phoronix AMD Radeon Navi 2 / VCN 3.0 Supports AV1 Video Decoding

[axipher]

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It turns out the Radeon RX 6000 series will have AV1 hardware video decode capabilities.

In addition to Intel Xe / Tigerlake and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series supporting AV1 hardware decoding, it's now firmed up that the next-gen Navi 2 GPUs will also have AV1 decode.

As previously reported, the AMD next-gen GPUs feature VCN 3.0 for Video Core Next. The previous VCN 3.0 Linux/open-source patches didn't reveal AV1 capabilities but new patches out today confirm AV1 support with VCN3.

... More at the article

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Now this is good news, we probably won't get direct AV1 encoding with this generation of GPU's from the "Big Three" but that doesn't mean it can't be done with GPU Compute power down the road.

[ENTERPRISE]

Move in the right direction. I need to do more research but I still assume Nvidia is still leading in this area ?

[axipher]

Actually that's a tough call to make, EposVox last video on h265 comparing NVENC to AMF actually had them pretty much on par if I remember correctly.  My personal usage of h265 was able to record my Nintendo Switch at 1080p60 through my Elgato 4k60 Pro Mk. II and I was able to run it at only 30 Mbps and get some damn near great quality recording.

 

NVENC still holds the crown for h264 encoding though which makes it ideal for game streaming to Twitch.

 

Mass AV1 hardware decoder is going to help pave the way to AV1 across the board though and I'm hoping all three (AMD, Intel and Nvidia) can all bring great AV1 encoders and decoders to the table that are comparable.

[ENTERPRISE]

Interesting insight, thanks for that. To be honest I do most things with NVENC and having a Plex server also meant that it made sense for me to go the Nvidia route for this. If AMD can match or beat it out and price being attractive then may go AMD next time for say my Plex server.

[TinFoil]

It'd be really nice if an open source video codec would finally take over for once. Opus is clearly superior to pretty much every other audio codec and its penetration still isn't very good.