AMF VS FastFlix

VA-API is used to access fixed-function hardware on the GPU to encode/decode various media formats. New software can result in small quality improvements, like we saw in last year's AMF update, but it can only add new formats if said hardware was already on your chip. The RX 6600+ have hardware for AV1 decode only. Users of RDNA1 and older, as well as the 6400/6500 XT, will forever be completely SOL.

This has been a long running discussion over on github and has finally been addressed by both AMD and Meta. You need to run at least 23.2.2 and Oculus V53 Desktop app (currently only in Public Test Channel, but you can enroll in the app).

By the way you can check the progress of this bug performance here: https://github.com/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/AMF/issues/384

If you had issues on the latest 23.4.1 driver, I recommend going all the way back to 22.2.3 as that's the best driver for Oculus (doesn't enforce bitrate limits, more info https://github.com/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/AMF/issues/364).

AMD finally acknowledged and fixed the 100Mbps encoder cap bug in 23.2.2. Now, it's up to Meta to update the Oculus desktop app. For those familiar, there have been multiple threads on the internet plaguing the encoder quality and stability for all 3 VR software (AirLink, VD, ALVR), but as of now, it is in the best state.

Meta/Quest VR headsets had even more issues since they depended on hardware video encoding, and for the longest time many had to stick to a certain version for the encoders to even work. AMD's HEVC encoder is still broken on Oculus Link and there was an artificial bitrate cap added as they try to fix the driver.

Oh, I've used QSVEnc by Rigaya for fastflix. That's good that Rigaya had done that then.

Yeah I’ll for sure check out fastflix I think they have Nvidia AV1 although you need to add this to the settings so it can be used. Though I don’t know enough about the dual Nvenc encoders unfortunately. Though it’s worth a try to use.

I've been ripping my 4K movies again (to transcode them again using FastFlix, which I heard actually supports 10-bit HDR, unlike HandBrake), and I've noticed MakeMKV failed to rip a few of my 4K discs at some point, even though I had tried to clean the bottom of the disc several times. "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Back to the Future Part 3", and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition" started to rip but then failed. With Back to the Future 3, I remember MakeMKV saying it was a hash check failure or something similar (it was enough to make MakeMKV stop ripping it and fail).

If you have something reproducible and know it's an issues with FastFlix would love an issue on github https://github.com/cdgriffith/FastFlix/issues !

For GUI (shameless self plug) FastFlix wraps around it to make life easier https://github.com/cdgriffith/FastFlix

Well i have to recommend FastFlix as I literally coded it lol. It wraps around ffmpeg as well as Rigaya's hardware encoders (have to download and link them in settings panel).