Score:3

Ubuntu

How can I tell if Ubuntu driver is using integrated graphics GPU to hardware decode HEVC when playing videos using VLC?

deanresin

3/13/24, 12:14 AM

I've found that VLC uses ~17% CPU for x264 FHD videos, ~28% for HEVC FHD videos, and ~80% for HEVC 4k videos.

sudo lshw -c video

produces..

  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Cezanne
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       logical name: /dev/fb0
       version: c3
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi msix vga_controller bus_master cap_list fb
       configuration: depth=32 driver=amdgpu latency=0 resolution=3840,2160
       resources: irq:40 memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:e0000000-e01fffff ioport:e000(size=256) memory:fcc00000-fcc7ffff

Processor: AMD® Ryzen 5 5560u with radeon graphics × 12

Graphics: RENOIR (renoir, LLVM 15.0.6, DRM 3.47, 5.19.0-35-generic)

2152

2 + 0

integrated

hevc

amd-ryzen

Score:5

Ubuntu

deanresin

3/13/24, 3:06 AM

The solution for me was...

sudo apt remove vlc

then...

sudo apt install mpv

I now get consistent ~8% CPU usage playing UHD HEVC videos vs. ~80% with VLC.

+ 6

pts

3/13/24, 12:43 PM

No need to remove `vlc`, `mpv` can use hardware acceleration even if VLC is still installed.

Peter Cordes

3/13/24, 5:38 PM

You probably also want to edit `~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf` or `~/.mpv/mpv.conf` with `profile=gpu-hq` and `hwdec=auto` if not already enabled. I've been using MPV for years, so I don't know how much of my config file is still needed, but I also had to set `hwdec-codecs=hevc,vp8,vp9,mpeg1video,mpeg2video,h264,vc1,wmv3` which is appropriate for my Skylake iGPU. (I much prefer MPV to VLC anyway, with good key-binds for accurate seeking and single-stepping fwd / backward, and very fast startup from the command line.)

AndreKR

3/13/24, 8:02 PM

@pts Simply removing VLC is probably easier than finding out how that particular Linux desktop environment handles file type associations.

deanresin

3/14/24, 6:16 AM

@PeterCordes I didn't need to specify hardware decoding in the conf file. It just did it automatically.

Peter Cordes

3/14/24, 11:52 AM

@deanresin: IIRC, an old version of MPV maybe didn't do it by default for *all* the relevant codecs, like maybe by default for H.264 and H.265, but IIRC it wasn't doing HW decode for VC1 / WMV3 without manual config. Hopefully that's changed now, and it will HW decode for anything your HW supports.

Peter Cordes

3/14/24, 2:18 PM

Also, `profile=gpu-hq` is a good idea for video quality if your video hardware is fast enough, if the default is only `gpu`. It'll use a higher-quality scaling algorithm. (You might need to use a faster scaler for 2160p60 videos, if it can't push that many pixels.) That's separate from enabling HW decoding.

Score:5

Ubuntu

Generic User

3/13/24, 12:46 AM

To simply cite another site:

In Settings/Preferences
look for Input/Codecs tab
check out the option Hardware-accelerated decoding
select the Automatic option and you are fine

( please comment if you have trouble ;) )

+ 1

deanresin

3/13/24, 1:58 AM

I disabled it and I was still getting ~80% CPU usage playing a HEVC 4k video which leads me to believe it is not using hardware acceleration.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How can I tell if Ubuntu driver is using integrated graphics GPU to hardware decode HEVC when playing videos using VLC?

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