/iHD_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_20
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.20 (libva 2.20.1)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel iHD driver for Intel(R) Gen Graphics - 23.4.3 ()
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoProc
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointStats
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointFEI
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointFEI
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointEncPicture
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointFEI
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointFEI
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileVP9Profile1 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile1 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileVP9Profile3 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile3 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileHEVCMain12 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain12 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain422_10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain422_10 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain422_12 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain422_12 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain444 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain444 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileHEVCMain444_10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain444_10 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileHEVCMain444_12 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileHEVCSccMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain10 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileHEVCSccMain444 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain444 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
VAProfileAV1Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain444_10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCSccMain444_10 : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP

[isaacx123]

My intel i5 5300u (5th generation - Broadwell ) with hd 5500 have also support of vulkan only in linux (not in windows due to missing driver). So it would be maybe the oldest cpu with av1 after? https://www.intel.com/content/www/us...fications.html

The hardware itself has to support AV1 HW decoding, Intel introduced AV1 HW decoding support with Tiger Lake, so no, the iGPU inside your i5 5300u doesn't support it.

[ezst036]

I suspect I'm about to structure this question incorrectly, however I am still curious:

With the proliferation of hardware decoding engines, why would anybody want avoid the decode engine and choose to decode using the GPU/shaders/vulkan where it is supported?

For example, if you have an Arc or a Battlemage, why use Vulkan instead of the decoder portion of the chip?

[archerallstars]

It has come to the point that, should I buy Intel or AMD GPU now If I mainly use Linux? Seems like AMD catches up with Intel in Linux's video, while Intel's gaming is not too bad at all now. And they also expand their video capabilities further.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

I suspect I'm about to structure this question incorrectly, however I am still curious:

With the proliferation of hardware decoding engines, why would anybody want avoid the decode engine and choose to decode using the GPU/shaders/vulkan where it is supported?

For example, if you have an Arc or a Battlemage, why use Vulkan instead of the decoder portion of the chip?

I've admittedly paid close to zero attention to Vulkan Video so far, but isn't that what it is doing? It still uses / requires the media block on the (i/d)GPU for hardware accelerated decode / encode. You just get to do it from the same API that you are using for 3D / compute, and it will probably eventually be more flexible than VAAPI.