Mozilla Launches AV1 Hardware Acceleration in Firefox 100

Mozilla should now (finally) also be working on AV1 hardware acceleration support for the Firefox web browser. Chrome and Edge have supported hardware processing for about two years now. Firefox 100 now follows. That comes from a post on Bugzilla So Mozilla is finally ready to add hardware acceleration for AV1 video format. The developers plan to implement the enhanced AV1 support in the upcoming version of Firefox 100, which will be released on Release May 3, 2022 target.

AV1 improves efficiency and lowers energy consumption

Hardware acceleration for AV1 video offers users several benefits: In addition to better video compression than H.264 (about 50 percent) and VP9 (about 20 percent), moving AV1 video processing from software to hardware increases efficiency and reduces power consumption. This is especially beneficial for tablets and laptops with longer battery life. Google and Microsoft had already launched hardware-accelerated AV1 videos in Chrome and Edge in 2020. Mozilla, on the other hand, hasn’t rushed to introduce improved AV1 support in Firefox. One argument was that the demands are high to use client-side hardware acceleration. A PC with the latest and most powerful hardware is required. According to Microsoft, hardware-accelerated AV1 video will work on PCs running Windows 10 and 11 if the following requirements are met:

• CPU: 11th Gen Intel Core with Intel Iris Xe graphics or newer.
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 30 series or AMD Radeon RX 6000 series with required drivers.
• Operating System: Windows 10 1909 or later.

A few months ago, Mozilla noted that only about two percent of all PCs meet these requirements, so hardware acceleration for AV1 was not a priority for the Mozilla Foundation.