Arch Linux

iconium21

Member

Registered: 2025-02-25

Posts: 4

Intel Graphics and Hardware Acceleration

Hello dear people!
I'm having issues with hardware transcoding ever since I have installed Arch Linux... OBS recordings are choppy on H.264 or any other encoder. kdenlive renders at 40fps max (vs. the 110+fps on Debian).
Does not matter if i use VA-API in kdenlive to render or such. I have tried to visit the wiki but nothing have seemed to fix the problem. I am using an Intel HD 530 iGPU that comes with the 6th gen i5 i have.
Some specific codecs i do not remember of have VERY choppy playbacks with VLC / discord.
Heres vainfo

[12:14:54] iconium@arch >> [~] $ vainfo
Trying display: wayland
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.22 (libva 2.22.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel iHD driver for Intel(R) Gen Graphics - 25.1.4 ()
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileNone                   :	VAEntrypointVideoProc
      VAProfileNone                   :	VAEntrypointStats
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointFEI
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointFEI
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
      VAProfileVC1Simple              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           :	VAEntrypointEncPicture
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline:	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline:	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline:	VAEntrypointFEI
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline:	VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileHEVCMain               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileHEVCMain               :	VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileHEVCMain               :	VAEntrypointFEI
[12:14:55] iconium@arch >> [~] $ 

qu@rk

Member

Registered: 2021-07-28

Posts: 115

Re: Intel Graphics and Hardware Acceleration

How much video memory did you allocate for video, from BIOS?
Also have intel-media-driver, linux-firmware and mesa installed? Shouldn't have xf86-video-intel.

Last edited by qu@rk (Yesterday 08:12:40)

iconium21

Member

Registered: 2025-02-25

Posts: 4

Re: Intel Graphics and Hardware Acceleration

I do not know how much video memory i gave for video, I cannot find it inside of my BIOS. Secondly, yes everything you listed is installed.
According to glx info, Video memory: 7935MB

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 62,312

Re: Intel Graphics and Hardware Acceleration

yes everything you listed is installed.

nb. that xf8-video-intel shall NOT be installed.
Although:

Trying display: wayland

Try X11. Does it make a difference?

recordings are choppy … tried to visit the wiki but nothing have seemed … Some specific codecs i do not remember

Please don't paraphrase, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855
Try to encode a video w/ ffmpeg, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/FFmpeg … celeration
Post the (error) output.

And what does "kdenlive" render?
Resolution and profile (next to codec) will obviously impact the throughput.
But if "Does not matter if i use VA-API in kdenlive to render or such" there's no difference (same md5sum of the resulting file) you cannot effectively control the method - though vainfo looks unsuspicious.

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qu@rk

Member

Registered: 2021-07-28

Posts: 115

Re: Intel Graphics and Hardware Acceleration

Try a screen capture with wf-recorder (for wayland). If fullscreen is too much try using with slurp.

wf-recorder -c libx264 -r 60 -D -f ~/capture.mp4

Try with -D and without if you have choppy image, and also with -c h264_vaapi which should use the gpu instead of cpu.

Nyctfall

Member

Registered: 2023-04-03

Posts: 63

Re: Intel Graphics and Hardware Acceleration

Try setting OBS to use the Intel QSV (Quick Sync Video) encoder, and compare it with VA-API performance.
Try using both with CBR (under advanced setting in OBS) to isolate the recording bitrate as a variable.

Then inspect the recording files with FFMPEG using:

$ ffmpeg -v verbose -i FILE

Also, what is the output of:

$ pacman -Ss 'intel|va-?api|vpl|libva'

Last edited by Nyctfall (Today 06:18:50)

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qu@rk

Member

Registered: 2021-07-28

Posts: 115

Re: Intel Graphics and Hardware Acceleration

And the output of

ffmpeg -encoders | grep 264