HW video decoding (via GPU)

GPUs get used to outsource graphic processing from the CPU. They are designed for this purpose and will therefore perform way better and also take off load.

Hardware

This also contains HWVD, which is provided by an ASIC either on the GPU itself or next to it. It depends on the graphic chip if HWVD is supported at all and if yes which codecs on which level.

Interfaces

OS Interface HW
Windows DxVA2 (part of D3D9) Intel, AMD, NVIDIA
D3D11VA (part of D3D11) Intel, AMD, NVIDIA
Linux VA-API (from Intel, 2008)
  • Intel: intel-media-driver
  • AMD: mesa-va-drivers
  • NVIDIA: nvidia-vaapi-driver
VDPAU (from NVIDIA, 2009)
  • Intel: libvdpau-va-gl (Wrapper)
  • AMD: mesa-vdpau-drivers
  • NVIDIA: nvidia-vdpau-driver

Prefer VA-API for Intel and AMD and VDPAU for NVIDIA.

Applications

Applications with video playback will use the matching interfaces, at least some of them, to cover most of their users.

VLC -> Windows -> DxVA2 (since v1.1.0)
               -> D3D11VA (since v3.0.0)
    -> Linux   -> VA-API (since v1.1.0)
               -> VDPAU (since v2.1.0)
  • ASIC … Application-specific integrated circuit
  • HWVD … Hardware(-accelerated) video decoding