Recently it was reported that Lenovo has silently removed an important feature in BIOS updates. As of now, we know that some Legion laptops received a BIOS update recently which removed that feature silently. This particular update is limited to users based in Germany and using Lenovo Legion laptops.
In Lenovo’s forum, many users reported this particular incident. The feature, removed by the update is the H.264 encoding codec. The codec is utilized by Nvidia for running Shadowplay. The encoders are also used in software that supports NVENC encoding.
The silent removal of the encoder caused a lot of issues where users faced crashing issues with Shadowplay, OBS failing to record/stream, and even the Oculus Quest 2 failing to stream video. Lenovo didn’t provide any details regarding the removal of the feature. The only possible way through the issue was to revert to the old BIOS, but this process does not apply to the latest model.
Apparently, this issue is only recorded with the laptops that are sold or being used in Germany. The main reason for this decision might be linked directly to a legal battle between Nokia and Lenovo. But we don’t have any official confirmation regarding this.
