Unable to get VDPAU to work

sebikul · 2012-08-01 01:45:43

Hi! I've been trying for a really long time to get VDPAU to work on my pc without success. This is the output of vainfo, lspci and lshw:

sebi@sebi:~$ vainfo
libva: VA-API version 0.32.0
Xlib:  extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
libva error: /usr/lib/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so init failed
libva: va_openDriver() returns -1
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit

sebi@sebi:~$ lspci | grep VGA
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT216 [GeForce GT 220] (rev a2)

sebi@sebi:~$ sudo lshw
.......
             description: VGA compatible controller
             product: GT216 [GeForce GT 220]
             vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
             physical id: 0
             bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
             version: a2
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
             configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
             resources: irq:19 memory:df000000-dfffffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:dc000000-ddffffff ioport:ef80(size=128) memory:def80000-deffffff
.........

I have libva and vdpau-video installed. I also tried to compile them myself, no success. When I try mplayer with the vdpau driver I get no video and this debug output

sebi@sebi:~$ mplayer -vo vdpau [some_file]
........
[vdpau] Error when calling vdp_device_create_x11: 1
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.
.........

I really don't know what else to do. Any help is appreciated!

Thanks

x33a · 2012-08-01 06:37:03

You need libvdpau installed too. Also are you using the nvidia binary drivers?

Jasa · 2012-08-01 07:33:10

Vdpau-video along nvidia drivers should be enough, if being installed properly. After installing mplayer it would be easier to take an copy of /etc/mplayer/example.conf to ~/.mplayer/config overwriting the existing empty one from user.
Modifying the wanted ao= and vo=vdpau, from bottom of the file take commented lines of [vdpau.video] to use (except perhaps that video filter if there was one) and if using desktop computer instead of laptop you might need to remove last choice from vc= codec choices in order to be able to play avi videos.
Also if using things like KDE or Gnome, you might want to put down KDE desktop effects and for Gnome, log into gnome-failsafe session in order to avoid graphical issues with acceleration (minor but can be noticed, happened few driver versions back).

To stay easiest you should just get along with pacman reposity packages for those, unless trying to fix flashplugin blue colour issue with hardware acceleration being enabled.

(In your case of not being able to use vo=vdpau i'd suggest to check user being member of groups like video, if install was followed as guide told it should not be an issue.)
((It should be rather easy to get it working on with clean install, by just using normal packages and modifying 2 to 4 lines.))

Last edited by Jasa (2012-08-01 09:58:21)

swanson · 2012-08-01 08:06:41

Works on my GT220 with prop. drivers and libvdpau. In Smplayer, a mplayer frontend , you can easily set output to vdpau.

Jasa · 2012-08-01 10:07:01

Must have been bit sleepy before on to throw an bad error, but as Swanson writes some of those graphical frontends add video codec line automaticly.
From own testing before various things in some cases simple video output doesn't get proper acceleration (to 0-3% cpu usage with HD content), but might be mistaken slightly as for this setup i haven't added mplayer.

sebikul · 2012-08-02 08:17:53

Hi!
libvdpau was installed along vdpau-video, so it is present on my system and i am using the proprietary nvidia driver (i tried to recompile all this packages on my system too).

The problem seems to go beyond mplayer, smplayer, vlc, or any other software using this library. As shown by vainfo, there seems to be something going on with the driver so that it can't be accessed. I've had this problem since i bought the video card, including under ubuntu, and tested a large amount of combinations of versions between the involved packages (keeping va-api compatibility).

Thanks a lot for your help!

swanson · 2012-08-02 09:12:16

Very strange! Outpout of vainfo on my exact same card;

libva: VA-API version 0.33.0
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
libva: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_32
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.33 (libva 1.1.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Splitted-Desktop Systems VDPAU backend for VA-API - 0.7.3
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG4Simple            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG4AdvancedSimple    :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Simple              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            :	VAEntrypointVLD

Do you have the latest nvidia installed? It doesn't seem to be loaded? Any special config in xorg.conf? I suspect some nvida/xorg malfunction.

Jasa · 2012-08-02 10:44:31

One of the possible issues is that default booting has nouveau drivers or you need nomodeset to boot option before you can install nvidia drivers, if target is laptop i don't have much experience how those mobile nvidia chips get around.
As long as nvidia-settings (requires gtk2) does show options for its driver and some info as well, it should be installed/loaded properly.

What goes for players mplayer has been best choice, for vlc i don't think i had its experimental support working properly, also some media center applications that has vdpau support but haven't looked at how great they work other than just choosing video output and playing content.

sebikul · 2012-08-04 00:27:04

I am using the latest version of the nvidia driver available in the repositories ([testing] enabled) and a generic xorg.conf generated by nvidia-xconfig. There are no traces of nouveau on my system, so this should not be an issue.

It's a desktop PC, the problem is with the PCI video card, the on board one is also a Nvidia card, but has not been used in around 2 years and is turned off at BIOS level.

x33a · 2012-08-04 06:09:10

Maybe give the nvidia-beta drivers a try. Also, try without an xorg.conf

balticer · 2015-03-06 18:16:48

pacman -S libva-vdpau-driver should fix it

jasonwryan · 2015-03-06 21:35:29

Please don't necrobump: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … Bumping.27

Closing

Arch Linux

#1 2012-08-01 01:45:43

Unable to get VDPAU to work

#2 2012-08-01 06:37:03

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#3 2012-08-01 07:33:10

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#4 2012-08-01 08:06:41

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#5 2012-08-01 10:07:01

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#6 2012-08-02 08:17:53

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#7 2012-08-02 09:12:16

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#8 2012-08-02 10:44:31

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#9 2012-08-04 00:27:04

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#10 2012-08-04 06:09:10

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#11 2015-03-06 18:16:48

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

#12 2015-03-06 21:35:29

Re: Unable to get VDPAU to work

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