[mythtv-users] mythtv and intel on CPU graphics

[Karl Newman]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 8:24 AM, Jean-Yves Avenard <jyavenard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14 June 2012 22:46, John Nissley <jnissley at nissley.org> wrote:
>> This is my first venture into graphics other than nvidia since it appears
>> that intel graphics has come a long way I thought I would give it a try.
>>
>> I started with a fresh fedora 16 build so really no xorg configuration to
>> speak of and the video works and the CPU is only running between 50 and 70
>> percent on opengl playback however I would really like to use the intel
>> acceleration however can not really seem to figure out how to do that
>> because every time I start messing with the xorg config my screen will blank
>> after 10 minutes even after I disable all screen saving measures in KDE and
>> start mythfrontend with xset dpms force on and xset s off.
>>
>> I have tried using the VAAPI Normal setting in the video set up since I read
>> that is for the intel graphics however using that setting uses as much CPU
>> as the High Quality video setting.
>
> if VAAPI isn't working, it will default back to a standard profile.
> Check the log for any errors and anything related to VAAPI, did you
> actually install the VAAPI intel drivers?
> is libva installed?
>
> what does vainfo returns? if you see an error there, you haven't
> installed the required packages for vaapi to work properly

You probably need mesa installed for the intel opengl drivers, and the
X11 driver xf86-video-intel. Also be sure you have OpenGL set as the
GUI renderer (or Auto should work, too, if your OpenGL is set up
correctly). I had it set to QT to try to work around a black screen on
screensaver problem, but then VAAPI failed with the unfriendly error
message "Video Buffering failed too many times" or something like
that. The log showed the real reason, though.

BTW, this is what vainfo returns on my system (Gentoo):

libva: VA-API version 0.33.0
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib64/va/drivers/i965_drv_video.so
libva: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_33
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.33 (libva 1.1.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver - 1.0.18
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Baseline           : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Baseline           : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD

With 1 core enabled for decoding, VAAPI runs about 7% CPU decoding SD
NTSC MPEG2 on my Sandy Bridge Core i3-2120T.

Karl