AMD's UVD2-based XvBA Finally Does Something On Linux

[gbeauche]

I get LOWER CPU usage then with "-vo vaapi".. how is that possible?

GL : ~15% CPU usage
VAAPI : ~25% CPU usage

You are not using it correctly. The correct invocation is -vo vaapi -va vaapi, i.e. you forgot the -va vaapi part.

Also i get some tearing with VAAPI which i don't get with GL...

Yes, depending on the driver version, the size of the clip and if it is displayed fullscreen or windowed, it's necessary to glFlush() when the scene is rendered. -vo vaapi:gl -va vaapi might help instead but I am not sure if I'd want to directly glFlush() in xvba-video because I consider this as a driver bug. IIRC, I had such a heuristic before but I got bored because it was not reliable, so I dropped it.

[bridgman]

GIVE ME AN EDIT FUNCTION PLEASE!

Delete and repost. It's like turning right three times instead of turning left but it works.

[markg85]

You are not using it correctly. The correct invocation is -vo vaapi -va vaapi, i.e. you forgot the -va vaapi part.



Yes, depending on the driver version, the size of the clip and if it is displayed fullscreen or windowed, it's necessary to glFlush() when the scene is rendered. -vo vaapi:gl -va vaapi might help instead but I am not sure if I'd want to directly glFlush() in xvba-video because I consider this as a driver bug. IIRC, I had such a heuristic before but I got bored because it was not reliable, so I dropped it.

what is that -va? (video acceleration??) It's not documented on the mplayer man (or i missed it). Why isn't -vo vaapi good enough?

Oh wow, that -va vaapi certainly did the trick. CPU usage now is way lower and a line like this is in the mplayer output as well:

VO: [vaapi] 1920x796 => 1920x796 H.264 VA-API Acceleration [fs]

However, a few other issues popped up.

1. I had one full system crash when playing windowed -- i had to reboot since no input was getting through
2. once the video closed my screen was all scatered with artifacts.. i had to do CTRL + F1 then back to the GUI (CTRL + F7) to get that fixed

So, please keep working on this and keep improving it. It seems like it's all nearly there but just not good enough to use in "production".

@bridgeman, you seem awefully silent about the question to get this VA-API stuff working on the evergreen series.. Could you please comment on that (in detail!)

[monraaf]

@bridgeman, you seem awefully silent about the question to get this VA-API stuff working on the evergreen series.. Could you please comment on that (in detail!)

Yaeh. Maybe it's time for phoronix to do an article about XvBA or more general video decode acceleration on Linux. And point out how broken it is on Evergreen cards. Something like "The Evergreen XvBA disaster".

[Kano]

@bridgman

Why don't publish xvba headers in oder to user vaapi without opengl?

[bridgman]

@bridgeman, you seem awefully silent about the question to get this VA-API stuff working on the evergreen series.. Could you please comment on that (in detail!)

The discussion is over here :

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23468&page=16

I probably posted a half dozen times yesterday on this issue alone. If that is what you call silent I would hate to see what you call "chatty"

[markg85]

You where silent in here about the subject
But thanx for the pointer. Lets continue the conversation there.

[bridgman]

I started a new thread in the ATI/AMD forum :

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24427

[gbeauche]

xvba-video 0.7.1

Hi,

A new version of xvba-video, the XvBA backend to VA-API, is now available at:

http://www.splitted-desktop.com/~gbeauchesne/xvba-video/

Version 0.7.1 - 09.Jul.2010
* Drop explicit link against libva
* Add compatibility glue with original VA-API 0.31.0
* Fix regression when rendering to a GL_RGBA texture
* Fix rendering of subpictures with size mod 16 != 0

Version 0.7.0 - 08.Jul.2010
* Add support for VA-API 0.31.1-sds1
* Requires fglrx driver version >= 8.69.2
* Fix VA/GLX to preserve caller's GL context
* Fix vaCopySurfaceGLX() to handle GL_RGBA8 textures
* Fix output surface creation code to detect errors

Since 0.7.x removes some obsolete workarounds or other hacks to silly bugs, there may be some regressions. This is why a 0.6.12 version is available and also to cope with the latest VA-API 0.31.x.

Version 0.6.12 - 09.Jul.2010
* Add support for VA-API 0.31.1-sds1
* Fix vaCopySurfaceGLX() to handle GL_RGBA8 textures
* Fix output surface creation code to detect errors

There are still many bugs and other suboptimal paths in XvBA but I can't do anything with them. Just be patient or buy another card.

[DivineGrace]

Thanks for your time and efforts, gbeauche.
I appreciate your hard work spent on this project, because my notebook GPU finally works with XvBA!