H.264 hardware encoding on Radeon GPU

[kvic]

Hi there,

It seems H.264 hardware encoding on Radeon GPU has been implemented on Windows, and approved for Linux. Here are the corresponding FR tickets:

• https://www.nomachine.com/FR08R04010
• https://www.nomachine.com/FR01P03578

I recall seeing an older FR ticket that include approved status for all Windows, Linux and MacOS. Is the plan changed for MacOS? Is H.264 hardware encoding on Radeon GPU still on your roadmap?

A few weeks ago, as a conceptual test, I ran live streaming from OBS Studio on Mac using Apple’s VideoToolbox H.264 codec that makes use of the underlying discrete Radeon GPU. The speed in encoding and reduction in CPU utilization are both very impressive. Though the color is a bit washed out and the delay (~2-3s) is very noticeable. I believe both are design choice by OBS Studio that suit their application.

After seeing Radeon GPU’s H.264 encoder in action, I really wish NoMachine could support it as well. I’m sure you guys are tech savvy enough to tune it suitable for the real-time nature of NoMachine.

Thanks and Cheers

[fra81]

Hi kvic,

I’m sure you guys are tech savvy enough to tune it suitable for the real-time nature of NoMachine.

that was exactly the problem. A proof of concept was implemented and tested in our labs, but unfortunately the VideoToolbox encoder can’t work in fully real-time mode. It needs to buffer at least two frames before producing an encoded frame in output. This one-frame delay is not acceptable in a real-time application like NoMachine, where minimizing the latency has the maximum importance. And our tests showed that clearly.

That said, if this limitation is removed in future, NoMachine will be ready to leverage hardware encoding on Mac.

[Author]

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