Please tell me how to find and install the correct Graphics Driver for this system

Support and Help
21

This one. Packages can’t have spaces in the name. :slight_smile:

1 Like
22

Sorry, I didn’t notice the space in what I typed. The two suggested commands I tried to quote were identical except one with

mesa

And the other with

media

.

So, now, then, what say you, good Sir?

Or, anyone who knows the correct answer?

23

Ah, you want media, not mesa for video processing… and don’t worry, we all were beginners with Linux once, even if you break it we can help you fix it (this site works well on phones too in case you really mess up your system)

1 Like
24

I’m still working on this. I have learned a lot, with some help from members here, from many WWW articles, wikis, and forums, and from Intel support technicians. I have just learned (I think) how to ask ffmpeg to show which driver/codec/encoder is in use and to get lots of info including hints of how to fix any connection failures etc. . I will try those in the next few days and post what I learn, either here or in the follow-on Topic (see below).

I still think there is valuable info to be gained and posted, at Intel as well as here, but I think this Topic will automatically close before it gets fully documented, so I plan to continue it by starting a new Topic named

Please tell me how to find and install the correct Graphics Driver for this system (part 2)

Is that my best option, and if not, what is the recommended method?

Thanks again.

Jim

25

Just reach out to any moderator and we can reopen it. We’d rather not duplicate topics here.

That said, I’m going to go ahead and reset the timer.

26

I have been working really hard on this for many hours, with help from Intel Tech Support, this forum, many WWW articles, Wikis etc. and Manuals for ffmpeg, etc., and ChatGPT (very helpful! and I verify what it says), and I have learned a lot but of course I am still a newbie in all of the topics I have been digging into.

I have discovered some interesting and relevant facts (I’m pretty sure they are actually facts), and I think some of them are actually important to those involved in keeping free software (in this case Ubuntu) working well.

Here’s the first finding, verified in multiple ways:

Apparently, libmfx needs to be enabled in order to get Graphics Hardware Acceleration working, and the version of ffmpeg I have been using has --disable-libmfx in the “header” that is displayed by default when it starts running, as shown in this truncated screen-copy:
ffmpeg version 6.1.1-3ubuntu5 Copyright (c) 2000-2023 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 13 (Ubuntu 13.2.0-23ubuntu3)
configuration: … --enable-libvpl –disable-libmfx … [ emphasis mine ].

I then updated my ffmpeg to a version that shows --enable-libmfx and the errors I was getting that indicated it needed libmfx went away.

Is there some reason the version of ffmpeg available to install in the normal way in Ubuntu 24.04 is compiled/configured with --disable-libmfx? If no, it seems to me someone should recommend that the providers fix that.

Will someone on this forum please advise if it seems I have found an important issue, and please describe what is recommended/planned/underway to fix it?

Thanks again for help.

Jim

27

Well, libmfx is giving your code access to the proprietary Intel driver while the free one would use libvaapi as all other graphics drivers (except Nvidia who go their own way with libvdpau) do…

It could well be that libmfx collides with vaapi or that ffmpeg internally can not have both enabled…

You should file a bug with the ubuntu-bug ffmpeg command and see if someone knows more about this

1 Like
28

Thanks, @ogra Oliver.

IMHO this is yet another example of how the more I poke at this situation the worse it gets.

Here is my summary of the goals, requirements, constraints, stonewalls, etc. that pertain to this thread, and this may be the basis for my bug report if that makes sense to those on this forum.

My goal, of course, is to enable ffmpeg (and, ultimately, OBS Studio) to do Graphics Hardware Accelerated Encoding on my Intel Core N355 CPU. These are the various factors that (I think I have learned) are working together to prevent me from doing that:

1
It seems that the default drivers on “stock” Ubuntu 24.x don’t actually do hardware-accelerated video encoding on Xe architecture or Alder Lake CPUs, even though various diagnostic reports seem to indicate that they do (or something like that; all of this is way over my head).

2
To make available a driver that works, I did as more than one person on this topic recommended:

sudo apt install intel-media-va-driver-non-free

… which I think was to Install drivers other than those in the default version of the same package, to allow commands and options, e.g. the QSV encoder, to work that require the “non-free” attribute, e.g.:

ffmpeg -i (input) … -c:v h264_qsv (output)

… and in fact, after I did that installation, the error saying I needed the non-free package went away, but ffmpeg still throws fatal errors, and OBS Studio still only offers software encoders (in fact, only one encoder, and it is software). This reminds me of a famous quote among IT techies, referring to Napoleon, I think: “We have met the enemy, and he is software”.

3
Another factor is the initialization of the appropriate hardware. The ffmpeg commands to do that are again obscure and IMHO poorly documented, and all of the examples and recommendations I have found relate to the libmfx encoder that is now deprecated, and apparently I should instead be considering the newer encoder. There is so much more to learn before filing a bug report.

I will post more when I learn more, and hopefully by then (maybe in a week or so) I will have a proposed draft bug report for forum watchers to comment on before I submit it.

As always, thanks for help.

Jim

29

2 posts were split to a new topic: Get ffmpeg to do AV1 encoding with the Intel Arc GPU inside a docker container

30

Please check how to do AV1 encoding with the Intel Arc GPU in a docker container at this post: Get ffmpeg to do AV1 encoding with the Intel Arc GPU inside a docker container

31

Google search of this: libmfx takes me here where it says it is obsolete.

This project has been identified as having known security escapes.

Newer replacement
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/onevpl/upgrade-from-msdk/2023-1/overview.html