Firefox Hardware acceleration & VA-API how-to

[Martin Stransky]

Hi folks,

I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration

Hope it helps.
Martin

[Nicolas Chauvet]

Le ven. 12 nov. 2021 à 09:37, Martin Stransky  a écrit :
> Hi folks,
>
> I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration

Thanks for the documentation Martin.

Few notes:
- Only ffmpeg, libva-intel-driver (and intel-media-driver for newer
hw) are provided via rpmfusion (in nonfree section for the latter),
the other components are in fedora
- We might have a special issue for f35 as the introduction of crocus
DRI driver broke the X11 DRI/VAAPI mapping.
(Fix pending: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2021-83cbfc7e32
- rhbz#2017059)

[Martin Stransky]

On 11/12/21 11:04, Nicolas Chauvet wrote:
> Le ven. 12 nov. 2021 à 09:37, Martin Stransky  a écrit :
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> >
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
>
> Thanks for the documentation Martin.
>
> Few notes:
> Only ffmpeg, libva-intel-driver (and intel-media-driver for newer
>
> hw) are provided via rpmfusion (in nonfree section for the latter),
> the other components are in fedora
> We might have a special issue for f35 as the introduction of crocus
>
> DRI driver broke the X11 DRI/VAAPI mapping.
> (Fix pending: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2021-83cbfc7e32
> rhbz#2017059)

Thanks, feel free to update the page.

Martin

[Florian Weimer]

* Martin Stransky:
> I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration

Why is libva-intel-driver not part of Fedora?

Thanks,
Florian

[Frantisek Zatloukal]

On Fri, Nov 12, 2021, 11:08 Florian Weimer  wrote:
> Why is libva-intel-driver not part of Fedora?
>
> Thanks,
> Florian

There are licensing / patent issues with the Intel driver. I am slowly
progressing with packaging the latest intel-media-driver (not the older
libva-intel-driver, and freed from patented stuff) into Fedora, but it'll
take some time and some upstream help / assistance.
>

[Scott Talbert]

On Fri, 12 Nov 2021, Martin Stransky wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
> acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration

Along these lines, I am experiencing a pretty big regression in video 
performance with recent Firefox versions on Fedora.  It probably started 
with FF 93, but got a little better with FF 94.  It is really noticeable 
when using Google Meet.  I'm using Wayland on AMD GPU hardware.  Is this 
at all related to this HW acceleration stuff?

Thanks,
Scott

[Martin Stransky]

On 11/12/21 17:07, Scott Talbert wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Nov 2021, Martin Stransky wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
> > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> >
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
>
> Along these lines, I am experiencing a pretty big regression in video 
> performance with recent Firefox versions on Fedora.  It probably started 
> with FF 93, but got a little better with FF 94.  It is really noticeable 
> when using Google Meet.  I'm using Wayland on AMD GPU hardware.  Is this 
> at all related to this HW acceleration stuff?

Please file a bug at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/ for further 
investigation and cc me there. I can name ten reasons why you see it.

[Peter Robinson]

On Mon, Nov 15, 2021 at 2:20 PM Martin Stransky  wrote:
> On 11/12/21 17:07, Scott Talbert wrote:
> > On Fri, 12 Nov 2021, Martin Stransky wrote:
> > > Hi folks,
> > >
> > > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> > > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> > >
> > > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
> >
> > Along these lines, I am experiencing a pretty big regression in video
> > performance with recent Firefox versions on Fedora.  It probably started
> > with FF 93, but got a little better with FF 94.  It is really noticeable
> > when using Google Meet.  I'm using Wayland on AMD GPU hardware.  Is this
> > at all related to this HW acceleration stuff?
>
> Please file a bug at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/ for further
> investigation and cc me there. I can name ten reasons why you see it.

It sounds quite a lot like this bug filed by mattdm:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2016162

[Martin Stransky]

On 11/15/21 15:25, Peter Robinson wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 15, 2021 at 2:20 PM Martin Stransky  wrote:
> > On 11/12/21 17:07, Scott Talbert wrote:
> > > On Fri, 12 Nov 2021, Martin Stransky wrote:
> > > > Hi folks,
> > > >
> > > > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> > > > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> > > >
> > > > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
> > >
> > > Along these lines, I am experiencing a pretty big regression in video
> > > performance with recent Firefox versions on Fedora.  It probably started
> > > with FF 93, but got a little better with FF 94.  It is really noticeable
> > > when using Google Meet.  I'm using Wayland on AMD GPU hardware.  Is this
> > > at all related to this HW acceleration stuff?
> >
> > Please file a bug at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/ for further
> > investigation and cc me there. I can name ten reasons why you see it.
>
> It sounds quite a lot like this bug filed by mattdm:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2016162

Please file your own, I can dupe that later.
Thanks.

[Dan Horák]

On Fri, 12 Nov 2021 09:37:26 +0100
Martin Stransky  wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
> acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
>
> Hope it helps.

it does help :-) Briefly tested on my F-34/ppc64le with AMD GPU and it
seems to make a difference.

Dan

[Fabio Valentini]

On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 9:37 AM Martin Stransky  wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
>
> Hope it helps.
> Martin

I appreciate the effort to document ways to improve things. However:
> Video decoding on NVIDIA
> Please buy some real Linux hardware.

This doesn't really help at all. Is it supposed to be funny, or is it
just cynical resignation?

I mean, even if I *could* throw a couple hundred bucks out the window
to replace a perfectly working NVidia hardware, most places don't even
seem to have AMD graphics cards in stock right now. Does that just
mean "tough luck" for users like me?

Fabio

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Monday, 15 November 2021 at 13:34, Fabio Valentini wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 9:37 AM Martin Stransky  wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> >
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
> >
> > Hope it helps.
> > Martin
>
> I appreciate the effort to document ways to improve things. However:
> > Video decoding on NVIDIA
> > Please buy some real Linux hardware.
>
> This doesn't really help at all. Is it supposed to be funny, or is it
> just cynical resignation?
>
> I mean, even if I *could* throw a couple hundred bucks out the window
> to replace a perfectly working NVidia hardware, most places don't even
> seem to have AMD graphics cards in stock right now. Does that just
> mean "tough luck" for users like me?

Well, nVidia refuses to support VA-API like Intel and AMD do and the
VA-API-to-VDPAU won't help because dmabuf support is still required.
So... tough luck:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1669189
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1210729

... and probably others.

Regards,
Dominik

[Steve Grubb]

On Monday, November 15, 2021 8:23:59 AM EST Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski 
wrote:
> Well, nVidia refuses to support VA-API like Intel and AMD do and the
> VA-API-to-VDPAU won't help because dmabuf support is still required.
> So... tough luck:

I can confirm that nvidia acceleration works fine on Fedora:

# vainfo 
libva info: VA-API version 1.13.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_12
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.13 (libva 2.13.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Splitted-Desktop Systems VDPAU backend for VA-API - 
0.7.4

<snip>

# vdpauinfo
display: :1   screen: 0
API version: 1
Information string: NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library  495.44  Fri Oct 22 
06:03:50 UTC 2021

<snip>

I use the negativio repository only because I need the whole cuda stack 
including cudnn.

Cheers,
-Steve

[Martin Stransky]

On 11/15/21 16:06, Steve Grubb wrote:
> On Monday, November 15, 2021 8:23:59 AM EST Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski
> wrote:
> > Well, nVidia refuses to support VA-API like Intel and AMD do and the
> > VA-API-to-VDPAU won't help because dmabuf support is still required.
> > So... tough luck:
>
> I can confirm that nvidia acceleration works fine on Fedora:
>
> # vainfo
> libva info: VA-API version 1.13.0
> libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so
> libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_12
> libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
> vainfo: VA-API version: 1.13 (libva 2.13.0)
> vainfo: Driver version: Splitted-Desktop Systems VDPAU backend for VA-API -
> 0.7.4
>
> <snip>
>
> # vdpauinfo
> display: :1   screen: 0
> API version: 1
> Information string: NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library  495.44  Fri Oct 22
> 06:03:50 UTC 2021
>
> <snip>
>
> I use the negativio repository only because I need the whole cuda stack
> including cudnn.

Please update the 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration#Video_decoding_... 
page. I don't have supported NVIDIA hardware so I can't test that.

Thanks.

[Nicolas Chauvet]

Le lun. 15 nov. 2021 à 16:06, Steve Grubb  a écrit :
...
> I use the negativio repository only because I need the whole cuda stack
> including cudnn.

Totally undeeded, you can get rpmfusion+nvidia-cuda repository
directly and avoid incompatible repository.
https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/CUDA

[Steve Grubb]

Hello,

On Monday, November 15, 2021 11:02:08 AM EST Nicolas Chauvet wrote:
> Le lun. 15 nov. 2021 à 16:06, Steve Grubb  a écrit :
> ...
> > I use the negativio repository only because I need the whole cuda stack
> > including cudnn.
>
> Totally undeeded, you can get rpmfusion+nvidia-cuda repository
> directly and avoid incompatible repository.
> https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/CUDA

I used to do that. But the problem is that one day out of the blue, you do a 
system update, get new video drivers, and now it's incompatible with the cuda 
layer. Then you find out that nvidia doesn't package things right. They 
include the version number in the name. This means you have to remove 
everything, download new packages, and reinstall.

It's much simpler to use a repository that keeps everything in sync so that 
your projects don't unexpectedly refuse to run.

-Steve

[Martin Stransky]

On 11/15/21 13:34, Fabio Valentini wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 9:37 AM Martin Stransky  wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> >
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
> >
> > Hope it helps.
> > Martin
>
> I appreciate the effort to document ways to improve things. However:
> > Video decoding on NVIDIA
> > Please buy some real Linux hardware.
>
> This doesn't really help at all. Is it supposed to be funny, or is it
> just cynical resignation?
>
> I mean, even if I *could* throw a couple hundred bucks out the window
> to replace a perfectly working NVidia hardware, most places don't even
> seem to have AMD graphics cards in stock right now. Does that just
> mean "tough luck" for users like me?

Please read it as "I'm too stupid for such task". I don't know how to 
setup/run VA-API on NVIDIA.

[Aleksei Bavshin]

On 11/15/21 04:34, Fabio Valentini wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 9:37 AM Martin Stransky  wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> >
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
> >
> > Hope it helps.
> > Martin
>
> I appreciate the effort to document ways to improve things. However:
> > Video decoding on NVIDIA
> > Please buy some real Linux hardware.
>
> This doesn't really help at all. Is it supposed to be funny, or is it
> just cynical resignation?

After trying to configure HW acceleration on 9xx series GPU, I'll just 
take that as a serious response.
Consider following points:
  * VDPAU is not compatible with Wayland, our main desktop scenario.
  * Video decoding in Firefox on X11 is limited to X11/EGL, which does 
not work with the Nvidia proprietary driver (but at least there's a hope 
for that scenario).
  * There's no NVDEC vaapi backend, and I see opinions that it would be 
hard to fit NVDEC into vaapi model.
  * Nouveau support ends at VP5 (7xx series).

The wording might be different, but _at the moment_ any recent Nvidia 
hardware cannot be used for HW video acceleration in Firefox.

[Nicolas Chauvet]

Le lun. 15 nov. 2021 à 17:25, Aleksei Bavshin
 a écrit :
>

...
> After trying to configure HW acceleration on 9xx series GPU, I'll just
> take that as a serious response.
> Consider following points:
> VDPAU is not compatible with Wayland, our main desktop scenario.

True.
Still I have raised the concern at
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/vdpau/libvdpau/-/issues/2
> Video decoding in Firefox on X11 is limited to X11/EGL, which does
>
> not work with the Nvidia proprietary driver (but at least there's a hope
> for that scenario).
> There's no NVDEC vaapi backend, and I see opinions that it would be
>
> hard to fit NVDEC into vaapi model.

Well, technically it's NVDEC support for aarch64 tegra SOC, but it's
different than desktop NVDEC (using nouveau)
https://github.com/cyndis/vaapi-tegra-driver
See also https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2023429

Anyway, a more relevant goal is Vulkan Video API.

[PGNet Dev]

> > > Video decoding on NVIDIA
> > > Please buy some real Linux hardware.
> >
> > This doesn't really help at all. Is it supposed to be funny, or is it
> > just cynical resignation?
>
> After trying to configure HW acceleration on 9xx series GPU, I'll just take that as a serious response.
> Consider following points:
>   * VDPAU is not compatible with Wayland, our main desktop scenario.
>   * Video decoding in Firefox on X11 is limited to X11/EGL, which does not work with the Nvidia proprietary driver (but at least there's a hope for that scenario).
>   * There's no NVDEC vaapi backend, and I see opinions that it would be hard to fit NVDEC into vaapi model.
>   * Nouveau support ends at VP5 (7xx series).
>
> The wording might be different, but _at the moment_ any recent Nvidia hardware cannot be used for HW video acceleration in Firefox.

currently,for proprietary nvidia hw accel

useful docs

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration

e.g.

on

lsb_release -rd
    	Description:    Fedora release 35 (Thirty Five)
    	Release:        35

with nvidia hw,

hwinfo --gfxcard | egrep " Model| Device| Driver:"
    	Model: "nVidia GP108 [GeForce GT 1030]"
    	Device: pci 0x1d01 "GP108 [GeForce GT 1030]"
    	Driver: "nvidia"

latest upstream driver,

nvidia-settings -q NvidiaDriverVersion

Attribute 'NvidiaDriverVersion' (test.loc:0.0): 495.44
    	Attribute 'NvidiaDriverVersion' (test.loc:0[gpu:0]): 495.44

lsmod | grep nv
    	nvidia_uvm           1167360  0
    	nvidia_drm             73728  8
    	nvidia_modeset       1150976  20 nvidia_drm
    	nvidia              36950016  1354 nvidia_uvm,nvidia_modeset
    	drm_kms_helper        303104  1 nvidia_drm
    	drm                   630784  14 drm_kms_helper,nvidia,drm_ttm_helper,nvidia_drm,ttm

currently, this set of relevant pkgs

rpm -qa | egrep "libva|nvidia|vdpau|dkms|kernel-devel|glx|^egl|glvnd|libvpx|vulkan"
    	dkms-2.8.6-1.fc35.noarch
    	egl-utils-8.4.0-12.20210504git0f9e7d9.fc35.x86_64
    	glx-utils-8.4.0-12.20210504git0f9e7d9.fc35.x86_64
    	kernel-devel-5.14.17-301.fc35.x86_64
    	libglvnd-1.3.4-2.fc35.x86_64
    	libglvnd-core-devel-1.3.4-2.fc35.x86_64
    	libglvnd-devel-1.3.4-2.fc35.x86_64
    	libglvnd-egl-1.3.4-2.fc35.x86_64
    	libglvnd-gles-1.3.4-2.fc35.x86_64
    	libglvnd-glx-1.3.4-2.fc35.x86_64
    	libglvnd-opengl-1.3.4-2.fc35.x86_64
    	libva-2.13.0-2.fc35.x86_64
    	libva-utils-2.13.0-1.fc35.x86_64
    	libva-vdpau-driver-0.7.4-110.fc35.x86_64
    	libvdpau-1.4-6.fc35.x86_64
    	libvdpau-devel-1.4-6.fc35.x86_64
    	libvdpau-trace-1.4-6.fc35.x86_64
    	libvdpau-va-gl-0.4.2-20.fc35.x86_64
    	libvpx-1.10.0-2.fc35.x86_64
    	mesa-vdpau-drivers-21.2.5-1.fc35.x86_64
    	mesa-vulkan-drivers-21.2.5-1.fc35.x86_64
    	vdpauinfo-1.4-1.fc35.x86_64
    	vulkan-headers-1.2.189.0-1.fc35.noarch
    	vulkan-loader-1.2.189.0-1.fc35.x86_64
    	vulkan-loader-devel-1.2.189.0-1.fc35.x86_64
    	vulkan-tools-1.2.189.0-1.fc35.x86_64

checking for X11

grep -iE 'vdpau | dri driver' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
    	[    37.637] (II) NVIDIA(0): [DRI2]   VDPAU driver: nvidia

verifying

ldd `which mpv` | egrep -i "egl|nvidia|vdpau"
    	libEGL.so.1 => /lib64/libEGL.so.1 (0x00007fadfdbb4000)
    	libwayland-egl.so.1 => /lib64/libwayland-egl.so.1 (0x00007fadfbdbe000)
    	libvdpau.so.1 => /lib64/libvdpau.so.1 (0x00007fadfacea000)

VDPAU_DRIVER=nvidia mpv --hwdec=auto TEST.mp4
    	 (+) Video --vid=1 (*) (h264 1920x1080 30.015fps)
    	 (+) Audio --aid=1 --alang=eng (*) (aac 2ch 48000Hz)
> > > Using hardware decoding (nvdec).

AO: [pulse] 48000Hz stereo 2ch float
    	VO: [gpu] 1920x1080 cuda[nv12]
    	AV: 00:00:02 / 00:00:39 (7%) A-V:  0.026 ct:  0.256

for FF

rpm -qa firefox
    	firefox-94.0-1.fc35.x86_64

read

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Firefox-94-EGL-Linux...
    https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2021/10/30/switching-the-linux-graphics-sta...

note

"In X.org, since 94, Firefox will run in EGL mode by default which is sufficient [19]."

user.js settings currently include,

user_pref("media.ffmpeg.enabled", true);
    user_pref("media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled", true);
    user_pref("media.ffmpeg.vaapi-drm-display.enabled", true);
    user_pref("media.ffvpx.enabled", false);
    user_pref("media.navigator.mediadatadecoder_vpx_enabled", true);
    user_pref("media.rdd-ffvpx.enabled", false);
    user_pref("media.rdd-vpx.enabled", false);

check

grep -iE 'vdpau | dri driver' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
    	[   216.777] (II) NVIDIA(0): [DRI2]   VDPAU driver: nvidia
    	                                                    ^^^^^^

hwinfo --gfxcard | grep "SysFS ID"
    	SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.1/0000:09:00.0

ls -d /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.1/0000:09:00.0/drm/render*
    	/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.1/0000:09:00.0/drm/renderD128/

ls -al /usr/lib64/dri/nvidia_drv_video*
    	lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Jul 22 12:18 /usr/lib64/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so -> vdpau_drv_video.so*
    	                                                      ^^^^^^

launch @ shell

VDPAU_DRIVER=nvidia MOZ_LOG="Dmabuf:5, PlatformDecoderModule:5" firefox

nav to

https://sample-videos.com/video123/mp4/720/big_buck_bunny_720p_1mb.mp4

@ shell

...
    [Child 19933: Main Thread]: D/Dmabuf nsDMABufDevice::IsDMABufVAAPIEnabled: EGL 1 DMABufEnabled 1  media_ffmpeg_vaapi_enabled 1 CanUseHardwareVideoDecoding 1 !XRE_IsRDDProcess 1
    ...
    [RDD 20039: Main Thread]: D/PlatformDecoderModule PDMInitializer, Init PDMs in RDD process
    [RDD 20039: Main Thread]: D/Dmabuf nsDMABufDevice::Configure()
    [RDD 20039: Main Thread]: D/Dmabuf Loading DMABuf system library libgbm.so.1 ...
    ...
    [RDD 20039: Main Thread]: D/Dmabuf DMABuf is enabled, using drm node /dev/dri/renderD128
    [RDD 20039: Main Thread]: D/Dmabuf nsDMABufDevice::IsDMABufVAAPIEnabled: EGL 1 DMABufEnabled 1  media_ffmpeg_vaapi_enabled 1 CanUseHardwareVideoDecoding 1 !XRE_IsRDDProcess 0
    [RDD 20039: Main Thread]: D/PlatformDecoderModule VA-API FFmpeg is disabled by platform
    ...
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #2]: D/Dmabuf nsDMABufDevice::IsDMABufVAAPIEnabled: EGL 1 DMABufEnabled 1  media_ffmpeg_vaapi_enabled 1 CanUseHardwareVideoDecoding 1 !XRE_IsRDDProcess 1
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #2]: D/Dmabuf nsDMABufDevice::IsDMABufVideoEnabled: EGL 1 DMABufEnabled 1  !media_ffmpeg_dmabuf_textures_disabled 1 !XRE_IsRDDProcess() 1
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #2]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Initialising VA-API FFmpeg decoder
    libva info: VA-API version 1.13.0
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #2]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Initialising FFmpeg decoder.
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #2]: D/PlatformDecoderModule FFmpeg init successful.
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #2]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Choosing FFmpeg pixel format for video decoding.
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #2]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Requesting pixel format YUV420P.
    [vp9 @ 0x7f8a48d85800] Format yuv420p chosen by get_format().
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule AudioTrimmer[7f8a37ab3e80] ::PrepareTrimmers: sample[0,21000] no trimming information
    [RDD 20039: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule OpusDataDecoder[7fb627975080] ::Decode: Opus decoder skipping 312 of 960 frames
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #3]: D/PlatformDecoderModule AudioTrimmer[7f8a37ab3e80] ::HandleDecodedResult: sample[0,21000] (decoded[0,13500] no trimming needed
    [Child 19933: MediaPDecoder #2]: D/PlatformDecoderModule DMABuf Got one frame output with pts=0dts=0 duration=33000 opaque=-9223372036854775808
    ...

ymmv

[Michael Cronenworth]

On 11/15/21 12:03 PM, PGNet Dev wrote:
> launch @ shell
>
> VDPAU_DRIVER=nvidia MOZ_LOG="Dmabuf:5, PlatformDecoderModule:5" firefox

I think you mean:

LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia firefox

I gave this a shot today, but running a video crashes the tab. Yes, we are almost 
there, but the VA-API / VDPAU driver has not seen that much love.

[PGNet Dev]

On 11/16/21 22:48, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
> On 11/15/21 12:03 PM, PGNet Dev wrote:
> > launch @ shell
> >
> > VDPAU_DRIVER=nvidia MOZ_LOG="Dmabuf:5, PlatformDecoderModule:5" firefox
>
> I think you mean:
>
> LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia firefox

nope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Acceleration_API
    	"As of 2019, VA-API is natively supported by libva-vdpau-driver for cards supported by VDPAU"

libva-vdpau-driver is the translation layer that provides a VDPAU-based backend for VA-API.

@ https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration#Configuring_VDP...

"
    Configuring VDPAU
    You can override the driver for VDPAU by using the VDPAU_DRIVER environment variable.
    The correct driver name depends on your setup:
    ...
    For NVIDIA's proprietary version set it to nvidia.
    
    Note:
        You can find the installed drivers in /usr/lib/vdpau/. They are used as /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_${VDPAU_DRIVER}.so
    "

ls -al /usr/lib64/vdpau//libvdpau*nvidia*
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   25 Nov 15 10:04 /usr/lib64/vdpau//libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 -> libvdpau_nvidia.so.495.44*
   -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 620K Nov 15 10:04 /usr/lib64/vdpau//libvdpau_nvidia.so.495.44*

cref:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration#VDPAU_drivers
  https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration#NVIDIA_driver_o...
  https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration#Application_sup...

[Julian Sikorski]

Am 17.11.21 um 15:26 schrieb PGNet Dev:
> On 11/16/21 22:48, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
> > On 11/15/21 12:03 PM, PGNet Dev wrote:
> > > launch @ shell
> > >
> > > VDPAU_DRIVER=nvidia MOZ_LOG="Dmabuf:5, PlatformDecoderModule:5" 
> > > firefox
> >
> > I think you mean:
> >
> > LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia firefox
>
> nope.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Acceleration_API
>          "As of 2019, VA-API is natively supported by libva-vdpau-driver 
> for cards supported by VDPAU"
>
> libva-vdpau-driver is the translation layer that provides a VDPAU-based 
> backend for VA-API.
>
> @ 
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration#Configuring_VDP...
>
> "
>      Configuring VDPAU
>      You can override the driver for VDPAU by using the VDPAU_DRIVER 
> environment variable.
>      The correct driver name depends on your setup:
>      ...
>      For NVIDIA's proprietary version set it to nvidia.
>
> Note:
>          You can find the installed drivers in /usr/lib/vdpau/. They are 
> used as /usr/lib/vdpau/libvdpau_${VDPAU_DRIVER}.so
>      "
>
> ls -al /usr/lib64/vdpau//libvdpau*nvidia*
>    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   25 Nov 15 10:04 
> /usr/lib64/vdpau//libvdpau_nvidia.so.1 -> libvdpau_nvidia.so.495.44*
>    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 620K Nov 15 10:04 
> /usr/lib64/vdpau//libvdpau_nvidia.so.495.44*
>
> cref:
>
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration#VDPAU_drivers
>   https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration#NVIDIA_driver_o...
>   https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration#Application_sup...

Have you actually been able to get this working with Firefox? I tried a 
while ago and failed. IIRC the predominant opinion online was that 
libva-vdpau-driver, which was not updated in almost a decade, was good 
for passing vainfo but not for much else.

Best regards.
Julian

[Michael Cronenworth]

On 11/17/21 8:26 AM, PGNet Dev wrote:
> On 11/16/21 22:48, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
> > On 11/15/21 12:03 PM, PGNet Dev wrote:
> > > launch @ shell
> > >
> > > VDPAU_DRIVER=nvidia MOZ_LOG="Dmabuf:5, PlatformDecoderModule:5" firefox
> >
> > I think you mean:
> >
> > LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia firefox
>
> nope.

Take a closer look at all of those links you threw at me. :)

VDPAU is not VA-API. Setting VDPAU_DRIVER means nothing to Firefox because it is not 
using VDPAU.

[PGNet Dev]

> VDPAU is not VA-API

that's correct
> Setting VDPAU_DRIVER means nothing to Firefox because it is not using VDPAU.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/VA-API_1.0.0#Detailed_Description
https://ffmpeg.org/doxygen/0.8/group__VDPAU__Decoding.html

"libva-vdpau-driver which allows to use the VA-API enabled players with VDPAU backend (such as NVIDIA binary driver)."

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/HWAccelIntro#PlatformAPIAvailability

VDPAU / Linux / NVIDIA -> 'Fully usable'

ffmpeg -hwaccels
    ...
    Hardware acceleration methods:
> > vdpau

cuda
    vaapi
    qsv
    drm
    opencl
    vulkan

find/dl a 'busy' 4K+ h264 vid

e.g. @

https://jell.yfish.us/media/jellyfish-250-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mkv

T="jellyfish-250-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mkv"
    F="jellyfish-250-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mp4"
    ffmpeg -i ${T} -codec copy ${F}

ls -al ${F} ${T}
    	-rw-r--r-- 1 test test 896M Dec 21  2016 jellyfish-250-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mkv
    	-rw-r--r-- 1 test test 896M Nov 17 14:37 jellyfish-250-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mp4

exec un-accel'd FFmpeg decoder

rm -f test.ts && ffmpeg -i ${F} test.ts
    sar 1 100
    	Linux 5.14.17-301.fc35.x86_64 (test.loc)    11/17/2021      _x86_64_        (16 CPU)

02:23:27 PM     CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait    %steal     %idle
    	02:23:28 PM     all      0.38      0.00      0.50      1.95      0.00     97.17
    	02:23:29 PM     all     19.29      0.00      1.44      0.00      0.00     79.27
    	02:23:30 PM     all     88.85      0.13      2.01      0.00      0.00      9.02
    	02:23:31 PM     all     88.08      0.00      1.63      0.00      0.00     10.29
    	02:23:32 PM     all     87.38      0.00      1.87      0.00      0.00     10.74
    	02:23:33 PM     all     89.01      0.00      1.76      0.06      0.00      9.17
    	02:23:34 PM     all     87.81      0.06      1.95      0.00      0.00     10.18
    	02:23:35 PM     all     87.95      0.06      1.62      0.00      0.00     10.37
    	02:23:36 PM     all     89.77      0.00      1.95      0.00      0.00      8.29
    	02:23:37 PM     all     89.36      0.00      2.00      0.00      0.00      8.64
    	02:23:38 PM     all     55.63      0.13      1.32      0.19      0.00     42.74
    	02:23:39 PM     all      0.44      0.00      0.56      0.00      0.00     99.00
    	02:23:40 PM     all      0.62      0.00      0.56      0.06      0.00     98.75
    	...

exec vaapi<-vdpau accel'd VA-API FFmpeg decoder

rm -f test.ts && ffmpeg -hwaccel vdpau -i ${F} test.ts
    sar 1 100
    	Linux 5.14.17-301.fc35.x86_64 (test.loc)    11/17/2021      _x86_64_        (16 CPU)

02:29:09 PM     CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait    %steal     %idle
    	02:29:10 PM     all      0.63      0.06      0.31      0.00      0.00     99.00
    	02:29:11 PM     all      0.50      0.00      0.69      0.25      0.00     98.56
    	02:29:12 PM     all      8.48      0.13      2.07      0.31      0.00     89.01
    	02:29:13 PM     all     31.32      0.00      2.76      0.00      0.00     65.91
    	02:29:14 PM     all     31.47      0.00      2.01      0.00      0.00     66.52
    	02:29:15 PM     all     33.98      0.00      2.81      0.00      0.00     63.21
    	02:29:16 PM     all     34.43      0.12      2.79      0.12      0.00     62.54
    	02:29:17 PM     all     32.87      0.13      2.38      0.44      0.00     64.18
    	02:29:18 PM     all     30.01      0.00      2.62      0.19      0.00     67.19
    	02:29:19 PM     all     27.51      0.06      2.62      0.00      0.00     69.81
    	02:29:20 PM     all     29.92      0.06      2.61      0.00      0.00     67.41
    	02:29:21 PM     all     28.58      0.00      2.59      0.06      0.00     68.77
    	02:29:22 PM     all     28.25      0.00      2.46      0.13      0.00     69.17
    	02:29:23 PM     all      5.11      0.06      1.62      0.00      0.00     93.20
    	02:29:24 PM     all      0.31      0.00      0.31      0.00      0.00     99.37
    	02:29:25 PM     all      0.87      0.12      0.81      0.06      0.00     98.13

no vaapi without vdpau translation

rm -f test.ts && ffmpeg -hwaccel vaapi -i ${F} test.ts
    	[AVHWDeviceContext @ 0x557bc805f840] libva: vaGetDriverNameByIndex() failed with unknown libva error, driver_name = (null)
    	[AVHWDeviceContext @ 0x557bc805f840] Failed to initialise VAAPI connection: -1 (unknown libva error).
    	Device creation failed: -5.
    	[h264 @ 0x557bc78e4a00] No device available for decoder: device type vaapi needed for codec h264.
    	Stream mapping:
    	  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 (native) -> mpeg2video (native))
    	Device setup failed for decoder on input stream #0:0 : Input/output error

firefox exec, hw accel disabled

VDPAU_DRIVER=nvidia MOZ_LOG="PlatformDecoderModule:5" firefox ${F} -p no_accel

...
    	[Parent 6034: Main Thread]: D/PlatformDecoderModule VA-API FFmpeg is disabled by platform
    	[Parent 6034: Main Thread]: D/PlatformDecoderModule VA-API FFmpeg is disabled by platform
    	[Child 6177: Main Thread]: D/PlatformDecoderModule VA-API FFmpeg is disabled by platform
    	[Child 6177: Main Thread]: D/PlatformDecoderModule VA-API FFmpeg is disabled by platform
    	[RDD 6236: Main Thread]: D/PlatformDecoderModule VA-API FFmpeg is disabled by platform
> > [Child 6177: MediaSupervisor #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Hardware WebRender is off, disabled DMABuf & VAAPI.

[Child 6177: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Initialising FFmpeg decoder.
    	[Child 6177: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule FFmpeg init successful.
    	[Child 6177: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Choosing FFmpeg pixel format for video decoding.
    	...

firefox exec, hw accel default enabled

VDPAU_DRIVER=nvidia MOZ_LOG="PlatformDecoderModule:5" firefox ${F} -p default
    	...
    	[RDD 5789: Main Thread]: D/PlatformDecoderModule VA-API FFmpeg is disabled by platform
> > [Child 5746: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Initialising VA-API FFmpeg decoder

libva info: VA-API version 1.13.0
    	[Child 5746: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Initialising FFmpeg decoder.
    	[Child 5746: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule FFmpeg init successful.
    	[Child 5746: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Choosing FFmpeg pixel format for video decoding.
> > [Child 5746: MediaPDecoder #1]: D/PlatformDecoderModule DMABuf Got one frame output with pts=0dts=33375 duration=33000 opaque=-9223372036854775808

...
> Take a closer look at all of those links you threw at me. :)

...

[Martin Stransky]

Hello,

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1742229 states that 
NVIDIA's NVDecod can be used with VA-API.

No idea what it actually means but I'll try to uplift that to Firefox 95.

Martin

On 11/15/21 13:34, Fabio Valentini wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 9:37 AM Martin Stransky  wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW
> > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> >
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
> >
> > Hope it helps.
> > Martin
>
> I appreciate the effort to document ways to improve things. However:
> > Video decoding on NVIDIA
> > Please buy some real Linux hardware.
>
> This doesn't really help at all. Is it supposed to be funny, or is it
> just cynical resignation?
>
> I mean, even if I *could* throw a couple hundred bucks out the window
> to replace a perfectly working NVidia hardware, most places don't even
> seem to have AMD graphics cards in stock right now. Does that just
> mean "tough luck" for users like me?
>
> Fabio
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[Aleksei Bavshin]

On 11/12/21 00:37, Martin Stransky wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
> acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
>
> Hope it helps.
> Martin

Intel section fails to mention that accelerated video decoding on the 
Iris XE (Gen12) GPUs requires intel-media-driver and won't work with 
older libva-intel-driver. So we're out of luck until the sandboxing 
issue is resolved and the fix is backported to Fedora Firefox builds.

[Martin Stransky]

On 11/15/21 17:38, Aleksei Bavshin wrote:
> On 11/12/21 00:37, Martin Stransky wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
> > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> >
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
> >
> > Hope it helps.
> > Martin
>
> Intel section fails to mention that accelerated video decoding on the 
> Iris XE (Gen12) GPUs requires intel-media-driver and won't work with 
> older libva-intel-driver. So we're out of luck until the sandboxing 
> issue is resolved and the fix is backported to Fedora Firefox builds.

As usually, please update the page.
Thanks.

[Aleksei Bavshin]

On 11/15/21 08:45, Martin Stransky wrote:
> On 11/15/21 17:38, Aleksei Bavshin wrote:
> > On 11/12/21 00:37, Martin Stransky wrote:
> > > Hi folks,
> > >
> > > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
> > > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> > >
> > > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
> > >
> > > Hope it helps.
> > > Martin
> >
> > Intel section fails to mention that accelerated video decoding on the 
> > Iris XE (Gen12) GPUs requires intel-media-driver and won't work with 
> > older libva-intel-driver. So we're out of luck until the sandboxing 
> > issue is resolved and the fix is backported to Fedora Firefox builds.
>
> As usually, please update the page.
> Thanks.

Hm. I just reread the whole section again.
Martin, did you mean to use intel-media-driver (iHD_drv_video.so) 
instead of the libva-intel-hybrid-driver (hybrid_drv_video.so)? Because 
everything makes sense with that substitution and the sandbox bug only 
mentions iHD_drv_video.so.

To be honest, I have no idea what GPUs even use 
libva-intel-hybrid-driver alone. libva-intel-driver claims to support 
everything up to Gen 10 GPUs and Gen11+ (Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, etc..) is 
handled by the intel-media-driver. And hybrid-driver's only purpose 
seems to be a VP9 decoding backend for the libva-intel-driver 
(--enable-hybrid-codec).
Can someone confirm that?

[Martin Stransky]

On 11/15/21 18:28, Aleksei Bavshin wrote:
> On 11/15/21 08:45, Martin Stransky wrote:
> > On 11/15/21 17:38, Aleksei Bavshin wrote:
> > > On 11/12/21 00:37, Martin Stransky wrote:
> > > > Hi folks,
> > > >
> > > > I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
> > > > acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
> > > >
> > > > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
> > > >
> > > > Hope it helps.
> > > > Martin
> > >
> > > Intel section fails to mention that accelerated video decoding on the 
> > > Iris XE (Gen12) GPUs requires intel-media-driver and won't work with 
> > > older libva-intel-driver. So we're out of luck until the sandboxing 
> > > issue is resolved and the fix is backported to Fedora Firefox builds.
> >
> > As usually, please update the page.
> > Thanks.
>
> Hm. I just reread the whole section again.
> Martin, did you mean to use intel-media-driver (iHD_drv_video.so) 
> instead of the libva-intel-hybrid-driver (hybrid_drv_video.so)? Because 
> everything makes sense with that substitution and the sandbox bug only 
> mentions iHD_drv_video.so.

Frankly I use only libva-intel-driver (i965_drv_video.so) for Intel UHD 
620/630 which I have available and other info I have from upstream 
bugzilla (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1619585).

Martin

[Julian Sikorski]

Am 12.11.21 um 09:37 schrieb Martin Stransky:
> Hi folks,
>
> I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
> acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
>
> Hope it helps.
> Martin

For VP9 on AMD the following set-up seems to work:

media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled to true
media.ffvpx.enabled to false
media.rdd-ffvpx.enabled to false
media.rdd-vpx.enabled to false

H264 also seems to work. mp4/h265 from 
https://test-videos.co.uk/bigbuckbunny/mp4-h265 do not play at all.

Best regards,
Julian

[Julian Sikorski]

Am 12.11.21 um 09:37 schrieb Martin Stransky:
> Hi folks,
>
> I was told that people were having trouble with Firefox/HW 
> acceleration/VA-API setup on Fedora so I put some info at wiki at:
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firefox_Hardware_acceleration
>
> Hope it helps.
> Martin >

With https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1698778 fixed, is 
there any hope of seeing the patches from that bug in Fedora builds 
sooner than Firefox 96?

Best regards,
Julian

[Christian Stadelmann]

Thank you, Martin!

I've just updated the wiki page to remove the rdd stuff which should no longer be necessary with Firefox 96.

Thanks to the wiki page, one can check whether hardware acceleration is available.

Is there any indication (e.g. in about:support) to see whether video hardware acceleration is working? Or any tool to check?

Is hardware acceleration a prerequisite for using VA-API accelerated video decoding? (Background: my GPU is too old to get hardware acceleration support in firefox, but I do have VA-API with some video decoding support in hardware).

Kind regards,
Christian