Microsoft is now rolling out D3D12 GPU video acceleration for its Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) service. With this integration, users will see a performance improvement while also seeing energy gains and betting image resolution.
Hardware acceleration in terms of video decoding and encoding brings significant benefits to Windows Subsystem for Linux by putting all video processing on the GPU instead of the CPU.
Microsoft says that Windows Subsystem for Linux is receiving its hardware-accelerated video processing through any application. All the app needs is to be using VAAPI and Mesa 3D D3D12. Users also need to be running WSL version 1.1.0 with a compatible Linux distro.
“When decoding, encoding or processing a video, you have the option to do so using the CPU or -when available- offload it to accelerator hardware, usually delegating it to the GPU.
Leveraging video hardware acceleration instead of using the CPU usually has several benefits: increased performance, lower power consumption and it frees up those CPU cycles to be available for other tasks in WSL or even in the Windows host, increasing overall performance. The benefits of using the GPU increase as the resolution of the video gets higher.”
Requirements
In a blog post, Microsoft points to the following PC components you need to access this feature in WSL:
Vendor |
CPU |
GPU |
Driver |
AMD |
Ryzen 4000 or newer |
Radeon RX 5000 and newer |
23.3.1 (coming soon) |
Intel |
Iris Xe (DG1) |
11th Gen Intel Core (Tiger and Rocket Lake) |
31.0.101.4032 |
NVIDIA |
– |
GeForce GTX 10 Series |
526.47 |
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