XVBA / VAAPI support / linux AMD hardware decode

[gr4vy]

Hi there,

got to test the In-Home streaming yesterday, thanks alot for the invite so far :)

My setup is as follows:

Streaming host:
i5 3570K
16 GB RAM
Radeon HD7950
Windows 8.1

Streaming client:
AMD E350 APU 1,6 GHz Dualcore (integrated HD6310)
4 GB RAM
Ubuntu 12.04.4

Both systems are connected to a Linksys 1 GBit/s switch.

Streaming performance is very poor, i am assuming that's because hardware decoding is not yet available for AMD GPUs.

/tmp/streaming_client.log states the following:
Wed Feb 05 19:56:39 2014 UTC - VDPAU init failed: GL_NV_vdpau_interop not available on current context
Wed Feb 05 19:56:39 2014 UTC - libavcodec software decoding with 1 thread

Is there already an estimated date when XVBA (or VAAPI) decoding will be available?

Any comment would be appreciated!

Regards,
Markus

[Lord Protector]

I just got a HTPC with AMD A4-5000 (integrated AMD Radeon™ HD 8330) and hardware decoding is not working with SteamOS (alchemist) but works like a charm with windows 7 :(. I hope they solve the linux issue soon.

[blackout24]

kiM|i님이 먼저 게시:

i have 2 netbooks, one with NVIDIA ION and the other with AMD C70/HD 6290. Both run with arch linux and vdpau.

On the Nvidia Ion netbook steam in-home streaming works good 30-60 fps.

But on the AMD C70/HD 6290 it is very poor, i have only 1-13 fps.

i have the same error " VDPAU init failed: Couldn't create VdpDevice"

Could you post your vdpauinfo for the NVIDIA ION netbook?

[Corben]

Just changed my AMD card in my HTPC to my nVidia card. Here is my vdpauinfo output:

display: :0   screen: 0
API version: 1
Information string: NVIDIA VDPAU Driver Shared Library  331.20  Wed Oct 30 17:39:35 PDT 2013

Video surface:

name   width height types
-------------------------------------------
420     4096  4096  NV12 YV12 
422     4096  4096  UYVY YUYV 

Decoder capabilities:

name               level macbs width height
-------------------------------------------
MPEG1                 0  8192  2048  2048
MPEG2_SIMPLE          3  8192  2048  2048
MPEG2_MAIN            3  8192  2048  2048
H264_MAIN            41  8192  2048  2048
H264_HIGH            41  8192  2048  2048
VC1_SIMPLE            1  8190  2048  2048
VC1_MAIN              2  8190  2048  2048
VC1_ADVANCED          4  8190  2048  2048
MPEG4_PART2_SP        3  8192  2048  2048
MPEG4_PART2_ASP       5  8192  2048  2048
DIVX4_QMOBILE         0  8192  2048  2048
DIVX4_MOBILE          [phone]
DIVX4_HOME_THEATER    0  8192  2048  2048
DIVX4_HD_1080P        0  8192  2048  2048
DIVX5_QMOBILE         0  8192  2048  2048
DIVX5_MOBILE          [phone]
DIVX5_HOME_THEATER    0  8192  2048  2048
DIVX5_HD_1080P        0  8192  2048  2048

Output surface:

name              width height nat types
----------------------------------------------------
B8G8R8A8          8192  8192    y  Y8U8V8A8 V8U8Y8A8 
R10G10B10A2       8192  8192    y  Y8U8V8A8 V8U8Y8A8 

Bitmap surface:

name              width height
------------------------------
B8G8R8A8          8192  8192
R8G8B8A8          8192  8192
R10G10B10A2       8192  8192
B10G10R10A2       8192  8192
A8                8192  8192

Video mixer:

feature name                    sup
------------------------------------
DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL             y
DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL_SPATIAL     y
INVERSE_TELECINE                 y
NOISE_REDUCTION                  y
SHARPNESS                        y
LUMA_KEY                         y
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L1        y
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L2        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L3        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L4        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L5        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L6        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L7        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L8        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L9        -

parameter name                  sup      min      max
-----------------------------------------------------
VIDEO_SURFACE_WIDTH              y         1     4096
VIDEO_SURFACE_HEIGHT             y         1     4096
CHROMA_TYPE                      y  
LAYERS                           y         0        4

attribute name                  sup      min      max
-----------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND_COLOR                 y  
CSC_MATRIX                       y  
NOISE_REDUCTION_LEVEL            y      0.00     1.00
SHARPNESS_LEVEL                  y     -1.00     1.00
LUMA_KEY_MIN_LUMA                y  
LUMA_KEY_MAX_LUMA                y  

Steam streaming is working with hardware acceleration:

VDPAU hardware decoding

But playing is still not quite enjoyable yet. It depends on the game though, some are "playable" (Braid, FEZ) others not really (Super Meat Boy, Bit.Trip Runner 2). Some don't get the Xbox 360 Controller (Race The Sun, Hoard), but that's a different story.

[gr4vy]

I just compared Corben's vdpauinfo output from NVIDIA to mine on AMD and couldn't find any relevant differences.
NVIDIA also does VDPAU acceleration for DivX, but i highly doubt that matters.
One thing i noted though is the min value for VIDEO_SURFACE_WIDTH, NVIDIA states 1, with AMD it is 48, i'm not sure if this is related at all.

Could we maybe get an official statement regarding HW acceleration with AMD on Linux please?

Thanks in advance!

[blackout24]

Nice! Steam Streaming is progressing at an astonishing rate. Does slouken ever sleep?

[Lord Protector]

Isn't this related to AES decryption? Why would they put under All Platforms and not In-Home Streaming

[Corben]

Argh, instead of editing my post I accidently deleted it :-/

Newest beta client update could help:

Slouken님이 먼저 게시:

Steam Client Beta Update - Feb 17
We have just updated the beta with the following changes:

All Platforms
Added support for hardware-accelerated decryption on modern Intel and AMD CPUs

At first I read GPU instead of CPU...
Nevertheless, it is not stated what kind of decryption is ment. I'm wondering why there should be cipher decryption within the steam client? Are the binaries encrypted?

[blackout24]

Maybe he means CPU->iGPU.

[Lord Protector]

I doubt it, it even says decryption and not decoding...

[kwahoo]

Decryption? AES-NI?

[Corben]

Let's hope they also issue hardware accelerated decoding now, especially for AMD cards on Linux

Hold onto your hats![http//%27http]

slouken님이 먼저 게시:

Don't be surprised if the updates slow down for a bit. We're revamping the architecture to reduce latency and support hardware accelerated encoding.

Cheers!

The mentioned decryption above is surely not video decoding related

[gr4vy]

Not sure if this announcement is hat-holding-worthy, since it's talking about ENcoding, and we're having a DEcoding problem :(

[danman]

The thing is that VA-API can use different backends for hardware acceleration, VDPAU being one of them. So if they implemented the former, they'd automatically support more hardware (namely Intel, Broadcom, ...) then when just supporting VDPAU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Acceleration_API
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/vaapi/

[gr4vy]

danman님이 먼저 게시:

The thing is that VA-API can use different backends for hardware acceleration, VDPAU being one of them. So if they implemented the former, they'd automatically support more hardware (namely Intel, Broadcom, ...) then when just supporting VDPAU.

That's correct.
But it seems that VDPAU support via VAAPI doesn't work with Steam Inhome-Streaming (when using the proprietary fglrx driver), since the necessary GL extension GL_NV_vdpau_interop isn't available.

When using the open-source radeon driver, VDPAU is natively available without going through VAAPI.

Still, Steam isn't able to use VDPAU on AMD with the open source driver.

[danman]

For the proprietary AMD driver, you'd have to use VAAPIs XvBA backend driver instead of VDPAU.