HOWTO: VLC + VAAPI in Maverick

[hachel]

so i've updated to the newest flash (10.2) with GPU-Acceleration and am henceforth able to play even videos with a hd-resultion of 1080p (this video), while my cpu usage doesn't exceed 50%.
I have just followed your howto and in the process enabled GPU in Preferences->Input/Codecs->Use GPU Acceleration.
Yet, when I download that same Video and play it in VLC it doesn't work at all (cpu at 100%, a new frame every 10-20 seconds). I guess thats because it's in that flv-container.
But even if I download an mp4/h264-Video in 1080p it has occasional stutters and cpu on average between 85 and 95%.
How is it that flash works so much better, when before 10.2 I couldn't even play 480p-Videos flawlessly? Anyway to improve vlc-performance?

[SirBelial]

I installed the newest ATI Driver (Catalyst 11.3 / 8.83) with tutorial from wiki.cchtml. Then I installed libva, libva-dev, libva-dbg and xvba-video from splitted-desktop.
vainfo says:

libva: libva version 0.32.0-sds2
Xlib:  extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/va/drivers/fglrx_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA API version: 0.32
vainfo: Driver version: Splitted-Desktop Systems XvBA backend for VA-API - 0.7.8
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileH264High               :    VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            :    VAEntrypointVLD

So it seems to be kind of working.
Next I installed vlc with the PPA by Temüjin but when I try to open a video file (both .avi and .mkv) it says:

No suitable decoder module:
 VLC does not support the audio or video format "mp4v". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this.
 No suitable decoder module:
 VLC does not support the audio or video format "h264". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this.

Can you see anything I did wrong?

I'm using:
AMD Athlon Neo Processor MV-40 1.6 GHz | 3GB DDR2 RAM | AMD ATI Mobility Radeon HD3200 | Ubuntu Maverick

[Yellow Pasque]

AMD ATI Mobility Radeon HD3200

from the wiki...

If you have an older RadeonHD with UVD, you can use Catalyst 10-7 to get working acceleration, but users have confirmed acceleration broken since then.

Unfortunately, this applies to your GPU.

[SirBelial]

Crap, that's what I feared when I started reading about UVD.
I'm thinking about sending back the ThinkPad X100e with a single core to get one with a dual core (2x 1,6Ghz). Do you think that the new CPU will be enough to at least decode 720p mkvs?

[SirBelial]

Another question:
what is the weak link in the chain that doesn't make it work?
The GPU is able to do video decode acceleration, since it works with Windows 7 and DxVA.
So what's the problem? Catalyst? Any of the packages?
(I don't have a good understanding on how it's supposed to work)
So is there a possibility that in the future this weak link will be expanded to include GPUs with UVD(1)?

[Yellow Pasque]

what is the weak link in the chain that doesn't make it work?

UVD cards worked as well as UVD2 until Catalyst 10-8, so something changed there. Oddly enough, I don't see a bug report for it on AMD's bugzilla, but it's a well-known issue.

You're guess is as good as anyone's when/if it will be fixed.

[nefan]

On my HP dm1 with AMD Fusion, I installed libva1, libva1-dev, and vlc from https://launchpad.net/~dtl131/+archive/catalysthacks and xvba_video from http://www.splitted-desktop.com/~gbe...ne/xvba-video/ . After adding a symlink and setting LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME to fglrx (or xvba), vainfo works and gives

ibva: libva version 0.32.0-sds2
libva: User requested driver 'fglrx'
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/va/drivers/fglrx_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA API version: 0.32
vainfo: Driver version: Splitted-Desktop Systems XvBA backend for VA-API - 0.7.8
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD


However, vlc fails to use va-api and outputs

libva: libva version 0.32.0-sds2
libva: User requested driver 'fglrx'
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/va/drivers/fglrx_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
[0x3460300] avcodec decoder warning: Failed to open VA API


Any ideas?

[wringles]

However, vlc fails to use va-api and outputs

libva: libva version 0.32.0-sds2
libva: User requested driver 'fglrx'
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/va/drivers/fglrx_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
[0x3460300] avcodec decoder warning: Failed to open VA API


Any ideas?

Ok, this is a very idiotic question, but have you already installed fglrx? I'd used the method you have described, and (crazily) the drivers in catalyst-hacks do not depend on fglrx.

[nefan]

thanks, but fglrx is installed. /usr/lib/va/drivers/fglrx_drv_video.so is a symlink to xvba_drv_video.so - I'm not sure if that is right. If I set LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME to xvba instead of fglrx, I get

libva: libva version 0.32.0-sds2
libva: User requested driver 'xvba'
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/va/drivers/xvba_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0

i.e, it now tries to open /usr/lib/va/drivers/xvba_drv_video.so . I'm not sure I use LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME correctly but if I don't set it, vlc segfaults.