NVIDIA VA-API Driver 0.0.18 Ships More Fixes, Chrome/Chromium Decode On Direct Backend

Firefox has finally begun supporting Vulkan Video decoding to complement their long-used VA-API support on Linux. This is good news for the official NVIDIA Linux graphics driver stack as it's been the notable vendor not supporting the Video Acceleration API. But prior to Firefox rolling out its experimental Vulkan Video support, an independent implementation of VA-API built atop NVIDIA's NVDEC interface has been available for supporting GPU video acceleration in Firefox. That project is out today with its newest release. The third-party, open-source NVIDIA VA-API Driver is up to version 0.0.18 today for delivering the latest VA-API over NVDEC support. The v0.0.18 release fixes HEVC decoding artifacts, Chrome/Chromium hardware video decoding is working on the direct back-end, and a variety of other fixes and improvements. The Chrome/Chromium hardware video decoding on the direct back-end is important for Wayland and ANGLE-on-Vulkan use. This support comes in part via Claude Fable 5 carrying out bug hunting and Opus helping with the implementation. Those interested in this VA-API-over-NVDEC support for enjoying video acceleration in VA-API-only apps while using NVIDIA hardware on Linux can find the v0.0.18 release over on GitHub. While not merged for the v0.0.18 release, the past few months there has also been a draft pull request adding NVENC encoding support via VA-API too as something else to look forward to for those needing VA-API encode support.