On Mac OS X only H.264 is supported right now and on Linux, it depends on whether an Intel or Broadcom graphics card, or an AMD or Nvidia graphics card is used.įor the former, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Visual, WMV3, VC-1 and H.264 are supported, and for the latter, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Visual (and possibly H.263), WMV3, VC-1 and H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC, are supported. There are a couple misconceptions about this though that need to be addressed first before you can make an educated decision about turning the feature on.įirst, according to VLC's GPU Decoding page, it is available for H.264, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV3, VC-1 streams only on Windows. The feature in theory uses the processing power of the graphic card to lighten the load on the processor of the system which in turn makes playback of the video file smoother. Taking into account the learning curve to VLC development, I think it is fair to say that the situation is now critical. There is nobody to make the necessary updates to the MacOS support code, for instance to support the new VLC video output architecture. You cannot save your preference for adjusted image settings with VLC (VLC doesn't seem to have any field that 'remembers' your preferences). If it goes on like this, MacOS support may be discontinued as of VLC 1.1.0.