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Old 24th October 2022, 12:44   #1  |  Link
FranceBB
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What codec do the new Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs support?

Hi there, guys,
given that in this day and age I use Windows at work and Linux at home, I was looking for something that behaves on Linux.
Historically, I've always been with the Intel + NVIDIA combo as on Windows it worked great, however when I moved my personal stuff at home to Linux + VMs, that didn't turn out to be great and I had a really poor experience with NVIDIA GPUs given that their proprietary drivers have plenty of bugs on Fedora and the Nouveau don't support reclocking so they're unusable. So much so that I've been using the integrated Intel GPU for everything, disabling the NVIDIA one completely.

This will not happen again, so I was thinking about going full Intel next time around, thus the new Intel Arc Alchemist.

Since I don't play games (I stopped long time ago, in 2012, when I moved abroad for the first time and got my very first job), what's important to me is:

A) Video Encoding
B) Video Decoding


On the video encoding side, the support page says:

- MPEG2 Encoding
- H.264 Encoding
- H.265 8bit, 10bit 4:2:0, 4:2:2, 4:4:4 and 12bit 4:2:0 Encoding
- VP9 8bit and 10bit Encoding
- AV1 8bit and 10bit Encoding

The problem with this is that it doesn't specify it any further.
Like, about MPEG-2 encoding, is it only for 4:2:0 SD files or does it also support 4:2:2 in FULL HD like XDCAM-50 with user selectable GOP?

What about H.264? Does it mean that it supports both 8bit and 10bit? Only 8bit? Which sampling?


Now, on to the decoding side, the chart says:

- JPEG Decoding
- MPEG-2 Decoding
- H.264 Decoding
- H.265 8bit, 10bit, 12bit Decoding
- VP9 8bit, 10bit, 12bit Decoding
- AV1 8bit, 10bit, 12bit Decoding


Now, does MPEG-2 decoding include XDCAM-50, so 4:2:2 High Profile 8bit in FULL HD?

Does H.264 Decoding include XAVC Intra Class 300 and 480, so 4:2:2 High Intra Profile Level 5.2 10bit in UHD?

What about JPEG? It says JPEG Decoding but does it mean that it's only limited to MJPEG and not MJPEG2000? It would be nice if it could decode MJPEG2000 4:4:4 FULL HD and UHD 10bit and 12bit, but it seems unlikely...


Do you guys have any news about this so that you could clear my doubts?

I mean, if it doesn't AT LEAST have H.264 10bit with level 5.2 I'll just skip this generation altogether and wait a bit longer...

Last edited by FranceBB; 24th October 2022 at 12:47.
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Old 24th October 2022, 13:25   #2  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FranceBB View Post
The problem with this is that it doesn't specify it any further.
Try to look here.
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Old 24th October 2022, 13:45   #3  |  Link
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Oh... so H.264 is 4:2:0 8bit only... so disappointing...
H.265 gets lots of love instead with 4:2:0, 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 8bit, 10bit and 12bit support...
No love for H.264 after all... :'(
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Old 24th October 2022, 19:14   #4  |  Link
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Here the complete feature set, for chroma scroll to the end.
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Old 24th October 2022, 19:31   #5  |  Link
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Ok, gotcha, so...

Supported Decode features:

MPEG2: 4:2:0 8bit
H.264: 4:2:0 8bit
H.265: 4:2:0 8bit, 10bit, 4:2:2 8bit, 10bit, 4:4:4 8bit, 10bit, 12bit
VP9: 4:2:0 8bit, 10bit, 4:4:4 8bit, 10bit, 12bit
AV1: 4:2:0 8bit, 10bit, 4:4:4 12bit


which covers literally 0 of my use cases. Nice...
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Old 24th October 2022, 19:49   #6  |  Link
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do you expect professional features from a consumer video card?
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Old 24th October 2022, 21:20   #7  |  Link
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do you expect professional features from a consumer video card?
Well, they have 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 H.265, so they could have easily had the same for H.264...
I mean, you don't really find 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 12bit H.265 contents in the consumer world, so that's a professional feature, yet they have it. They could have easily done the same for H.264, so 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 H.264 decoding.
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Old 25th October 2022, 16:15   #8  |  Link
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Well, AVC is quite old codec, and AFAIK 10bit has never been vastly used, so I can understand why they put more efforts on HEVC and AV1.

Curious to know AV1 quality and speed at high bitrates (e.g. 20000kbps for UHD) compared to software encoders.
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