Chromium hardware-accelerated build for Intel-based platforms available for beta testing

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22

Thank you a lot for the additional help! I installed the Chrome extension, and play the same video - as a result, both the Video and VideoEnhance processes are now under load.

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1 Like
23

Please, can you help me? Now I faced a strange problem. Looks like Ubuntu (Iā€™m using 23.04 version) by default updated the Chromium browser from the latest/candidate/hwacc channel to stable one or other version.

I didnā€™t catch the notification, but I clear remember, that there was notification like: Close the Chromium browser, update is available, 13 days left or something like that.

I uploaded a screenshot from the About Chromium page. Version 115.0.5790.98 (Official Build) snap (64-bit) - itā€™s the same version?

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image1366Ɨ768 92 KB

Now, when playing any YouTube videos, both Video and VideoEnhance show 0% load. Overall, Iā€™ve noticed that the CPU load and temperature have increased, similar to when Iā€™m using Firefox before.

I also tried using the command:: snap refresh chromium --channel=latest/candidate/hwacc that gives me no result, it says: snap "chromium" has no updates available

24

Uff, I apologize. Your diagnose is accurate.

Those branches have an expiration time of 30 days (no way around that) and I forgot to bump this one to keep it alive.

This is fixed now.

That said, just as additional information, in the snap world you can always use snap revert {snap-name} when you detect that a refresh caused problems and you want to go back to the previously installed revision.

And also edge/hwacc is where development happens so it is ā€œnaturallyā€ bumped from time to time so that problem doesnā€™t happen there.

25

Thank you, I understand. Although, Iā€™m not a very technical user)

I installed back the browser using command: snap refresh chromium --channel=latest/candidate/hwacc, now everything works as it was previously.

I think this version of Chrome should be pushed to the stable branch as soon as possible. Many Intel users with low spec laptops will benefit a lot from this update, and I can confirm that!

26

Great, and thanks for the report!

Today I merged this version of Chromium into the edge channel, so the next edge version (i.e. > 116.0.5845.42) will have it enabled if all goes right.

Then it will be beta and only then stable.

2 Likes
28

If there is va-api support there must be very little work to just not blacklist AMD hardwareā€¦?

29

What do you mean with blacklist AMD hardware?

30

The official latest/edge channel has now x64 is in 117 and with hwacc merged.

If you saw my previous comment announcing this, it is now deleted as I had to revert it because of LP:2028653.

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31

I mean itā€™s libva and Linux DRM driversā€¦ Is there any other reason why itā€™s not working on AMD than simply that itā€™s only been enabled for Intel nowā€¦ ?

32

@ernstp: The original project was to get it working specifically on Intel hardware. AMD has not been disabled in any way, itā€™s just not been tested. If you have AMD hardware and think you have a VA-API driver that should work then please log a bug against that driver.

There doesnā€™t seem to be any independent driver for AMD that I can see:

$ apt depends va-driver-all 
va-driver-all
 |Depends: i965-va-driver
  Depends: i965-va-driver-shaders
 |Depends: intel-media-va-driver
  Depends: intel-media-va-driver-non-free
  Depends: mesa-va-drivers

but maybe it will work on AMD hardware that matches one of these:

$ dpkg -L mesa-va-drivers 
...
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/r600_drv_video.so
...
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/radeonsi_drv_video.so

Or if you want the latest drivers from AMD (which arenā€™t officially supported by Ubuntu so things may break) then try https://www.amd.com/en/support/linux-drivers. From what I understand, thatā€™s where youā€™re most likely to find AMD hardware support for patent-encumbered video codecs.

33

AMD has had VA-API support in Mesa for a long time, on Ubuntu itā€™s:
mesa-va-drivers:amd64: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/radeonsi_drv_video.so

And itā€™s working well AFAICT, Iā€™m using it in many other apps (Firefox needs a sandbox-related tweak right now).

34

@nteodosio, the chrome binary seems to contain string /snap/chromium/current/gnome-platform/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/radeonsi_dri.so. Is that right? If not then perhaps check on this patch.

35

Yes, @vanvugt.

@ernstp, where do you see it blacklisted?

36

I didnā€™t see it blacklisted, it was an early assumption.

I got the impression that Va-api had been enabled for Intel, hence AMD was still blacklisted/not whitelisted.

37

We should move this discussion elsewhere:

If your Firefox is a snap then please report a bug to Chromium.

If your Firefox is not a snap then please report a bug to the GNOME snap.

1 Like
39

hwacc is also now merged into the official latest/beta, isnā€™t it?

Thanks a lot for this!

40

Indeed it is!
Weā€™ll have to wait a bit longer for stable because we want our automated tests migrated to it.

https://launchpad.net/bugs/2033433 is also in the way for Xorg users.

41

what is the recommended channel to be installing chromium from in order to get hardware acceleration on an intel-based platform?

42

You can use the beta channel, as stated here

1 Like
43

thank you for confirming (implicitly) that itā€™s not yet in candidate or stable.