Hardware video decoding

ijontichy

I finally got hardware video decoding working on Brave. The page that helped was this one:

https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:docs/gpu/vaapi.md#vaapi-on-linux

Note the quote on that page: "VA-API on Linux is not supported, but it can be enabled using the flags below, and it might work on certain configurations -- but there's no guarantees." Ha!

I have an Intel GPU, and Meteor Lake CPU, and a laptop that gets hot easily. My fault for buying a crappy laptop. To get GPU video decoding working with Vulcan, I used the following flags:

brave-browser --use-gl=angle --use-angle=vulkan --enable-features=AcceleratedVideoEncoder,VaapiIgnoreDriverChecks,Vulkan,DefaultANGLEVulkan,VulkanFromANGLE --ignore-gpu-blocklist --disable-gpu-driver-bug-workaround

This works, but watching a 1080p YouTube video, I still get about 4% CPU utilization. This is enough to slowly but inevitably increase the temp of my CPU from 50 deg C to 70 deg C, at which point the fans kick in.

The other method is via OpenGL:

This doesn't quite work for me, as I get a corrupted video. And 10% CPU utilization.

Firefox seems to use Vulcan for GPU video decoding. I get the same issue with CPU heating. Maybe I should use this laptop in an industrial freezer.

But maybe these options might help someone.

BuzzPCSOS

ijontichy I wonder if you have additionally tried sudo eopkg install thermald and then sudo thermald to start the daemon.
Thermald is a Linux daemon that monitors and controls temperature in laptops. It can be used alongside tlp, systemctl enable tlp.service which can additionally help to improve battery life.
If you are enabling tlp make sure to read the status messages after enabling it and follow the recommendations that are given.

Axios

ijontichy I tested the vulkan on my lap decreased cpu usage and the temps seemed to stay about the
same.
And seem to be able to play 1080 now from youtube will test that some more.

ijontichy

I'll try thermald. I can see that it can control active and passive cooling. I already have active cooling (i.e. the fan) starting at 70 deg C. I want to try avoiding reaching that temperature where practical. And certainly avoid it when watching a video. So maybe I'll try configuring thermald so that it turns on passive cooling at 65 deg C. Of course, this could cause unacceptable CPU throttling. I'll just have to try it out. Thanks for the suggestion.

BuzzPCSOS

ijontichy Generally installing and starting thermald are the only things you have to do but it does seem to help keeping temperatures down on intel hardware.
Previously I have used it on laptops that got very hot and it does make a noticeable difference providing fans and cooling fins are not restricted.