Open-Source Radeon UVD Video Support On Fedora

[Awesomeness]

Hardware acceleration is the difference between being able to watch hd movies on lower power apus or not. My brazos system simply cannot handle 720p movies via software decoding, while via uvd even 1080p is a breeze.

How bad are these things? My laptop is 5 years old. Core2 Duo CPU. Software decoding of a 720p clip uses roughly 30% of the CPU.
My original intention with my comment was that getting VDPAU to work seems too complicated that it would be worth the effort until the patch lands in Linux distributions. Living with 30% CPU usage for a few more months seemed OK but if AMD APUs are really this bad, I can understand why everybody is so eager to get this to work.
Too bad compiling this stuff will take ages on those things…

[Ericg]

So, which system with supported GPUs is too slow for CPUs to handle the videos?

Its more an issue of efficiency, the UVD can rip through video in a fraction of the time that a Shader could do it. Also ARM devices would suck up more power (which defeats the purpose of having ARM). What this comes down to is "We have this dedicated hardware for a reason. Lets use it, and reap the benefits OF using it."

[Figueiredo]

So, which system with supported GPUs is too slow for CPUs to handle the videos?

Hardware acceleration is the difference between being able to watch hd movies on lower power apus or not. My brazos system simply cannot handle 720p movies via software decoding, while via uvd even 1080p is a breeze. Obviously i'm still tied to frglx due to lack of dynamic power management though.

[Ericg]

Yeah that's the #1 reason I have to stick to the proprietary drivers on my desktop and notebook systems. Although I think bridgman said they have something in the pipeline, held back by legal reviews as usual.

If I remember right... the code's been written, the documentation has been sanitized, its just sitting on legal's desk

[Wilfred]

And now a manual for both radeonsi and uvd. I guess we'll just have to wait.

[d2kx]

If only laptop users could use the open source driver at all. Without power management my laptop overheats to shutdown even with low profile AND doing nothing graphically intensive.

Yeah that's the #1 reason I have to stick to the proprietary drivers on my desktop and notebook systems. Although I think bridgman said they have something in the pipeline, held back by legal reviews as usual.

[chris200x9]

Heat vents blocked? Fan not working? I've had a mid range radeon HD 4xxx series card powered by the open source driver for along time. Fan kicks in when its not in sleep mode or totally idle, but it doesnt overheat

It's possible, it doesn't over heat with fglrx though so I'm assuming no.

[Ericg]

If only laptop users could use the open source driver at all. Without power management my laptop overheats to shutdown even with low profile AND doing nothing graphically intensive.

Heat vents blocked? Fan not working? I've had a mid range radeon HD 4xxx series card powered by the open source driver for along time. Fan kicks in when its not in sleep mode or totally idle, but it doesnt overheat

[chris200x9]

Its more a question of watt efficiency. Ive underclocked and undervolted my cpu so its passively cooled and silent for HTPC use, and I imagine laptop users are pretty happy with this also...

If only laptop users could use the open source driver at all. Without power management my laptop overheats to shutdown even with low profile AND doing nothing graphically intensive.

[crispy]

So, which system with supported GPUs is too slow for CPUs to handle the videos?

Its more a question of watt efficiency. Ive underclocked and undervolted my cpu so its passively cooled and silent for HTPC use, and I imagine laptop users are pretty happy with this also...