Arch Linux

minivanman

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 20

Radeonsi and VDPAU Drivers Not Loading [SOLVED]

I'm missing something here.  Fresh install with an AMD APU, using the open-source driver.

Trying to get VDPAU to work and vainfo is giving me this.

[mythup@mythup ~]$ vainfo
libva info: VA-API version 0.38.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: User requested driver 'vdpau'
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/vdpau_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit

I have the variables set in the environment.  "env" gives me this (I condensed it for ease):

XDG_VTNR=7
XDG_MENU_PREFIX=xfce-
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=vdpau
WINDOWID=31457284
USER=mythup
DISPLAY=:0.0
GLADE_CATALOG_PATH=:
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=XFCE
VDPAU_DRIVER=radeonsi
COLORTERM=xfce4-terminal
XAUTHORITY=/home/mythup/.Xauthority

I am using the correct driver as far as I know.

[mythup@mythup ~]$ grep -i vdpau ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log
[    50.604] (II) RADEON(0): [DRI2]   VDPAU driver: radeonsi

What am I doing wrong here?

Last edited by minivanman (2015-11-16 22:24:55)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,104

Re: Radeonsi and VDPAU Drivers Not Loading [SOLVED]

You are trying to get vaapi over vdpau to work which doesn't really work, from my experience. What are you actually trying to do? What does vdpauinfo output? Just tell $videoplayer to use VDPAU directly instead of relying on a bridge that is flaky.

EDIT: Additional tidbit, you have mesa-vdpau installed right?

Last edited by V1del (2015-11-11 10:00:08)

MoSal

Member

Registered: 2015-09-23

Posts: 32

Re: Radeonsi and VDPAU Drivers Not Loading [SOLVED]

Does the file /usr/lib/dri/vdpau_drv_video.so exist?
Did you install the package libva-vdpau-driver ?

minivanman

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 20

Re: Radeonsi and VDPAU Drivers Not Loading [SOLVED]

Does the file /usr/lib/dri/vdpau_drv_video.so exist?
Did you install the package libva-vdpau-driver ?

Well, that's strange.  I had installed it, but something must have hiccuped during the installation.  Removed the package, reinstalled and everything seems good now. 

Thanks.  I knew it had to be simple.  2 am is not a time for me to be troubleshooting.

*EDIT* (Further Progress)

You are trying to get vaapi over vdpau to work which doesn't really work, from my experience. What are you actually trying to do? What does vdpauinfo output? Just tell $videoplayer to use VDPAU directly instead of relying on a bridge that is flaky.

EDIT: Additional tidbit, you have mesa-vdpau installed right?

At first I was offended at your link.  Then I thought about it, and you're wrong.  I wasn't trying to do Y to solve X.  I was trying to do Y & Z to solve X. 

FIrst issue is some confusion.  This page https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VDPAU is what I started with.  It's correct.  What I experienced after installing mesa-vdpau and configuring my environment variable was some tearing in Chrome (Netflix) and MythTV.  (This is a Mythbox).  In my experience, I would get tearing without VDPAU enabled with Nvidia cards.  So, in my head it MUST be a VDPAU issue.  (I've been waiting for AMD GPU's to become viable in MythTV for years). 

So, for the tearing issue I went to the ATI page https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI.  Hardware acceleration on that page has you do the "vainfo" command to verify your settings.  This led me to this page https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VA-API.  This is when it got bad and I got lost trying to do Y & Z to fix X.

As it turns out, all I needed to get proper acceleration is the mesa-vdpau package, set my environment to "VDPAU_DRIVER=radeonsi" and I was good.

The TEARING issue was caused by the Compositor being enabled in the desktop.  I turned that off, and VOILA, no more tearing. 

So, thanks V1del for having me take a few steps back.  That's what I really needed to do.

Last edited by minivanman (2015-11-12 01:29:30)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,104

Re: Radeonsi and VDPAU Drivers Not Loading [SOLVED]

I don't post that link to offend, it's just a very good resource which illustrates the xy problem nicely and makes one think about the problem again. Now in addition to having [SOLVED] your problem (you can edit your thread title from your first post, if that really is the case in your POV) we've found out that the wiki contains some misleading information, since having vaapi/libva-vdpau-driver is not at all a requirement to have working VDPAU acceleration (it is good to mention that possibility for applications that only allow the use of VAAPI but the way it's presented in the article is misleading) I don't use an ATI card so I don't feel comfortable in revising that particular paragraph, maybe you can give it a shot