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wickerstick

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 14, 2016
70
7
Denton
Is anyone running a 5700xt in there 5,1 running Catalina? Can anyone test 8k vp9 playback and report if you get smooth playback also also what the current cpu usage is. Neither my Vega vii nor Vega 64 support it and do not have a Navi card atm.
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,587
Hong Kong
Is anyone running a 5700xt in there 5,1 running Catalina? Can anyone test 8k vp9 playback and report if you get smooth playback also also what the current cpu usage is. Neither my Vega vii nor Vega 64 support it and do not have a Navi card atm.
You have to enable HWAccel in order to make it work
 

Ritsuka

Cancelled
Sep 3, 2006
1,464
969
macOS has got no support for any VP9 hardware decoder, so that GPU will not help too much.
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,587
Hong Kong
macOS has got no support for any VP9 hardware decoder, so that GPU will not help too much.
Did you read my post and the embedded video? My RX580 was doing the VP9 decode (8K Youtube). Without GPU decode, it's impossible to have that smooth playback on my single processor cMP.
 
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Ritsuka

Cancelled
Sep 3, 2006
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969
No it's not. See your cpu usage. 600%. It would be something less than 10% is the actual GPU encoder was being used.
The only API di access hardware video acceleration on macOS is VideoToolbox. And VideoToolbox has got no VP9 support. Check the API on developer.apple.com is you don't believe me.
 
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wickerstick

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 14, 2016
70
7
Denton
from my understanding, VP9 (at least 8k 24fps) is not supported by AMD. Thats why I was asking if anyone running a navi card could test, Since Navi supports it. I was hoping since 5700 & xt models work under the latest Catalina there may something there. I know apple doesn't support it through safari. However, there may be hope in Chrome or Firefox. If anyone here happens to be testing latest Catalina with 5700/XT it would be nice to have some confirmation.

 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,587
Hong Kong
No it's not. See your cpu usage. 600%. It would be something less than 10% is the actual GPU encoder was being used.
The only API di access hardware video acceleration on macOS is VideoToolbox. And VideoToolbox has got no VP9 support. Check the API on developer.apple.com is you don't believe me.
Thanks for the info. That's interesting, AFAIK, Polaris / Vega only has partial VP9 support, need CPU assist. That's why the CPU usage is high.

From memory, without HWAccel hactivation, I can't even play that 8K youtube video smoothly. That's why I concluded HWAccel has some effect on 8K youtube video playback. But if you checked the API, then most likely you are correct. And may be some other reasons causing my false test result coincidentally.
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,587
Hong Kong
Only Navi 10 and 14 and Raven have VP9 support according to this table:
This is captured form that Wiki link. It looks like AMD added "some" VP9 support since UVD6.3. But only VCN1 has full VP9 support.
Screenshot 2020-03-03 at 3.11.23 AM.png
 

wickerstick

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 14, 2016
70
7
Denton
I believe 8K was selected. I’m not near my mac but will double check again.

12K VP9 New York video on YouTube also played smoothly with CPU usage at 54%
please verify, if you can. I’ve @attempted 8k playback under Mojave with Vega 64 and Vega vii, also I have a test SSD with Catalina 10.15.3, however both are only decoding via CPUs and stop to buffer every 5 sec. Have a similar configuration as your system. Was really hoping to see if anything was different under Catalina with navi. for some reason I thought the api was simply for safari and chrome or Firefox would bypass it. But my knowledge of how the framework works is beginner level at best. Still if AMD has cooked in vpn 8k24 Radeon multimedia engine does that mean the Catalina kext. (Driver) still has to used video toolbox APi to pass over to chrome or Firefox? both support hardware encoding last I checked. Well maybe my hope is dead till AV1 picks up...
 

theoscat

macrumors newbie
Mar 3, 2020
6
0
please verify, if you can. I’ve @attempted 8k playback under Mojave with Vega 64 and Vega vii, also I have a test SSD with Catalina 10.15.3, however both are only decoding via CPUs and stop to buffer every 5 sec. Have a similar configuration as your system. Was really hoping to see if anything was different under Catalina with navi. for some reason I thought the api was simply for safari and chrome or Firefox would bypass it. But my knowledge of how the framework works is beginner level at best. Still if AMD has cooked in vpn 8k24 Radeon multimedia engine does that mean the Catalina kext. (Driver) still has to used video toolbox APi to pass over to chrome or Firefox? both support hardware encoding last I checked. Well maybe my hope is dead till AV1 picks up...


looking forward to confirming the result.
Currently on a 16" MBP with an eGPU with RX580, playing the 8k60 Peru is solely processed by CPU and not really a pleasant thing to watch. If rx5700xt works with VP9 decoding on Chrome, definitely I'd go for one!
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,587
Hong Kong
please verify, if you can. I’ve @attempted 8k playback under Mojave with Vega 64 and Vega vii, also I have a test SSD with Catalina 10.15.3, however both are only decoding via CPUs and stop to buffer every 5 sec. Have a similar configuration as your system. Was really hoping to see if anything was different under Catalina with navi. for some reason I thought the api was simply for safari and chrome or Firefox would bypass it. But my knowledge of how the framework works is beginner level at best. Still if AMD has cooked in vpn 8k24 Radeon multimedia engine does that mean the Catalina kext. (Driver) still has to used video toolbox APi to pass over to chrome or Firefox? both support hardware encoding last I checked. Well maybe my hope is dead till AV1 picks up...
Safari definitely has no support for VP9.

But VideoToolBox is also definitely the only way to get HWAccel. Therefore, if VideoToolBox doesn't not programmed to handle VP9, then there is no way to get that in macOS regardless of hardware spec.
 
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w1z

macrumors 6502a
Aug 20, 2013
692
481
I checked again now and yes 8K was set.

Just to be sure, I played a dozen or more 8K / 12K videos and here are the results:

Videos that played smoothly


8K VP9
12K VP9
8K VP9
8K VP9
8K VP9
12K VP9 120FPS
12K VP9
12K VP9
8K VP9
8K VP9

Videos with brief pauses

8K VP9
8K VP9
8K VP9
8K VP9
8K VP9
 
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theoscat

macrumors newbie
Mar 3, 2020
6
0
i know this is a cMP section but is there any chance that with a rx5700xt as an eGPU, 8k60fps is gonna work? currently my rx580 is definitely not supporting VP9 hardware decoding on Chrome.
 

CMMChris

macrumors 6502a
Oct 28, 2019
850
794
Germany (Bavaria)
macOS does not support hardware accelerated playback of VP9 on any GPU. That's why Safari does only support 1080p in YouTube.

You can see on CPU load that it is doing all the decoding. Also check VTDecoderXPCService details (opened files and ports) and compare it against playing H.264/H.265 files. When the AMD GPU is used the "AMDRadeonVADriver" or "AMDRadeonVADriver2" is loaded.
Bildschirmfoto 2020-03-03 um 19.02.57.jpg
 
Last edited:

flowrider

macrumors 604
Nov 23, 2012
7,323
3,003
^^^^I'm on a NcMP 7,1. I can get 8K playback (Travelogs above) on Firefox, but not on Safari. Playback is smooth. GPU is an Aorus RX 5700 XT.
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,656
8,587
Hong Kong
^^^^I'm on a NcMP 7,1. I can get 8K playback (Travelogs above) on Firefox, but not on Safari. Playback is smooth. GPU is an Aorus RX 5700 XT.
The 7,1 CPU can handle that. So, hard to tell if your 7,1 decode those video by CPU / GPU.

The problem is why w1z's 5,1 can do it with such low CPU demand. If not GPU, then what is it?
 

w1z

macrumors 6502a
Aug 20, 2013
692
481
The problem is why w1z's 5,1 can do it with such low CPU demand. If not GPU, then what is it?

All the above youtube videos were viewed on Chrome. I saw spikes up to 60% CPU with little to no GPU utilization whilst viewing the videos that I experienced pauses with. CPU utilization for all other videos was between 19% and 40% with GPU utilization under 20%.

I can replicate the same results under firefox with 1 difference - CPU utilization for videos that played smoothly was lesser under firefox than chrome with GPU utlization going up to 25% but not over that.
 

tommy chen

macrumors 6502a
Oct 1, 2018
907
390
no problem play some videos with my radeonVII in firefox

edit: ok, GPU only 25% CPU about 60%

Screenshot 2020-03-04 at 00.55.36.jpg
Screenshot 2020-03-04 at 00.53.53.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Teddy Leung

macrumors member
Jun 12, 2015
37
11
Hong Kong
I am using RX580 , Play these YouTube 8K Video Smooth too.
[automerge]1583339690[/automerge]
 

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