Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browser will support Nvidia RTX 40 Series accelerated AV1 coding

CTOnews.com Sept. 27, Nvidia recently released the RTX 40 series of desktop graphics cards. According to an official press release, the RTX 40 series finally supports both AV1 hardware encoding and decoding.

With the release of the new graphics card, the Chromium development team approved a merge request to enable AV1 hardware accelerated coding on the RTX 40 series graphics card. This feature is expected to be supported in the upcoming release of Chromium-based browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, etc.

CTOnews.com learned that in 2018, the Open Media Alliance (AOMedia) released a new generation of video coding AV1 (AOMedia Video Codec 1.0). The coding, developed jointly by the Open Media Alliance, encodes 4K UHD video with an average compression ratio of 30 per cent higher than that of similar encoders. Previously, only Intel Ruixuan supported AV1 codec, Nvidia and AMD did not have full support.

The GeForce RTX 40 series uses the eighth generation of Nvidia video encoders, or NVENC, and now supports AV1, Nvidia said in a press release.

Nvidia promises to record games at 8K60 quality and nearly twice the export speed. The streaming quality of Chromium-based browsers is also expected to improve because AV1 is more efficient than H.264 (AVC) and VP9 codecs.