Vaapi not working in Ubuntu 13.04

Question

I have a Dell Vostro 1014 having GMA 4500 mhd. I have installed vaapi driver but it shows that it supports Mpeg2 acceleration only.

Actually I want to use it for playing full HD video that takes 30-35% CPU on playback while Windows 7 using dxva keeps it around 4-8%.

When I run vainfo it shows:

libva info: VA-API version 0.33.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_33
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.33 (libva 1.1.1)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver - 1.0.20
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD

H264 is missing from the list.

Solution 1

SOLUTION I have a intel g45 4500mhd graphics card.

add the following ppa ppa:wsnipex/vaapi

open terminal

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libva1 libva-intel-vaapi-driver vainfo 
sudo apt-get upgrade

mkdir temp
cd temp
sudo apt-get build-dep libva
sudo apt-get install libx11-dev libtool libdrm-dev build-essential autoconf libva-dev

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/vaapi/intel-driver intel-driver -b g45-h264
cd intel-driver
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

Execute the commands above one by one.Check if you really don't get any error or warning. if so, do as follows

 cd ..
rm -r intel-driver

install all missing packages ( you have to find out which is missing by the missing command in the error messages)

start over at the git clone command

My vainfo output:

~/tmp/intel-driver $ vainfo
libva info: VA-API version 0.34.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_34
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.34 (libva 1.2.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver - 1.2.1.pre1
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Baseline           : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD

1080p works with the smplayer version mentioned here but cpu usage is up to 60% on both cpus. but it's less than befor.

vlc somehow does not work, only have glitchy pics sometimes wird hw accell enabled. works without but high cpu usage then.

---

From here old stuff

This does not help.

Sadly the h264 decoding profiles are not activated for the intel 4500mhd chip. It is activated in the g45 h264 branch of the git repository of the intel drivers, but sadly they don't check it in the main.

Some time ago amnually compiling worked for me, but i've tried that the last to days again and can't make it work again.

---

even the drivers from

https://launchpad.net/~wsnipex/+archive/vaapi

do not activate the h264 support for the 4500mhd

---

libva info: VA-API version 0.34.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_34
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.34 (libva 1.2.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver - 1.2.0
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD 

---

maybe a more experienced linux user can try the instructions here

http://www.emmolution.org/?p=192

and can edit it to work on 13.04. i'm not totally new to linux but would prefer a simple step by step solution also.

Solution 2

Is there a power saving application similar to Jupiter?

for Intel GPUs (for Intel HD Graphics as well as G45 and later):

 sudo apt-get install i965-va-driver libva-intel-vaapi-driver vainfo

Install MPlayer with VA-API support in Ubuntu

By default, the MPlayer version available in the official Ubuntu repositories doesn't support VA-API, but you can use a PPA which provides custom MPlayer builds with VA-API support.

 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sander-vangrieken/vaapi
 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get install mplayer-vaapi

Now you need to install smplayer or vlc

 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get install smplayer

OR

 sudo apt-get install vlc vlc-plugin-pulse mozilla-plugin-vlc

Configuration

SMPLAYER

Its in Option tab > Preferences, on the Video tab > General Video > Output driver set the video output driver to "vaapi":

VLC

Its in Tools > Preferences > Input & Codecs > Enable Use GPU Accelerated decoding

Comments

[Timo]

this seems promising cgit.freedesktop.org/vaapi/intel-driver/commit/…

[Alaa Ali]

Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! Ask Ubuntu is a question and answer site, so we like to post answers that attempt to solve the question. If you have the same issue, you can "star" the question as a favorite and you will be notified of any new answers. With a bit more reputation, you will be able to post comments on other people's questions. If the "vaapi/intel-driver" link you posted has an answer, edit your question to include steps on how to implement/install this fix.

[gertvdijk]

This is almost an answer, though. One will just have build the VAAPI stuff and drivers with the patches in that branch. If those instructions are provided then it is an answer imo.

[Timo]

I've tried to compile them and install them as the instruction say here emmolution.org/?p=192, ut started with several compiling problems and missing packages, after 3 tries i gave up. i t ended for me to reinstall linux because the drivers were messed up and vainfo wasn't even able to give info.

[Pulkit609]

This doesn't work for GM-45 chips