No it does not. It simply can't without any implementation for it. As I said, GPU decoders are not utilized and there is no VP9 acceleration support in Apple's VA drivers. T2 doesn't have any VP9 support embedded as well. Only H.264 and H.265 / HEVC.
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macOS 11 Big Sur Safari YouTube 4K HDR VP9 support
- Thread starter EugW
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Apple have only announced h264 and h265, but as seen ios 14 is supporting vp9 now too, so they presumably did have the decoding block in there not utilised. Same would go for t2.
Listen, I had an extensive look through the system internals and there is no hardware acceleration.
Also, how do you explain that: I own an old Retina MBP from 2014. This one comes with a Broadwell i7 and doesn't even support any hardware acceleration for VP9. Yet I can play 4k videos from YouTube in Safari with about half the CPU usage of Chrome. Like I previously said, their software decoder is just extremely efficient and that's it.
Also, how do you explain that: I own an old Retina MBP from 2014. This one comes with a Broadwell i7 and doesn't even support any hardware acceleration for VP9. Yet I can play 4k videos from YouTube in Safari with about half the CPU usage of Chrome. Like I previously said, their software decoder is just extremely efficient and that's it.
That is just flat out wrong.
Broadwell supports partial VP9 decode acceleration in Windows.
Thanks for confirming that Apple has now implemented this in macOS 11 Big Sur as well. Now we have confirmation of it both for Broadwell and for Haswell.
Intel® Iris™ and HD Graphics Driver update posted for Haswell and Broadwell version 15.36.14.4080
This update addresses several previously found issues. Please see the Release Notes and excerpt below for details. As always, feedback is appreciated. The 15.36.14.4080 has been posted to Intel Download Center at the following direct links to the drivers: 32-bit...
community.intel.com
New features with this release:
- Improved video playback through partial hardware acceleration support for the VP9 video format.
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No, you can’t without hardware acceleration. Are you using Big Sur? ON previous versions, Safari does not play 4k video through youtube. you get downgraded to 1080p
The software decoder for other people doing vp9 is not inefficient to the degree that you think you are seeing with Safari.
No, it's definitely using an hardware decoder, even on arm. Just take a sample of VTDecoderXPCService, the frames are coming from AppleGVA framework on Intel and from AppleVideoDecoder on arm.
My Macs are more recents then yours, but it's definitely an hardware decoder:
/System/Library/Video/Plug-Ins/AppleGVAVPXDecoder.bundle on Intel
/System/Library/Video/Plug-Ins/AppleVideoDecoder.bundle on Arm
from the bundle Info.plist:
My Macs are more recents then yours, but it's definitely an hardware decoder:
/System/Library/Video/Plug-Ins/AppleGVAVPXDecoder.bundle on Intel
/System/Library/Video/Plug-Ins/AppleVideoDecoder.bundle on Arm
from the bundle Info.plist:
Code:
<key>VTCodecType</key>
<string>qvp9</string>
<key>VTIsHardwareAccelerated</key>
<true/>Yep, can confirm on tracing through activity monitor, find the same bundle.
There is just zero way that a 4k decode could be software on that little cpu.
There is just zero way that a 4k decode could be software on that little cpu.
I just added this to the original post:
So far we have evidence that:
1. Safari in Big Sur has support for 4K VP9 decode, but no HDR yet (beta 4).
2. It is hardware acceleration.
3. For the hardware acceleration, we have seen support for Kaby Lake and later, but also partial support for Haswell and Broadwell, and presumably Skylake.
4. This hardware acceleration is not utilized by Chrome. Chrome offers HDR support, but it's buggy so far.
So far we have evidence that:
1. Safari in Big Sur has support for 4K VP9 decode, but no HDR yet (beta 4).
2. It is hardware acceleration.
3. For the hardware acceleration, we have seen support for Kaby Lake and later, but also partial support for Haswell and Broadwell, and presumably Skylake.
4. This hardware acceleration is not utilized by Chrome. Chrome offers HDR support, but it's buggy so far.
@Ritsuka I know about that but there is no hardware acceleration. If macOS would support hardware acceleration for VP9, it would be part in the VA driver for the respective GPU. And as I previously said, the VA drivers for Intel and AMD GPUs so far only support H.264 and H.265 hardware acceleration.
Also, when actually playing a VP9 video and looking at the loaded plugins of VTDecoderXPCService, the Radeon or Intel VA driver should be loaded if hardware acceleration is present. But it is not. This is software decoding - period.
Plus: When decoding or encoding H.264 / H.265 with hardware acceleration, you actually see activity on the UVE / UVD (in case of AMD) hardware in IOReg. With VP9 this is not the case.
I guess they will support VP9 HWA on Apple Silicon. Maybe they also plan implementing it for Intel and AMD. But at the moment they definitely did not.
Also, when actually playing a VP9 video and looking at the loaded plugins of VTDecoderXPCService, the Radeon or Intel VA driver should be loaded if hardware acceleration is present. But it is not. This is software decoding - period.
Plus: When decoding or encoding H.264 / H.265 with hardware acceleration, you actually see activity on the UVE / UVD (in case of AMD) hardware in IOReg. With VP9 this is not the case.
I guess they will support VP9 HWA on Apple Silicon. Maybe they also plan implementing it for Intel and AMD. But at the moment they definitely did not.
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Did you try only on your 2014 on on more recent ones too? Because on my Macs (and on the A12z one too) it's definitely hardware accelerated, VTDecoderXPCService calls AppleGVA on Intel and that's where the hardware decoder are hooked up.
And the VideoToolbox component class is called "VPX HW Decoder"…
And anyway, it's not realistic to use only 8% of a core (the cpu usage of VTDecoderXPCService) to decode a 4k VP9 stream. If that was the case, there would be no need to make an hardware decoder.
And the VideoToolbox component class is called "VPX HW Decoder"…
And anyway, it's not realistic to use only 8% of a core (the cpu usage of VTDecoderXPCService) to decode a 4k VP9 stream. If that was the case, there would be no need to make an hardware decoder.
I'm not optimistic. Does Apple support HEVC decode acceleration at all on AMD? Or is it all Intel iGPU and Apple T2?
Then again, I'm surprised that Apple supports hardware VP9 decode on anything older than Kaby Lake, so anything can happen.
P.S It seems everyone likes the Costa Rica 4K 60fps HDR video for testing. I wonder how much ad revenue Jacob & Katie make on this just from computer geeks like us testing their equipment.
Yes HEVC on AMD Vega and later is supported. My Radeon Vega 56 in an eGPU box is the one that decodes HEVC when an external display is connected.
Yes but we’re on the subject of VP9. Before Navi the Polaris and Vega didn’t do VP9 very well. Here’s the Nvidia chart showing how recent it was added to their cards.
Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix
Find the related video encoding and decoding support for all NVIDIA GPU products.
developer.nvidia.com
I'm not optimistic. Does Apple support HEVC decode acceleration at all on AMD? Or is it all Intel iGPU and Apple T2?
Then again, I'm surprised that Apple supports hardware VP9 decode on anything older than Kaby Lake, so anything can happen.
P.S It seems everyone likes the Costa Rica 4K 60fps HDR video for testing. I wonder how much ad revenue Jacob & Katie make on this just from computer geeks like us testing their equipment.
Its popular because it’s a top three search result. They can probably supplement their living costs well enough.
Their videos are also great so it is not undeserved. But there are other great videos as well on YouTube so maybe we should try to link to those. And I don’t mean those who just piggyback on other creators.
On my Mac it seem that AppleIntelHSWVA.bundle is called from videotoolbox. I downloaded a 8k 60 HDR video and created a mp4 file with the vp9 coded file. And while I so far did not get QuickTime to accept it( only sound) in Safari it will run actually and without the network bottleneck it is quite fluent, not perfect but I remind you this is old mbp with two-core haswell. The CPU usage was between 60-80% but the system is responsive. If this is pure software I am amazed and wonder why Apple did not invest in vp9 before.
And this is when I removed the GT-640:
As you can see GPU usage is not indicated as before, but the CPU usage is same as before -18-20%. So I believe the system does not indicate that WindowServer process is allocated to the GPU as in the previous test, but I doubt that is accurate as the CPU usage is the same in both cases.
As you can see GPU usage is not indicated as before, but the CPU usage is same as before -18-20%. So I believe the system does not indicate that WindowServer process is allocated to the GPU as in the previous test, but I doubt that is accurate as the CPU usage is the same in both cases.
I don’t think Kepler does VP9. Nvidia support for it begins with Pascal 10 series.
According to Nvidia the only Kepler that does decode is on GRID products only (these are massive servers with 100s of GPUs)
Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix
Find the related video encoding and decoding support for all NVIDIA GPU products.
developer.nvidia.com
If that’s the case the GPU activity you are seeing above is something other than decoding.
Not sure. Your 480 is Polaris which sucks for VP9. You are probably seeing the GUI or WindowServer push the GPU.
AppleGVA is always called even with software decoding. If hardware encoding is active, the VA driver of your GPU (Intel or AMD) is listed in VTDecoderXPCService. As I said numerous times now: This is not the case for VP9 and VA Drivers do not contain any VP9 support.