NVIDIA Lands AV1 VDPAU Hardware Acceleration In FFmpeg

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA Lands AV1 VDPAU Hardware Acceleration In FFmpeg

NVIDIA has contributed support to the FFmpeg multimedia library for being able to take advantage of AV1 GPU-accelerated video decoding by way of the VDPAU API when using the latest-generation NVIDIA RTX 30 "Ampere" GPUs...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-AV1-VDPAU-FFmpeg

[wertigon]

This is great news. Thank you Nvidia.

Unfortunately, due to the shoddy support shown to Wayland, I am actively avoiding Nvidia until such a time Wayland is functioning properly on their GPUs.

Thus, any idea if and when AMD/Intel will support this feature?

[MorrisS.]

How to check whether hardware decode works on linux OSes?

[tildearrow]

VDPAU still going strong?!

What happened to NVDEC?

[numacross]

Thus, any idea if and when AMD/Intel will support this feature?

Intel supports AV1 decoding since Tiger Lake using the Quick Sync Video mentioned in the article. AMD since VCN 3.0 implemented in RDNA 2.

This is a bit confusing but there's multiple APIs involved in FFmpeg, taking into account only Linux decoding support:

Intel QSV is accessible via VAAPI and libmfx (Intel Media SDK)
AMD UVD/VCN via VAAPI and VDPAU
NVIDIA, specifically AV1, was available via NVDEC and now also via VDPAU

How to check whether hardware decode works on linux OSes?

It depends on the software you want to use, I guess the easiest would be trying mpv with --hwdec=auto and maybe -v to see what gets used.

VDPAU still going strong?!

What happened to NVDEC?

NVDEC is the preferred interface that got support for AV1 first. I guess someone (as in paying customer) is still using VDPAU and made NVIDIA provide AV1 support for it. There's also CUVID which differs slightly from NVDEC and is still supported by FFmpeg. Officially NVDEC is "formerly called NVCUVID API".

[wertigon]

Intel supports AV1 decoding since Tiger Lake using the Quick Sync Video mentioned in the article. AMD since VCN 3.0 implemented in RDNA 2.

This is a bit confusing but there's multiple APIs involved in FFmpeg, taking into account only Linux decoding support:

Intel QSV is accessible via VAAPI and libmfx (Intel Media SDK)
AMD UVD/VCN via VAAPI and VDPAU
NVIDIA, specifically AV1, was available via NVDEC and now also via VDPAU

Oh, nice, then my 6600 should already support it. Thanks for a quick answer!

[TheLexMachine]

Linux devs prefer VDPAU over NVDEC/CUVID. Nvidia killed VDPAU and forced CUVID on everyone, but it was largely rejected because it required CUDA, which is equivalent to gaming use, and didn't work well with the average Linux hardware being older GPUs and non-gaming models. For years, Nvidia kept pushing it and devs largely ignored it and refused to implement it. Eventually, Nvidia restarted VDPAU development and it has been catching up to NVDEC in features.

[MorrisS.]

It depends on the software you want to use, I guess the easiest would be trying mpv with --hwdec=auto and maybe -v to see what gets used.

On chrome and firefox?

[numacross]

On chrome and firefox?

That is a complex matter since it depends a lot on your distribution and setup.

For Firefox you can use this Fedora article to check/configure it on AMD/Intel via VAAPI.

As for Chrome/Chromium you can check chrome://gpu

[Slartifartblast]

Intel supports AV1 decoding since Tiger Lake using the Quick Sync Video mentioned in the article. AMD since VCN 3.0 implemented in RDNA 2.

Not for the 6400 and 6500 they haven't, a terrible omission and why these cards should be given a wide berth.

http://www.neowin.net/news/amd039s-n...d-hevc-encode/