VDPAU
| Summary |
|---|
| Explains VDPAU support in various hardware and software components |
| Related |
| VA-API |
| XvMC |
Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix is an open source library and API to offload portions of the video decoding process and video post-processing to the GPU video-hardware.
Contents |
Supported hardware
Open source drivers:
- AMD Radeon 9500 and newer GPUs are supported by the ati-dri package, available in the official repositories.
- Intel GMA 4500 series and newer GPUs are supported by the libvdpau-va-gl package (available in the AUR) together with the libva-intel-driver.
- NVIDIA GeForce 400 series and newer GPUs are supported by the nouveau-dri package, available in the official repositories. It uses the nouveau-fw package, which contains the required firmware to operate that is presently extracted from the NVIDIA binary driver.
Proprietary drivers:
- AMD Radeon HD 4000 series and newer GPUs are supported by the libvdpau-va-gl package (available in the AUR) together with the libva-xvba-driver package. It uses the catalyst-utils driver for Radeon HD 5000 series and newer, and catalyst-legacy-utils for Radeon HD 4000 series.
- NVIDIA GeForce 8 series and newer GPUs are supported by the nvidia-utils package, available in the official repositories.
Supported formats
| ati-dri | libvdpau-va-gl with libva-intel-driver | nouveau-dri | libvdpau-va-gl with libva-xvba-driver | nvidia-utils | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MPEG2 decoding | AMD Radeon 9500 and newer | Intel GMA 4500 and newer | Nvidia GeForce 400 and newer | AMD Radeon HD 4000 and newer | Nvidia GeForce 8 and newer |
| MPEG4 decoding | AMD Radeon HD 6000 and newer | - | Nvidia GeForce 400 and newer | AMD Radeon HD 6000 and newer | Nvidia GeForce 200 and newer |
| H264 decoding | AMD Radeon HD 4000 and newer | Intel GMA 45001, Ironlake Graphics and newer | Nvidia GeForce 400 and newer | AMD Radeon HD 4000 and newer | Nvidia GeForce 8 and newer |
| VC1 decoding | AMD Radeon HD 4000 and newer | Intel Sandy Bridge Graphics and newer | Nvidia GeForce 400 and newer | AMD Radeon HD 4000 and newer | Nvidia GeForce 8 and newer |
1Supported by the libva-driver-intel-g45-h264 package. See H.264 decoding on GMA 4500 for instructions and caveats.
Configuration
The libvdpau-va-gl driver (for Intel Graphics or AMD Catalyst) needs to be enabled manually. To enable it, create the following file:
/etc/profile.d/vdpau_vaapi.sh
#!/bin/sh export VDPAU_DRIVER=va_gl
make it executable:
# chmod +x /etc/profile.d/vdpau_vaapi.sh
and reboot or relogin.
In order to check what features are supported by your GPU, run the following command, which provided by the vdpauinfo package:
$ vdpauinfo
Supported software
Adobe Flash Player
In order to enable hardware based video decoding, add the following line to the /etc/adobe/mms.cfg file:
EnableLinuxHWVideoDecode=1
MPlayer
Install mplayer or mplayer2 package, available in the official repositories.
$ mplayer -vo vdpau, -vc ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffh264vdpau,ffodivxvdpau, foobar.mpeg
- -vo - Select vdpau video output driver
- -vc - Select vdpau video codecs
MPlayer based players:
- gnome-mplayer: to enable hardware acceleration:
Edit -> Preferences -> Player, then set Video Output to "vdpau". - smplayer: to enable hardware acceleration:
Options -> Preferences -> General -> Video, then set Output driver to "vdpau".
VLC media player
Install vlc package, available in the official repositories.
To enable hardware acceleration: Tools -> Preferences -> Input & Codecs, then set Hardware-accelerated decoding to "Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU)".