NVIDIA Video Codec SDK for Zig

A wrapper around the NVIDIA Video Codec (NVENC and NVDEC) for Zig.

Support

Architecture / OS	Linux	MacOS	Windows
x86	✅	✅	✅
x86_64	✅	✅	✅
arm	✅	✅	❌
aarch64	✅	✅	❌

Note

Above table reflects the compatibility of the Zig wrapper library itself. There may be additional restrictions with regards to SDK itself.

Zig version	Status
0.14.0	✅

This library requires at least:

• CUDA version 12.0 or higher.
• NVIDIA driver 522.25 (Windows), 520.56.06 (Linux) or higher.

Older versions may work but are not tested.

For more information see the NVIDIA Driver and CUDA section.

Installation

First, update your build.zig.zon:

zig fetch --save git+https://github.com/gerwin3/nvidia-video-codec-sdk.git

Add this snippet to your build.zig script for NVDEC:

const nvdec_dep = b.dependency("nvdec", .{
    .target = target,
    .optimize = optimize,
});
your_compilation.root_module.addImport("nvdec", nvdec_dep.module("nvdec"));

Add this snippet to your build.zig script for NVENC:

const nvenc_dep = b.dependency("nvenc", .{
    .target = target,
    .optimize = optimize,
});
your_compilation.root_module.addImport("nvenc", nvenc_dep.module("nvenc"));

See the examples directory for usage.

Include PyPi-compatible rpath

Enable the add-pypi-rpath flag to add a runtime path to your executable that can link to the PyPi NVIDIA packages automatically. Use this if you are building a Python package and depend on cuda-python.

Specify the flag by adding it to the dependency call:

const nvdec_dep = b.dependency("nvdec", .{
    .target = target,
    .optimize = optimize,
    .@"add-pypi-rpath" = true,
});
your_compilation.root_module.addImport("nvdec", nvdec_dep.module("nvdec"));

NVIDIA Driver and CUDA

This library dynamically loads the NVIDIA libraries during runtime. During build time there is no linking at all. It is expected that CUDA, NVDEC and NVENC are installed on the machine where the library is used. Linking at runtime makes the library more portable and there is no need for complicated build steps. This is the same approach as taken by Ffmpeg.

If you have some kind of custom setup you may patch your rpath to direct library loading to the correct path.

Video Codec SDK Compatibility Matrix

The Zig wrapper is based on the headers of SDK version 12.0. Since all headers are forward compatible, this ensures compatibility with the corresponding SDK version, as well as CUDA and driver versions and above.

For your convenience, find the full compatibility matrix below:

Video Codec SDK Version	Minimal Driver Version (Windows/Linux)	Minimal CUDA Version
13.0	570.0 / 570.0	11.0
12.2	551.76 / 550.54.14	11.0
12.1	531.61 / 530.41.03	11.0
12.0	522.25 / 520.56.06	11.0
11.1	471.41 / 470.57.02	11.0
11.0	456.71 / 455.27	11.0
10.0	445.87 / 450.51	10.1
9.1	436.15 / 435.21	10.0
9.0	418.81 / 418.30	10.0
8.2	397.93 / 396.24	8.0
8.1	390.77 / 390.25	8.0
8.0	378.66 / 378.13	7.5

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.