Don't Keep Dreaming For Linux Video Improvements On Intel's Old Platforms

[avph]

On g45 h264 accel works perfectly fine (even 1080p) with the vaapi-g45 branch on the condition the the preallocated vram is high enough (default is 32M, it works fine with 256M or more). This can only be set by the BIOS. I think the Intel vaapi devs oversaw this and therefor never mainlined vaapi-g45. I suspect a similar vram issue is present on Ironlake.

A sidenote can also be made about graphic performance about g45 in games. Increasing vram from default 32M to 256M can result in x2 or even x3 fps in some games.

[Gusar]

I have no problem with 1080p VAAPI decoding on my Ironlake machine, so while I don't doubt that the bug is real, it's not universal for all Ironlake systems. What I did notice recently is that hq scaling doesn't work, but I can't remember if that ever worked on Ironlake

[avph]

I have no problem with 1080p VAAPI decoding on my Ironlake machine, so while I don't doubt that the bug is real, it's not universal for all Ironlake systems. What I did notice recently is that hq scaling doesn't work, but I can't remember if that ever worked on Ironlake

You can see the amount of preallocated vram with 'dmesg | grep stolen', if it is sufficiently high, decoding won't have issues. This is something only the bios can set.

[Passso]

it's the nature of the hardware, i guess. it becomes obsolete with time.

i actually have a paperweigh gma500 based tablet at home. i know the support for it won't ever get any better, so it's going to be dismantled one day for spare parts.

Before 2010 hardware was unusable very fast because of performance increase at every generation: every 18 month power was x2

But nowadays you still can use a 2011 proc with no problem for a daily use, so support period should be increased.

Now ofc it costs money and prevent selling other procs so I understand Intel and AMD

[Dea1993]

now i understand why my old notebook with i3 380m and gt540m wasn't able to reproduce fluent fullhd video with intel HD GPU xD

[ferry]

vaapi is only very important on slow CPU's like atom based. So for gma500 (FitPC) this is a problem that will never be solved. But for E3815 (NUC) vaapi is working fine for 1080p playback with MPV. Not good enough with VLC unfortunately, but that is because VLC feels the need to 'improve' video beyond repair. NUC 720p will work though.

[milkylainen]

I would say: If you've got Intel GFX you can stop waiting for drivers to become anything else than useless shit.

[Tomin]

Assuming you have a Nehalem-era desktop system with these graphics, I would recommend upgrading to even a very low-end discrete GPU that doesn't even require an external power connector. For example, a GTX-1050 if you want to be modern would provide all the video playback capabilities you want and a massive improvement in graphics performance too.

Heh, you make it sound like GTX 1050 is very low end, when it really isn't and you probably didn't mean that either. I think even some low end AMD (or Nvidia if you can stand proprietary drivers) for less than 50 € (or 50 $ or whatever similar) would be a good upgrade over ironlake graphics in all respects. In this case I think it doesn't even matter if it's pre-GCN, because if one was happy with that ironlake, then they'll be happy with whatever can be bought from a store nowadays.

[Gusar]

Not good enough with VLC unfortunately, but that is because VLC feels the need to 'improve' video beyond repair.

Not sure what you mean here, the actual issue is that the VLC devs haven't implemented zero-copy VAAPI support. Though the interesting thing here would be to know why. There was a presentation some time ago with a slide that listed all sorts of zero-copy stuff happening for VLC 3. VAAPI was not on that list. Ok, VAAPI is not the prettiest API, but mpv manages (after a lot of pain and swearing in the commit messages , but still).

[e8hffff]

Intel is acting like a two bit company, not a massive player in the silicon market. I don't own that hardware but just fix the damn thing. If you don't have the staff, get more. Ridiculous.