Basically H.264 Hardware Decoding on (is a 780ti legacy at this point?) Nvidia Video Cards is not supported within Chromium Based Browsers... for the most part (as the links will explain.)
Now, I had asked for some help testing (control) on this with a friend who uses Windows 10, and has the same Nvidia Graphics Card as I do.
Everything seemed to work in Windows 10, with a few minor tweaks. Whereas in Linux, we were able to get a small portion of things to work with some major tweaks.
YouTube was the first issue. In Windows 10, all my friend had to do was download the "h264ify" extension from the Chrome Web Store, and his YouTube started using the Hardware Decoder to playback video. This actually left him a bit confused. "Why do I need this extension to get Hardware Decoding for YouTube?" he asked. "Same reason I do for Kubuntu Linux..." I did explain it to him, but I won't go into that detail here. Regardless, no such filter was needed for Google Stadia, or any other Cloud based Gaming Service that we tried on Windows 10 (XCloud / Nvidia GeForce Now). Hardware Acceleration just worked in all of the Chromium based browsers we tried. i.e. Edge/Chrome/Brave
In Kubuntu (20.04 / 21.04) however, it took quite a bit of configuring and setup, along with a lot of trial and error just to get YouTube to use Hardware Decoding. And even after that was established, none of the browsers used Hardware Decoding with Stadia/XCloud/GeForce Now.
Don't get me wrong, the services worked, but were limited to 720p, due to the inability to decode the incoming stream "fast enough."
This all led to a philosophical discussion between my friend and I about the nature of Linux, and why I would go through all of that just to not get the result that I wanted. Why would I bother, when Windows 10 just does it all by default?
He made a good strong argument about the nature of software and usage in general. How games from Steam and GoG worked better with Windows. How Linux users cannot "really" use XBox-Game-Pass for PC, unless they use XCloud, which, in turn, doesn't quite work. His argument is fundamentally that Windows is easier, more functional with hardware, has "better" software, and increased compatibility.
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