Upgrade x264 from core 152 to core 165 – much faster + CRF + 4:4:4 + 10/12-bit support

[Lynx_TWO]

Hi Magic team,

First, a huge thanks for this incredible piece of software!

One upgrade that would make a massive difference for a lot of us: updating the built-in x264 encoder from the very old core 152 (~2017) to the current core 165 (2024–2025 builds).

Why this is worth doing:
x264 development never stopped; it’s just become ultra-focused on speed and pro features. The jump from core 152 to 165 brings roughly 8 years of improvements with zero breaking changes to the H.264 standard. On any computer from the last 6–7 years, renders are typically 20–50 % faster (sometimes more on AVX-512 machines).

Concrete benefits for Magic users:
• 20–50 %+ faster encoding on modern CPUs thanks to new AVX2/AVX-512 and ARM Neon assembly
• Properly fast and polished 10-bit and 12-bit encoding (huge reduction in color banding on gradients and psychedelic effects)
• Full 4:4:4 chroma support (no more color smearing on sharp edges, text, geometric visuals)
• Better multi-threading and lookahead leads to smoother behavior on high-core-count systems
• Tons of bug fixes and tiny quality tweaks accumulated over hundreds of commits
• Cleaner, smaller library (dropped support for 20-year-old CPUs nobody uses anymore)

Current pain points this would solve:
Right now, the quality selector is just 1–10(?) with no clear documentation on what it actually maps to. Most video people now think in CRF (Constant Rate Factor), where CRF 18 is considered perceptually lossless. Adding a proper CRF mode (with a “Perceptually Lossless – CRF 18” preset) plus optional checkboxes for 10/12-bit and 4:4:4 would bring Magic’s export options up to modern professional standards without complicating the simple slider for casual users.

Implementation should be straightforward:
Just link against a recent libx264 (exactly what FFmpeg, HandBrake, OBS, etc. already do). Bitstream compatibility is 100 % preserved, and you could still have the "pay to unlock" feature.

I’d happily beta-test this. This single update would shave minutes (or tens of minutes) off every render and open up proper high-bit-depth / full-chroma workflows that, it seems on the forums, have been asking for indirectly for years.

Thanks again for keeping Magic alive and awesome, hope this can make it onto the roadmap!

Best regards,
-Dan

[abossard]

+1

[Magic]

Sorry for the late reply. We do plan on updating FFmpeg for Magic 3.0.