Observed behaviour
Software encoding is used. I have also tried VP8 and VP9 with similar results.
I realized that we've discussed this issue a lot, but there is no actual bug report for it.
Reproduction steps
- In settings, choose a screenshare codec you know your GPU has encoders for (e.g. H264 on an RTX 3080)
- Start a screenshare
- Look at stats for nerds, console, or the obvious nag banner telling you software encoding is being used
Build information
Canary Desktop 2026.531.33409, Web 2026.531.34415, Linux 7.0.10-101.fc43.x86_64 (x64), Electron 41.2.2, Chrome 146.0.7680.188, Node 24.14.1, Locale en-US
Platform
Linux
Evidence
Voice diagnostics while doing a screenshare with software-backed Openh264.
Details
Expected behaviour
Hardware encoding should be used when available.