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The Khronos Group is a collaboration between almost 200 firms, working collectively to supply numerous APIs for computing. Its most well-known software program, similar to OpenGL, WebGL, and Vulkan, are all about graphics however for the previous few years the consortium has been engaged on doing the identical for video. It is simply introduced that Vulkan Video, a low-level API for dealing with video streams, now absolutely helps the {hardware} acceleration of the H.264 and H.265 requirements for decoding and encoding.
In the event you’re questioning what on Earth an API is, consider it as a translation service. It acts as a intermediary between a developer’s software program and the {hardware}’s drivers, making it far simpler to supply an utility that makes full use of a tool’s options. For instance, video games are sometimes written in C# or C++ however the directions within the code are written for no matter API is getting used. That may very well be Direct3D or Vulkan in the case of the graphics.
The place Direct3D is restricted to Home windows-based PCs, Vulkan is out there throughout a spread of platforms, similar to Linux, Android, MacOS, iOS, and so forth. Something written with Vulkan in thoughts will work simply the identical on any of these methods, supplied the {hardware} correctly helps Vulkan. Nonetheless, there hasn’t actually been a complete cross-platform API for dealing with video decompression and compression.
That was till the Khronos Group launched Vulkan Video just a few years in the past however the preliminary model solely supplied decoding, and even then it wasn’t a core function of the API: It was supported via using extensions, that are basically API-snippets which are proprietary to 1 vendor’s {hardware}.
With this new launch, decoding and encoding of the H.264 and H.265 video format requirements are actually a core a part of Vulkan Video. The decoding of the AV1 format might be coming quickly, although precisely when is not clear, and encoding might be for a later level sooner or later.
However proper now, builders can write their video recording and streaming functions utilizing Vulkan Video and it ought to work equally as effectively, it doesn’t matter what system it is being run on.
I say ‘ought to’ as a result of to utilize any {hardware} acceleration of video decoding/encoding, drivers should be up to date to recognise the API and its directions. In the mean time, solely Nvidia has any drivers that help the brand new Vulkan Video replace, and even then, simply in its beta drivers. AMD and Intel will apparently replace their drivers ‘quickly’ however your guess is nearly as good as mine as to when that may occur.
One of many first functions to be modified for the brand new API launch might be FFmpeg, a free cross-platform instrument for recording and streaming video. It isn’t absolutely prepared but however one of many builders has confirmed that it is presently being labored on.
You might be pondering ‘So what?’ at this level, although.
In spite of everything, the variety of video games that use Vulkan for graphics, in comparison with Direct3D, is fairly small however having an API that is not restricted to anybody vendor’s {hardware} or any particular platform implies that builders may have a a lot simpler time of issues making software program that may work the identical, on any machine.
If the makers of FFmpeg are blissful to make the leap, you possibly can make certain that others will observe too. It might probably might imply your favorite streaming software program works quick and bug-free, it doesn’t matter what CPU or GPU you might have in your gaming PC.
The one drawback is that every part will nonetheless rely on how effectively distributors implement the brand new API within the drivers. Regardless of how good the app is, if the drivers aren’t nice then any software program counting on them will wrestle.
We’ll actually be keeping track of Vulkan Video to see how issues pan out and if it seems that AMD, Intel, and Nvidia have completed an excellent job of issues, we’ll let .
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