Nouveau NVDEC video decoder engine for NVIDIA Maxwell, Turing, and Ampere GPUs
NVDEC is the fixed-function video-decoding block embedded in NVIDIA GPUs, used to accelerate playback of formats like H.264, HEVC, VP9, and AV1. This code is the open-source Nouveau implementation covering NVDEC variants found on Maxwell (GM107), Turing (TU102), and Ampere (GA102) generation cards, including consumer products such as the GeForce RTX 30 series.
recommendation
It should stay because this code drives NVDEC, the dedicated video-decoder block built into NVIDIA GPUs from the GM107 (Maxwell) era through Turing and Ampere parts like the RTX 30 series, which are still being sold new in 2025. Upstream activity is current, including initial r535 GSP-firmware support landing in late 2023 and further restructuring work as recently as May 2025, so this is an actively maintained piece of the open Nouveau stack rather than legacy code.
repository signals
sources
- git.kernel.org
Local git history shows a substantive NVDEC-related nouveau change on 2025-05-19: "drm/nouveau/gsp: move subdev/engine impls to subdev/gsp/rm/r535/".
- git.kernel.org
Local git history shows substantive feature work on 2023-10-31: "drm/nouveau/nvdec/r535: initial support".
- en.wikipedia.org
NVDEC is NVIDIA's hardware video-decoder block; the support table includes GM107, TU102, and GA102-class GPUs, indicating this directory maps to still-relevant NVIDIA GPU generations rather than a dead legacy-only block.
- nvidia.com
NVIDIA's RTX 3080/3080 Ti page identifies Ampere products and lists 5th-generation NVIDIA Decoder support, with buying-option links present on the page, supporting continued new-hardware availability in the 2025 window.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Not a standalone module entry-point, but real driver code: shell `rg`/file read showed nvkm NVDEC engine implementations for gm107, tu102, and ga102. Shell `git log` (using inline safe.directory override because repo ownership blocked plain git) showed substantive activity through 2025 and no sign of a removal series in local history. Web `open/find` on the NVIDIA RTX 3080 page showed Ampere/GA102-era products with decoder support and buying links; web `open` on Wikipedia NVDEC confirmed GM107/TU102/GA102-era deployment. The git.kernel.org commit URLs are canonical stable URLs reconstructed from the locally observed commit hashes.