Believe it or not, I solved! For real this time! | HW Video Acceleration

Panino

@ugly said in Can you tell me if there's anything wrong preventing my Vivaldi from using hardware video decode?:

As far as I know, hardware video decode not working in Chromium based browsers has been a long-standing issue on Linux. But I haven't looked into it in a while.

Probably the best resource for getting it to work would be here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Chromium#Hardware_video_acceleration

Yes, I know, but there people here that swear it actually working on their computers.

DoctorG

Works nice in Vivaldi on Debian 11.5, uses VpxVideoDecoder decoding.
I set Override software rendering list (vivaldi://flags/#ignore-gpu-blocklist) to Enabled and restarted.

vivaldi://media-internals on my Linux:

player_id: 40
created: 2022-11-19 15:43:11.542 UTC
origin_url: https://www.youtube.com/
kFrameUrl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0twDETh6QaI
kFrameTitle: ROBLOX_OOF.mp3 - YouTube
url: blob:https://www.youtube.com/f15de9fa-057d-407d-9e52-65f13ae400a9
kTextTracks: 
info: Effective playback rate changed from 0 to 1
kRendererName: RendererImpl
pipeline_state: kPlaying
duration: 7068.761
kVideoTracks: [object Object]
kAudioTracks: [object Object]
kIsAudioDecryptingDemuxerStream: false
kAudioDecoderName: FFmpegAudioDecoder
kIsPlatformAudioDecoder: false
kIsVideoDecryptingDemuxerStream: false
kVideoDecoderName: VpxVideoDecoder
kIsPlatformVideoDecoder: false
event: kPlay
dimensions: 854x480
kResolution: 854x480
video_buffering_state: [object Object]

DoctorG

@Panino Have you tried this in console:

su root
/opt/vivaldi/update-ffmpeg

and try again after login as regular Linux user.

Panino

@DoctorG said in Can you tell me if there's anything wrong preventing my Vivaldi from using hardware video decode?:

@Panino Have you tried this in console:
su root
/opt/vivaldi/update-ffmpeg 
and try again after login as regular Linux user.

Already updated.

That's why I came here, I already tried everything, I added every package I could find via Muon, enabled every flag, added to the file path, everything and nothing works on Vivaldi.

Panino

While I was investigating other problem, see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/zxqm4f/some_websites_only_play_video_on_windows_or_mac/ I found the solution.

After all I did the missing piece was the kubuntu-restricted-extras package. After installing it video acceleration finally started working!

Now that I got this far I may as well go all the way, right? Using Intel_GPU_TOP to see what's happening with the GPU while the video is playing:

alt text

It's a bit different from what shows when I use Firefox. On Firefox the "Render/3D" is much lower, almost half, and there's no activity to "VideoEnhance". What is being "enhanced"? And while only Vivaldi does it? Isn't there a way to disable this and lower the Render/3D for maximum efficiency?

Panino

***UN-SOLVED (16 February Update)
I'm stuck at version 5.7.2901.3, because video acceleration stopped working. I tried installing the new Stable version, installed the extension, switch the flags, added the command line. Still don't works.
I was thinking for some time to switch from the snapshots and use only the Stable, but now I can't put this plan to work.

WHY IS VIDEO ACCELERATION SO HARD TO MAKE WORK ON LINUX?!

mib2berlin

@Panino
Ah, this thread, I remember.
I don´t read back on your posts but to start with troubleshooting you need a second clean profile.
Create one, close all tabs, don´t install or change anything.

https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/tools/user-profiles/

This is vivaldi://gpu on my laptop, specs in my signature

Graphics Feature Status
Canvas: Hardware accelerated
Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Disabled
Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
Compositing: Hardware accelerated
Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
OpenGL: Enabled
Rasterization: Hardware accelerated
Raw Draw: Disabled
Video Decode: Hardware accelerated
Video Encode: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
Vulkan: Disabled
WebGL: Hardware accelerated
WebGL2: Hardware accelerated
WebGPU: Disabled

Cheers, mib

Panino

This seems pointless, only thing that changed was Vivaldi, nothing else.

EDIT: downgraded again.

Latter maybe I'll try installing the Stable again and see what I can do to make it work. If it worked I was planing to switch from the Snapshot to the Stable.

mib2berlin

@Panino
If you already do all there is nothing to do else.
I have nothing to install, change or use flags to have HW acceleration enabled in the latest snapshot on KDE 5.27.0-1.1, i5 UHD 620.
The Vivaldi team cant fix this.

Cheers, mib

Panino

Just as a reminder, video acceleration never worked when using Wayland.

Panino

Seems that with time things changed internally, so I think I had to use another combination of flags.

The experiment flags are like this: https://i.imgur.com/sewMGym.jpg

And I added these to the file path: --enable-features=VaapiVideoDecoder, --use-gl=egl --disable-features=UseChromeOSDirectVideoDecoder

Finally, I succeeded changing to Vivaldi Stable.
(Sync don't sync the customized menus?)

Panino

Hardware video decode only worked on Stable for a fleeting moment, than I gave up.

Just a reminder that I'm stuck at version 5.8.2955.3 because of this.
Today I update Stable to the current version and nothing changed. I checked flags and file paths again, but nothing makes hardware video decode works.

npro

@Panino said in SOLVED! (for the last time) This time on Stable - NEON | HW Video Acceleration:

I added these to the file path: --enable-features=VaapiVideoDecoder --disable-features=UseChromeOSDirectVideoDecoder

works here (6.1.3035.50, AMD, X11) with those flags and the appropriate drivers and packages, but I am on Arch, so you could look again into the documentation of the wiki and try to find the Ubuntu "equivalents", or look for some official Ubuntu/Neon documentation.

Also, use this for the videos that use the av1 codec: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/not-yet-av1/dcmllfkiihingappljlkffafnlhdpbai

Panino

On the GPU page, on the snapshot where acceleration is working, at the very end it looks like this:

alt text

On Stable, no matter what I do, those fields remain blank.

I think Stable is using the wrong drivers? Because on some fields were appears "Mesa Intel(R) HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2)" and other lines that include the Mesa driver, on the Stable is appears as "Google Inc. (Intel)".

Snapshot:
alt text

Stable:
alt text

Got me thinking, what if I can force the Stable to use the same driver the Snapshot is using?
But... I have no idea how to do that? And how each version is using different drivers? It's because the Stable is new and works differently, it has it's own driver? Even so, can I force it to use the Mesa driver?

Pathduck

@Panino said in SOLVED! (for the last time) This time on Stable - NEON | HW Video Acceleration:

And how each version is using different drivers? It's because the Stable is new and works differently, it has it's own driver?

No - "Google Inc. (Intel)". means it's using Software rendering, not hardware.
Explains the "Video Acceleration" being blank as well I guess.

Other than that, I can't help much with Linux and GPU driver problems.

npro

@Panino said in SOLVED! (for the last time) This time on Stable - NEON | HW Video Acceleration:

on the snapshot where acceleration is working

You really sure about that? The only way to be absolutely sure is the picture I showed you, Hardware Decoder should be showing true, not what you see under vivaldi://gpu. For example you see Video Decode: Hardware accelerated there but the textboxes in VA-Info are not showing any info.

I checked vivaldi://gpu for my Snapshot, it is what you are showing for Stable.
Use X11 and skip the parameter --use-gl=egl as I wrote above.

@Pathduck said in SOLVED! (for the last time) This time on Stable - NEON | HW Video Acceleration:

"Google Inc. (Intel)". means it's using Software rendering, not hardware.
Explains the "Video Acceleration" being blank as well I guess.

For strictly software rendering that would be Swiftshader, which is not in OP's case. ANGLE should be ok. OP needs additionally the parameter --enable-features=VaapiVideoDecoder for the textboxes to show the VA values.

The problem lies into that Chromium changes all the time, some things that used to work before don't quite work now.

Pathduck

@npro Well, I don't really know - but I do know that if I disabled HW accel. here (Windows with Nvidia card), GPU0 will show as:

VENDOR= 0xffff [Google Inc. (Google)], DEVICE=0xffff [ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver-5.0.0)], LUID={0,0}, DRIVER_VENDOR=SwANGLE, DRIVER_VERSION=5.0.0 *ACTIVE*

GL_VENDOR will be Google Inc. (Google) and Video Acceleration Information will show empty values.

So that was my observation, that it has nothing to do with Stable vs. Snapshot and all about HW accel. being disabled. For whatever reason that might be...

npro

@Pathduck Yes but you have that SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (<- ) there (OP didn't have that), that confirms you 've disabled hardware acceleration . Anyway it's pretty messy, always have been.

P.S. For some reason I couldn't post this with V. (error), had to use Firefox...

npro

This post is deleted!

Panino

@npro I can guarantee you, acceleration is working on the Snapshot.

I configured the Stable the same, some times tried to add or remove a few things, didn't worked. Then I noticed this detail about the drivers.
Why? As I said before, I think? In the past acceleration worked on the Stable, but then a minor update fix would make it stop working again, that's why all this time I always kept using the Snapshot. I had planned to make the switch to Stable this year but my plans failed because of this.

I don't understand, why on the same system the Snapshot used the correct driver but the Stable don't. Tricks to force Vivaldi/the browser to use an specific driver is something I hadn't tried yet.
Now, even adding these flags --gpu-testing-vendor-id=0x8086 --gpu-testing-device-id=0x1916 nothing changes there.

EDIT: I just tried every combination of flags, not matters what I do, Stable insist on using "Angle" and "Google, Inc".