Attention Linux users! RADV brings hardware-accelerated H.264/H.265 encoding for AMD GPUs

The MESA RADV Vulkan driver makes it possible: Hardware-accelerated H.264/H.265 encoding for AMD GPUs brings smooth video streaming and faster content creation, according to our colleagues at Phoronix.

Fast H.264/H.265 encoding with RADV under Linux

MESA’s open source RADV Vulkan driver for AMD GPUs has received a significant update that integrates hardware acceleration for encoding H.264 and H.265 video. This results in significantly faster video processing times under Linux, especially for tasks such as live streaming, video editing and conversion. With this new feature, the MESA RADV driver establishes itself as a serious alternative to AMD’s proprietary Vulkan driver. The integration of H.264/H.265 encoding support marks another important step in the maturity and performance of the open source driver.

Over the past year, the RADV driver has already seen several notable improvements, including the implementation of ray tracing performance and various optimizations that have significantly increased overall performance on AMD GPUs. The integration of Vulkan Video now represents another milestone and significantly expands the capabilities of the driver, especially for video-intensive applications.

Vulkan Video: Hardware acceleration for smooth streaming and editing

Vulkan Video is a collection of APIs that enable hardware-accelerated video encoding and decoding on compatible GPUs. Compared to traditional software acceleration, Vulkan Video offers significantly higher speeds and efficiency, resulting in smoother video streams and faster encoding times.

Another advantage of Vulkan Video is the ability to optimize performance depending on the use case. Developers can use the APIs to optimize the encoding processes for specific tasks, which can lead to a further increase in efficiency and performance. The integration of H.264/H.265 Vulkan video encoding into the RADV driver followed a five-month development process led by MESA developer David Airlie. The feature has been integrated into version 24.1 of MESA and is now available to all Linux users with AMD GPUs.

With the implementation of Vulkan video encoding, the MESA RADV driver has taken another big step towards maturity and performance. It now offers a serious alternative to AMD’s proprietary driver and enables smooth video streaming, faster content creation and more efficient video processing on AMD GPUs under Linux.

Source: Phoronix, Gitlab