The April update of the OS is just around the corner. Here’s what’s new:
- Improved video/rendering engine
- Added VPU processor supported transpose in combination with a custom kernel driver (to avoid this issue) for faster playback of 90/270 degree rotated videos on Pi3 and Pi4. Here’s my forum post about this.
- Slightly faster H264 software decoding on Pi5 thanks to improved thread usage.
- Faster initial DRM queries, so the player starts even faster while switching between setups.
- Now uses fences for framebuffer lifecycle management. This can potentially reduce memory usage for HEVC videos as frames can be released earlier.
- Fake NUMA is now finally enabled after contributing a test case for a flickering issue which helped for getting the fix. This can potentially make things even snappier on Pi4 and Pi5.
- Linux kernel has been updated to the latest 6.12 branch.
- Support for 7" Display 2
- Updated to latest Mesa 24.2.8 (the OpenGL driver).
- Integrated the new HEVC decoder upstreamed by the Pi people in combination with an update to the latest FFmpeg 7.1 version.
Some fixes:
- Fixed: RTSP video stream playback would not start properly in some streaming setups.
- Fixed: Properly start fans on PoE installation.
- Fixed: Potential flickering on 90/270 degree rotated videos.
- Fixed: Auto repair of partition layout randomly introduced when the SD card is opened on a Windows machine.
If you want to check it all out, use “Device detail page > Manage > Activate testing channel” to install the release candidate on a Pi. All Pis, all the way back to the Pi1 are fully supported. As usual with testing releases, you might not want to install it on a Pi you can’t physically reach in case something breaks. Very likely it doesn’t, but you have been warned.
If all goes well, a new stable release using all these changes will be release in the next two few weeks.