Intel's SVT-AV1 0.9.1 Speedy AV1 Encoder Adds New SSE Kernels To Help Old CPUs

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel's SVT-AV1 0.9.1 Speedy AV1 Encoder Adds New SSE Kernels To Help Old CPUs

Last month Intel released SVT-AV1 0.9 as a big step-up for this open-source AV1 encoder with delivering even better performance and also adding new preset options for much higher performance capabilities. Out today is SVT-AV1 0.9.1 with some incremental improvements over the January version...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=SVT-AV1-0.9.1-Released

[hotaru]

new SSE kernels to improve the AV1 encoding speed on older hardware.

"older hardware" here includes CPUs released by Intel in 2021.

[Snoop05]

This appears to be most important feature of this release IMO, surprised it didn't catch Micheals eye
>New key=val API for setting encoder options along with --svtav1-params appside
meaning being able to pass all possible tunables to the encoder when using it from FFMPEG
(related patch: https://patchwork.ffmpeg.org/[email protected]/)

And before people stop posting "why SSE when nobody would encode AV1 on such old CPUs..."
In general, you have to realize that if those particular functions receiving SSE assembly didnt have AVX(2) counterpart already, this would likely result in perf improvement even on very latest CPUs. also not that not all recently released CPUs had AVX2, either due to microarchitecture itself (Goldmont) or due to product segmentation (Pentium).
For some features there might be no reason to write AVX(2) assembly if it doesn't perform any better than it would using SSE (and i wouldn't be surprised that if it did run better on lets say Zen1)

[coder]

"older hardware" here includes CPUs released by Intel in 2021.

Exactly what I was going to say. These include "chromebook"-class CPUs, like Jasper Lake and Elkhart Lake (also used in embedded & industrial applications).

It's not until they release a Gracemont-based successor to these (probably later this year) that such platforms will have an AVX2-equipped Intel option. BTW, all Zen-based CPUs and APUs have AVX2.

[hotaru]

until they release a Gracemont-based successor to these (probably later this year)

like these, which are all listed as "launched"?

• Pentium 8505
• Pentium 8500
• Celeron 7305
• Celeron 7300

[coder]

like these, which are all listed as "launched"?

• Pentium 8505
• Pentium 8500
• Celeron 7305
• Celeron 7300

No, because every one of those has at least 1 P-core. The chips I'm talking about are E-core only. They should launch in like Q3, I think.