Arch Linux

richardm

Member

Registered: 2023-02-19

Posts: 7

Re: chromium: hardware video acceleration with VA-API

Update to my last message.  I'm closer to getting video acceleration on Wayland (still with Chrome running ozone=x11 however):

Throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it with these env vars:

__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia
__NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1
__VK_LAYER_NV_optimus=NVIDIA_only
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia
DRI_PRIME=pci-0000_03_00_0

...and these switches:

--enable-features=Vulkan,DefaultANGLEVulkan,VulkanFromANGLE,VaapiVideoDecodeLinuxGL,VaapiIgnoreDriverChecks,VaapiVideoDecoder
--render-node-override=/dev/dri/renderD129

This finally gets me to...

Video Acceleration Information
==============================
Decoding                      : 
Decode h264 baseline          : 48x16 to 4096x4096 pixels
Decode h264 main              : 48x16 to 4096x4096 pixels
Decode h264 high              : 48x16 to 4096x4096 pixels
Decode vp8                    : 48x16 to 4096x4096 pixels
Decode vp9 profile0           : 128x128 to 8192x8192 pixels
Decode vp9 profile2           : 128x128 to 8192x8192 pixels
Decode hevc main              : 144x144 to 8192x8192 pixels
Decode hevc main 10           : 144x144 to 8192x8192 pixels
Decode hevc main still-picture: 144x144 to 8192x8192 pixels
Decode av1 profile main       : 128x128 to 8192x8192 pixels

First time seeing ANY decodes here with this GPU.

The catch?  Most videos won't actually play.

00:00:01.881	pipeline_state	"kPlaying"
00:00:01.903	dimensions	"2560x1440"
00:00:01.903	kResolution	"2560x1440"
00:00:01.903	error	{"code":5,"data":{},"group":"DecoderStatus","message":"","stack":[{"file":"media/mojo/clients/mojo_video_decoder.cc","line":475}]}
00:00:01.903	error	"video decode error!"
00:00:02.572	error	{"cause":{"code":5,"data":{},"group":"DecoderStatus","message":"","stack":[{"file":"media/mojo/clients/mojo_video_decoder.cc","line":475}]},"code":24,"data":{},"group":"PipelineStatus","message":"","stack":[{"file":"media/renderers/video_renderer_impl.cc","line":596}]}
00:00:02.572	pipeline_state	"kStopping"

The breakthrough (if you call it that) was when I pointed vainfo at the nVidia with the correct arguments to make it work.  LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME is the key that made h/w decodes appear in Chrome://GPU:

LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia vainfo --display drm --device /dev/dri/renderD129

and for the RX 570:

LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=radeonsi vainfo --display drm --device /dev/dri/renderD128

I'll add that switcherooctl appears to omit LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME and also DRI_PRIME is insufficient by itself (on my setup at least).

Chrome remains unusable in native Wayland mode.

Last edited by richardm (Yesterday 02:53:23)

Xephon

Member

Registered: 2024-12-22

Posts: 116

Re: chromium: hardware video acceleration with VA-API

@richardm, could you please check hardware acceleration status on NVIDIA in the "media" tab in the devtools or in nvtop on your system?

I was trying to help to set-up video acceleration on NVIDIA https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=305664
Despite Video Acceleration Information table in chrome://gpu was filled with codec information, videos were not accelerated.

richardm

Member

Registered: 2023-02-19

Posts: 7

Re: chromium: hardware video acceleration with VA-API

@richardm, could you please check hardware acceleration status on NVIDIA in the "media" tab in the devtools or in nvtop on your system?

I was trying to help to set-up video acceleration on NVIDIA https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=305664
Despite Video Acceleration Information table in chrome://gpu was filled with codec information, videos were not accelerated.

IIRC I've not achieved successful video acceleration by the nVidia with any configuration or with any browser.  Ever.  Not even with Thorium.  The closest is the above (posted yesterday) where chrome://gpu reports accelerations but videos won't play.  I can tweak settings to where no acceleration is reported and videos play just fine albeit in CPU fallback.  I went through that thread along with a number of others and also the Arch wiki and tried every switch and knob.

mpv works with no arm twisting; just hwdec=auto:

"Using hardware decoding (nvdec-copy)."

Chrome with the right arguments and envs *does* use the nVidia (sans h/w video decode) and it seems to work fine -- I can launch Chrome and observe the card waking up as evidenced by GPU VRAM in-use rising from ~3MB to ~200-300MB and also GPU + VRAM freq. rising from their idle floors of 210MHz and 405MHz respectively.  The nVidia will remain asleep if I change Chrome's envs+arguments back to the radeon.

Chrome in ozone=wayland remains 100% unusable regardless of GPU selection, switches, arguments, or knobs.  I either use x11/xwayland or else use Firefox (which ironically doesn't work in x11 mode).