Intel(R) Media Driver for VAAPI

Introduction

The Intel(R) Media Driver for VAAPI is a new VA-API (Video Acceleration API) user mode driver supporting hardware accelerated decoding, encoding, and video post processing for GEN based graphics hardware.

License

The Intel(R) Media Driver for VAAPI is distributed under the MIT license with portions covered under the BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License. You may obtain a copy of the License at MIT & BSD-3-Clause

Building

For Ubuntu 16.04+

apt install autoconf libtool libdrm-dev xorg xorg-dev openbox libx11-dev libgl1-mesa-glx

Equivalents for other distributions should work.

1. Build and install LibVA
2. Build and install GmmLib following GmmLib compatibility
3. Get media repo and format the workspace folder as below (suggest the workspace to be a dedicated one for media driver build):

   <workspace>
       |- media-driver
   

4. Create build_media new folder under your workspace

   $ mkdir <workspace>/build_media
   

   then the workspace looks like below

   <workspace>
       |- media-driver
       |- build_media
   

5. $ cd <workspace>/build_media
   

6. $ cmake ../media-driver
   

7. $ make -j"$(nproc)"
   

Install

$ sudo make install

This will install the following files (e.g. on Ubuntu):

-- Installing: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so
-- Installing: /etc/profile.d/intel-media.sh
-- Installing: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/igfxcmrt64.so

For iHD_drv_video.so please export related LIBVA environment variables.

export LIBVA_DRIVERS_PATH=<path-contains-iHD_drv_video.so>
export LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=iHD

Supported Platforms

• BDW (Broadwell)
• SKL (Skylake)
• BXTx (BXT: Broxton, APL: Apollo Lake, GLK: Gemini Lake)
• KBLx (KBL: Kaby Lake, CFL: Coffee Lake, WHL: Whiskey Lake, CML: Comet Lake, AML: Amber Lake)
• ICL (Ice Lake)
• JSL (Jasper Lake) / EHL (Elkhart Lake)
• TGLx (TGL: Tiger Lake, RKL: Rocket Lake, ADL-S/P/N: Alder Lake, RPL-S/P: Raptor Lake)
• DG1/SG1
• Alchemist(DG2)/ATSM
• MTLx (MTL: Meteor Lake, ARL-S/H: Arrow Lake)
• LNL (Lunar Lake)

Components and Features

Media driver contains three components as below

• Video decoding calls hardware-based decoder(VDBox) which provides fully-accelerated hardware video decoding to release the graphics engine for other operations.
• Video encoding supports two modes, one calls hardware-based encoder(VDEnc/Huc) to provide low power encoding, another one is hardware(PAK)+shader(media kernel+VME) based encoding. User could choose the mode through VA-API.
• Video processing supports several popular features by hardware-based video processor(VEBox/SFC) and shader(media kernel) based solution together.

Media driver supports below two builds

• Full Feature Build is default driver build, which supports all feature by hardware accelerator and close source shaders(media kernel binaries). Most of OSVs(like RHEL/SUSE/fedora) are using this build.
• Free Kernel Build, enables fully open source shaders(media kernels) and hardware features but the features would be limited.

About Ubuntu/Debian OSV, they provide intel-media-va-driver-non-free (Full feature build) and intel-media-va-driver (Free kernel build) two packages. Free here means open source kernel but not related to fee need to pay. You could refer to build options for more detail.

If you are looking forward to have a big table to share media component features on these two builds, below tables are good referene for your information.

Decoding/Encoding Features

CODEC	Build Types	MTLx	DG2/ATSM	DG1/SG1	TGLx	EHL/JSL	ICL	KBLx	BXTx	SKL	BDW
AVC	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/E D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/Es D
MPEG-2	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D D	D D	D/Es D	D/Es D	D D	D/Es D	D/Es D	D D	D/Es D	D/Es D
VC-1	Full-Feature Free-Kernel			D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D
JPEG	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D D
VP8	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D D			D* D*	D D	D/Es D	D/Es D	D D	D D	D D
HEVC 8bit	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/E D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/Es D	D/Es D	D/Es D
HEVC 8bit 422	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D D	D/E D/E	D/Es D	D/Es D	D D	D/Es D
HEVC 8bit 444	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E
HEVC 10bit	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/E D/E	D/E/Es D/E	D/Es D	D D
HEVC 10bit 422	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D D	D/E D/E	D/Es D	D/Es D	D D	D/Es D
HEVC 10bit 444	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E
HEVC 12bit	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D D	D D	D/Es D	D/Es D
HEVC 12bit 422	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D D	D D	D D	D D
HEVC 12bit 444	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D D	D D	D D	D D
VP9 8bit	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D D	D D
VP9 8bit 444	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E
VP9 10bit	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D D
VP9 10bit 444	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D/E D/E
VP9 12bit	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D D	D D	D D	D D
VP9 12bit 444	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D D	D D	D D	D D
AV1 8bit	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D D	D D
AV1 10bit	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	D/E D/E	D/E D/E	D D	D D

• * VP8 decoding is only supported on TGL platform
• D - Hardware Decoding
• E - Hardware Encoding, Low Power Encoding(VDEnc/Huc)
• Es - Hardware(PAK) + Shader(media kernel+VME) Encoding

Note: Low Power Encoding(VAEntrypointEncSliceLP) and Shader Encoding(VAEntrypointEncSlice) are consolidated to the unified interface(VAEntrypointEncSlice) from MTL platform. It goes through VDEnc/Huc for HW acceleration to unleash GPU resource to customers.

For more decoding and encoding features information, please refer to

• Media Features Summary
  • Supported Decoding Output Format and Max Resolution
  • Supported Encoding Input Format and Max Resolution

Video Processing Features

CODEC	Build Types	MTLx	DG2/ATSM	DG1/SG1	TGLx	EHL/JSL	ICL	KBLx	BXTx	SKL	BDW
Blending	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
CSC	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
De-interlace	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes* Yes*	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
De-noise	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Luma Key	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mirroring	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ProcAmp	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Rotation	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Scaling	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Sharpening	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
STD/E	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
TCC	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Color fill	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Chroma Siting	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
HDR10 TM	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes
3DLUT	Full-Feature Free-Kernel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

• * EHL/JSL only support BOB DI
• CSC: Color Space Conversion
• ProcAmp: brightness,contrast,hue,saturation
• STD/E: Skin Tone Detect & Enhancement
• TCC: Total Color Control
• HDR10 TM: HDR10 Tone Mapping
• 3DLUT: Three Dimensional Look Up Table

For more feature information, please refer to Supported video processing csc/scaling format

Build Options

Media-driver supports different build types as described below. You could refer to the following settings to enable them.

• Full Feature Build: ENABLE_KERNELS=ON(Default) ENABLE_NONFREE_KERNELS=ON(Default)
• Free Kernel Build: ENABLE_KERNELS=ON ENABLE_NONFREE_KERNELS=OFF
  • If trying to use pre-built open source kernel binaries, please add BUILD_KERNELS=OFF(Default).
  • If trying to rebuild open source kernel from source code, please add BUILD_KERNELS=ON.

Media-driver requires special i915 kernel mode driver (KMD) version to support the following platforms since upstream version of i915 KMD does not fully support them(pending patches upstream). To enable these platforms, it requires to specify ENABLE_PRODUCTION_KMD=ON (default: OFF) build configuration option.

• DG1/SG1
• ATSM

Known Issues and Limitations

1. Intel(R) Media Driver for VAAPI is recommended to be built against gcc compiler v6.1 or later, which officially supported C++11.

2. HuC firmware is necessary for AVC/HEVC/VP9/AV1 low power encoding bitrate control, including CBR, VBR, etc. The default kernel configuration didn't enable HuC loading for TGL/RKL and legacy platforms but enabled it from ADL+ platforms. You could change the HuC setting with "options i915 enable_guc=2" > /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf under root. For ADL+ platforms, the kernel loads HuC as default if the related platform HuC binary exists in /lib/firware/i915. The HuC firmwares available on different platforms are:

   • APL/KBL: starting from kernel 4.11, HuC loading is disabled as default, so set i915.enable_guc=2
   • CFL: starting from kernel 4.15, HuC loading is disabled as default, so set i915.enable_guc=2
   • ICL: starting from kernel 5.2, HuC loading is disabled as default, so set i915.enable_guc=2
   • EHL/JSL: starting from kernel 5.8, HuC loading is disabled as default, so set i915.enable_guc=2
   • TGL: starting from kernel 5.9, HuC loading is disabled as default, so set i915.enable_guc=2
   • RKL: starting from kernel 5.17, HuC loading is disabled as default, so set i915.enable_guc=2
   • ADL-S/ADL-P: starting from kernel 5.17
   • ADL-N/RPL-S/RPL-P: starting from kernel 6.2
   • DG1/SG1: intel-gpu/intel-gpu-i915-backports
   • Alchemist(DG2): starting from kernel 6.2
   • ATSM: intel-gpu/intel-gpu-i915-backports
   • MTL/ARL: starting from kernel 6.8

3. Lunar Lake platform is officialy supported from intel-media-24.3.1 for decoding and video processing features. Encoding support will be later.

4. Other more known issues, please refer to media-driver/wiki "Known Issues" pages.

(*) Other names and brands may be claimed as property of others.