Hardware vs Forced VP9 Quality

MisterSwinkles — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 14:17:46 GMT

Hello - I'm curious whether I'd get an improvement in stream quality if I upgraded by GPU vs just forcing VP9 in Chrome itself. My PC has an Intel i5-4670k and a Radeon R9 280. I know through Chrome's settings that the R9 280 does not support hardware acceleration so I was able to see some improvement forcing VP9, just with significant tearing and an inability to process a 4K stream smoothly, despite a wired ethernet connection (I presume I'm bottlenecked on my 7 year old processor). I also have a Surface 5 which does support hardware VP9 but has trouble pushing a 4K stream across WIFI.

I'm more or less dealing with a strange tradeoff: a stable connection with inferior quality or slightly better quality with an inconsistent connection (in addition to controller issues on the Surface which are completely unrelated.)

I'm hoping to solve my problem by upgrading my GPU. My question is: would an upgraded GPU give me any improvement in VP9 stream quality vs the forced software VP9 at the same resolution? I would assume dedicated hardware would be able to support the 4K stream which appears much better than the 1080p stream, even when squeezed back onto a 1080p monitor.

Again, sincere apologies if I'm using the terms incorrectly here. This feels a bit like uncharted territory for me and it's a little disorienting to troubleshoot this. It's been a while since I've shopped for a GPU and even a "sidegrade" to the R9 is kind of pricey so I'd like to make this purchase with more confidence.

Thank you!

Re: Hardware vs Forced VP9 Quality

defischerrockt — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 14:41:51 GMT

Hey @MisterSwinkles

In your case it is the case that the VP9 is not supported and you force it, then the encoding then runs on the CPU instead of the GPU

If you have a new GPU, it doesn't matter if you force it or not, if the GPU is powerful enough it will calculate it automatically because the hardware acceleration is activated in Chrome

With your Surface you can try to force Stadia + VP9 and the resolution 1440p instead of 4k via the browser plug-in, it should run stable enough even over WiFi

topic Hardware vs Forced VP9 Quality in Stadia on Chrome

Hardware vs Forced VP9 Quality

Re: Hardware vs Forced VP9 Quality