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Epp

Member

Registered: 2022-07-11

Posts: 101

[SOLVED] VDPAU / NVIDIA settings for VLC

Hello!

My goal is to let VLC run smoother, so I will get less irritated by the fan noise and spare my laptop a bit.

Laptop is with intel CPU (i9-12900HK) and NVIDIA GPU (GeForce RTX 3060)

VLC did run out of the box (of course after the basic install).
There were a lot of lines with log output in the terminal though.
Seemed looping.

After installing libva-vdpau-driver the log output was obviously less.
This with VLC settings: Video output = XVideo output (XCB) and Hardware-accelerated decoding = VDPAU decoder.
I don't yet have an impression about the actual load for the laptop (based on fan noise). The wiki tip for htop is great, but I did not yet look in to this.

At this moment there are two indicators that don't really satisfy me.

ex@ample:~$ grep -iE 'vdpau | dri driver' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[    27.413] (II) modeset(0): [DRI2]   DRI driver: iris
[    27.413] (II) modeset(0): [DRI2]   VDPAU driver: va_gl
[    27.478] (II) NVIDIA(G0): [DRI2]   VDPAU driver: nvidia

ex@ample:~$ vdpauinfo
display: :0   screen: 0
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_va_gl.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Error creating VDPAU device: 1

The vdpauinfo is not looking good at all. And at least the Intel VDPAU driver better be gone I think.

VLC now provides the following log (with the default VLC log setting):

-- logger module started --
main: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
vlcpulse error: digital pass-through stream connection failure: Not supported
main error: module not functional
main error: failed to create audio output
vlcpulse error: digital pass-through stream connection failure: Not supported
main error: module not functional
main error: failed to create audio output
main error: video output creation failed
main error: failed to create video output
xcb_xv error: unknown XVideo YUV format 3231564e (NV12)

Although I think that Dell should have made smarter air openings, I think that the laptop is working too hard at this moment. The laptop is dual boot and I have the idea that it's less noisy on Windows 11.
Advice is welcome.

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P.s. my desktop pc has a comparable setup. With Intel 9-12900HK and NVIDIA GPU GeForce RTX 3080.
It has at this moment a different audio output selected in VLC (ALSA instead of Pulseaudio).
And could be that the blacklist of i915 prevents the intel drivers showing up.
What I think is a bit weird is that both machines show really dramatic log errors while for me as user the videos are playing almost flawless.

-- logger module started --
main: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
main error: module not functional
main error: failed to create audio output
main error: Can't convert non linear input
main error: cannot add user audio filter "scaletempo" (skipped)
main error: Can't convert non linear input
main error: cannot setup filtering pipeline
main error: failed to create audio output
main error: video output creation failed
main error: failed to create video output

Last edited by Epp (2023-05-30 08:37:37)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,244

Re: [SOLVED] VDPAU / NVIDIA settings for VLC

1. Use vaapi, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardwa … tion#Intel
2. You need libvdpau-va-gl, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardwa … ion_layers

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Epp

Member

Registered: 2022-07-11

Posts: 101

Re: [SOLVED] VDPAU / NVIDIA settings for VLC

Thanks Seth,

I've read the text from 1. before. I thought, for GPU video I had to follow 1.2 and not 1.1.
But I installed libvdpau-va-gl and changed Hardware-accelerated decoding to VA-API video decoder in VLC.

With VA-API for decoding now there still is no VA error in the VLC log.
The VLC logs are now the same as in the first post.
vdpauinfo on the laptop now no longer gives an error.

vainfo on both computers give the following output:

Trying display: wayland
Trying display: x11
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit

Right now it is looking a bit better than this morning with good output for vdpauinfo (for the laptop).
The fans are still loud with an UHD video running. Lifting the backside of the laptop a thick centimeter from the table makes the laptop quiet again.
Perhaps it's just one of the downsides of this laptop.

If it's good that vainfo gives an error and vdpauinfo not, is not something I understand.
Also the remaining errors in the VLC log (as in the first post) make me a bit insecure.

Can you please say if this is normal?

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,244

Re: [SOLVED] VDPAU / NVIDIA settings for VLC

You don't have (any of) the vaapi drivers from that paragraph?

pacman -Qs intel-media-driver

If you're using vdpau on top of vaapi and you've no vaapi support, you're still not getting HW acceleration.

For some background: we're going to use the IGP for HW video playback because (assuming that's where the output is attached and) you're running on the intel chip w/ regular PRIME.
And the preferred "native" approach for intel is vaapi.

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Epp

Member

Registered: 2022-07-11

Posts: 101

Re: [SOLVED] VDPAU / NVIDIA settings for VLC

You don't have (any of) the vaapi drivers from that paragraph?

pacman -Qs intel-media-driver

Correct. This was not installed.
Did that just now and now also vainfo is showing actual output instead of an error.

Further than this there don't seem to be changes (perhaps vdpauinfo though). The VLC log is the same and fans are at the same level according to my ears.

For some background: we're going to use the IGP for HW video playback because (assuming that's where the output is attached and) you're running on the intel chip w/ regular PRIME.
And the preferred "native" approach for intel is vaapi.

With this, do you mean that "makes it possible for the video card to decode/encode video, thus offloading the CPU and saving power." as the wiki states for Hardware video acceleration?
So that the GPU is doing the coding but delivering output for playback to the CPU?

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,244

Re: [SOLVED] VDPAU / NVIDIA settings for VLC

So that the GPU is doing the coding but delivering output for playback to the CPU?

Ideally everything is gonna happen in the GPU/IGP

Did you restart vlc after installing intel-media-driver?
Can you playback in hardware w/ mpv? (it'll tell youron the commandline what decoder it uses)

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Epp

Member

Registered: 2022-07-11

Posts: 101

Re: [SOLVED] VDPAU / NVIDIA settings for VLC

Yes, I did restart VLC. Right now, still the same log lines appear.

MPV is indeed great for comparison.

With "auto" for hwdec it's showing:

Using hardware decoding (vaapi).
AO: [pulse] 48000Hz 5.1(side) 6ch s32
VO: [gpu] 3840x2160 vaapi[p010]
(Paused) AV: 00:00:17 / 00:45:21 (1%) A-V:  0.000

Sound level is comparable to VLC.

A quick test showed that with hwdec on fan speed (with running video) was around 1950 rpm with cpu temperature at +/- 52°C. With hwdec off fan speed was around 2400 rpm with cpu temperature clearly above 60°C.

Thank you very much for the help!