Experimental VA-API Implemented Over NVIDIA's NVDEC - Allows Firefox Video Acceleration

[Mark Rose]

I just want to watch 4k YouTube videos smoothly.

[aufkrawall]

this is one of the biggest gatekeepers from making linux a mainstream desktop.

Are you aware that there is exactly 0 hardware decoding in the Windows version of Chrome for (laughably) copy protected content on streaming sites? Widevine decoding is entirely on the CPU. Hardware decoding doesn't even work for Disney+ even in Edge, you need the Microsoft Store app. It is not a clusterf*ck only on Linux.

I probably should try out this wrapper, but I hate NVDEC putting the GPU into energy wasting CUDA pstate 2. And I also hate booting Linux with Nvidia in general...

[piotrj3]

So much work just to work around nvidias shitty proprietary driver and its shitty custom interfaces.
If I had a shot for every driver bug workaround in desktops/compositors/display-servers and programs just to get it working on this shitty non compliant driver, I would have fully destroyed my liver and probably be dead from alcohol poisoning not even half way through.

Too bad.

so much work - relativly small codebase.

So much work *checks what you need to do to make Firefox/Chromium based browsers work with hardware acceleration on AMD and Intel and compares that to additional work that Nvidia needs* ... oh gosh so basicly 5 steps tutorial becomes 7 steps! Soooo much tiring work for Nvidia users here. I am sooo damn tired.

Seriously, the biggest issue is that neither Firefox, neither Chromium supports Vaapi (or any other) decoding on linux by default, only with specially crafted settings you mostly set yourself and this is one of the biggest gatekeepers from making linux a mainstream desktop.

[smitty3268]

I never understood why Nvidia felt like removing VDPAU. They could have just kept it as it was, perhaps in deprecated/legacy mode or something

I have my suspicions it's because AMD started using it on Linux, and it was a way for them to screw with AMD.

[sl1pkn07]

another gscancerware....

[evilryry]

I'd be happy if VA-API just worked reliably out of the box on Intel in Firefox.

[Quackdoc]

well this is nice for those who need it

[birdie]

So much work just to work around nvidias shitty proprietary driver and its shitty custom interfaces.
If I had a shot for every driver bug workaround in desktops/compositors/display-servers and programs just to get it working on this shitty non compliant driver, I would have fully destroyed my liver and probably be dead from alcohol poisoning not even half way through.

Too bad.

Yeah, too bad when it already works:

https://cgit.freedesktop.org/vaapi/vdpau-driver

https://github.com/xtknight/vdpau-va-driver-vp9

[Termy]

VDPAU is a very X11 centric API and X11 is well.... deadbeef.

It's not like "caring for wayland" is an excuse nvidia could bring up for anything

[Hibbelharry]

Hopefully this will make more people use VA-API instead of NVENC, but not holding my breath.

All proprietary consumer codecs must die.

We're talking interfaces here, not codecs, codecs are accessed via defined interfaces and a totally different beast,

I never understood why Nvidia felt like removing VDPAU. They could have just kept it as it was, perhaps in deprecated/legacy mode or something

VDPAU is a very X11 centric API and X11 is well.... deadbeef.

VA-API is more universal across both X11 and wayland, but they just never got into that and did - once again - their own thing.