according to phonics, (opens in new tab) Google has released a new AOM-AV1 update – version 3.5. This greatly improves encoding times when streaming, rendering, or recording from the CPU. In the best cases, the update improves encoding times by up to 34%.
It’s great to add the functionality of AV1 with an encoder that has become very popular with powerful video platforms such as YouTube. Additionally, we’re also seeing significant support for AV1 hardware acceleration on the latest discrete GPUs, including Intel’s Arc Alchemist GPUs and, most importantly, Nvidia’s RTX 40-series GPUs.
Encoding times improved by 20% to 30% with the new update, depending on the resolution. For example, 1080P reduces encoding time by 18% to 34%, featuring 16 threads of processing. At 4K, 32 threads improved render times by 18% to 20%. Google was able to do this by adding Frame Parallel Encoding to its advanced multithreading configuration. Google has added several improvements that help improve AV1’s performance in other areas, especially real-time encoding.
In other words, CPU utilization for programs like OBS was reduced, primarily on systems packing 16 CPU threads. As a result, users can use those CPU resources for other tasks or further improve video quality without additional performance cost. If you’re editing a video and rendering the video with AV1, using a CPU with 16 or more threads will significantly reduce the processing time.
AV1 Performance Boost Comes at Just the Right Time
The speedup in AV1 couldn’t have been better. With the introduction of the AV1 hardware acceleration engine and the ability for content creators to use discrete GPUs to record and stream content in his AV1 codec, the video industry is more aggressive than ever this year. is migrating to AV1.
AV1 emerged in 2018 as a new potential alternative to the H.264 video codec. It has become a mainstream item due to its very attractive feature set. First, it’s completely open source and free for anyone to use. It offers up to 50% higher compression ratio than H.264. Additionally, it greatly reduces the size of AV1 video files.
This year, Intel’s Arc A-series GPUs are the first to feature the AV1 hardware acceleration engine, significantly improving video quality over competitors, including Nvidia’s legendary NVENC H.264 encoder. But now Nvidia has entered the game with his RTX 40 series GPUs that support AV1 encoding for the first time thanks to the latest 8th Gen NVENC engine.
AV1 is now poised to become a perfect replacement for H.264. His AV1 encoding now exists in both discrete GPUs and software encoding on CPUs, making AV1 encoding very accessible to the public. The new AV1 performance update provides greater flexibility for users running AV1 codecs in live streams and within video editors.
