Hardware-accelerated Decoding Introduction

*GUI in this document refers to Waifu2x-Extension-GUI

1.What is "Hardware-accelerated Decoding"?

By default, GUI use software endcoders(CPU) to decode videos(split video into frames).

With Hardware-accelerated Decoding, GUI can use GPU to decode videos, which is much more fast and efficient.

But the Compatibility of hardware decoders are NOT as great as software decoders.

The GUI can automatically switch to the software decoder when the hardware decoder fails to decode the video. And if there are still problems, please change to another hardware decoder or just turn off Hardware-accelerated Decoding.

2.Hardware dencoders introduction

DirectX DXVA2:

• Video decoding acceleration using DirectX 9. It's compatible with most modern Windows PCs, so just use DXVA2 if you don't wanna learn more about these stuff.

DirectX D3D11VA:

• Direct3D 11 version of DXVA2.

Nvidia CUDA

• Video decoding acceleration using Nvidia CUDA, you need a Nvidia GPU with CUDA cores to use this decoder.

Nvidia CUVID

• NVIDIA provides an extension to CUDA called CUVID, which just accesses the hardware decoder, you need a Nvidia GPU with CUDA cores to use this decoder.
• Supported codecs: av1,h264,hevc,mjpeg,mpeg1,mpeg2,mpeg4,vc1,vp8,vp9

➡Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix [NEW] | NVIDIA Developer

Intel QSV

• Intel Quick Sync Video, you need a Intel iGPU to use this decoder.
• Supported codecs: av1,h264,hevc,mjpeg,mpeg2,vc1,vp8,vp9