Microsoft Adds Hardware AV1 Encoding to Mesa via DirectX 12

An unexpected change from Microsoft engineers has landed in the Mesa codebase, adding initial support for hardware-accelerated AV1 video encoding on the GPU. The contribution is slated for inclusion in the upcoming Mesa 26.2 release.

How It Works

The implementation relies on a combination of DirectX 12 and the Hardware Media Foundation Transform (HMFT) — a mechanism that is part of the Windows Media Foundation layer. As a result, hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding becomes available through Microsoft's existing infrastructure, now integrated into Mesa.

Context

Mesa is traditionally associated first and foremost with open-source drivers for Linux, so Microsoft's involvement in developing functionality tied to DirectX 12 and Windows Media Foundation looks atypical. Even so, contributions like this reflect the ongoing convergence of the Windows and Linux ecosystems in graphics and media technologies, as well as the industry's growing interest in efficient hardware AV1 encoding — a codec that delivers better compression than H.264 and H.265 at comparable quality.

Details about exactly which GPUs and drivers already support the new functionality, as well as plans for the further development of AV1 encoding in Mesa, have not yet been disclosed.

Source: Phoronix