[PATCH] gnu: Add intel-vaapi-driver-g45-h264.

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4 participants

iung
Jelle Licht
Tobias Geerinckx-Rice
Vincent Legoll

Owner: unassigned

Submitted by: Jelle Licht

Severity: normal

Jelle Licht wrote on 27 Nov 2019 17:59

Recipients:(address . guix-patches@gnu.org)

Message-ID:87y2w1uug9.fsf@jlicht.xyz

Hey Guix,

I am not sure if this package offers any practical benefit or not, so I
defer to someone who actually knows what they are talking about to make
a judgment call ;-).

This variant of intel-vaapi-driver is a backport of the ancient g45-h264
branch that used to be maintained by the intel-vaapi-driver team. As far
as I know, the reason they don't maintain this branch anymore is that
hardware accelerated h264 decoding on the G45 chipset was much too slow
for 1080p video, as by default it only had 32MB of VRAM to work with.

It so happens that the librebooted Thinkpad T400 has one of these
G45-based iGPUs, with one change: the iGPU has 256MB VRAM
available. Using this package and a `hwdec=vaapi' setting in
~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf, I enjoy smooth video playback and low CPU usage
for 1080p video using mpv.

From 8727588a6bca185f17480efc7327774b041e240d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001

* gnu/packages/video.scm (intel-vaapi-driver-g45-h264): New variable.

---

gnu/packages/video.scm | 29 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1 file changed, 29 insertions(+)

Toggle diff (42 lines)diff --git a/gnu/packages/video.scm b/gnu/packages/video.scm
index 9836f67386..5eb0c7175f 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/video.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/video.scm
@@ -2787,6 +2787,35 @@ post-processing of video formats like MPEG2, H.264/AVC, and VC-1.")
     (license (list license:bsd-2        ; src/gen9_vp9_const_def.c
                    license:expat))))    ; the rest, excluding the test suite
 
+(define-public intel-vaapi-driver-g45-h264
+  (let ((base intel-vaapi-driver))
+    (package
+      (inherit base)
+      (name "intel-vaapi-driver-g45-h264")
+      (version "2.3.0")
+      (source (origin
+                (method url-fetch)
+                (uri
+                 (string-append
+                  "https://bitbucket.org/alium/g45-h264/downloads/intel-driver-g45-h264-"
+                  version ".tar.gz"))
+                (sha256
+                 (base32
+                  "0hf6h6754qf2sfhfq5i6pwn5dc06hjib6m05r8999ilbvrv4axar"))))
+      (arguments
+       (substitute-keyword-arguments (package-arguments base)
+         ((#:phases phases '%standard-phases)
+          `(modify-phases ,phases
+             (add-before 'bootstrap 'skip-premature-configure
+               (lambda _
+                 (setenv "NOCONFIGURE" "set")
+                 #t))))))
+      (native-inputs
+       `(("autoconf" ,autoconf)
+         ("automake" ,automake)
+         ("libtool" ,libtool)
+         ,@(package-native-inputs base))))))
+
 (define-public openh264
   (package
     (name "openh264")
-- 
2.24.0

Tobias Geerinckx-Rice wrote on 27 Nov 2019 19:58

Recipients:(address . guix-patches@gnu.org)(address . 38403@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:875zj59mes.fsf@nckx

Jelle,

Jelle Licht ???

Toggle quote (6 lines)

> I am not sure if this package offers any practical benefit or

> not, so I

> defer to someone who actually knows what they are talking about

> to make

> a judgment call ;-).

I don't have a G45, but if this driver verifiably works for you

(and the regular version does not) I think it's good to to include

it. Also because I expect this card to be overrepresented amongst

Guix users: there aren't that many common Librebootable machines.

It needs its own clear synopsis, description, and home page

though. Is there a home page? I'm not good at navigating

BitBucket.

Toggle quote (11 lines)> This variant of intel-vaapi-driver is a backport of the ancient 
> g45-h264
> branch that used to be maintained by the intel-vaapi-driver 
> team. As far
> as I know, the reason they don't maintain this branch anymore is 
> that
> hardware accelerated h264 decoding on the G45 chipset was much 
> too slow
> for 1080p video, as by default it only had 32MB of VRAM to work 
> with.

These devices don't have their own RAM chips, so ‘by default’ here

means the BIOS menu setting, right? If so, it should be mentioned

in the description for lack of upstream documentation.

I'm guessing that your card identifies as an Intel® GMA X4500MHD.

Is that correct? We should include the marketing name in the

synopsis & description too, even if it might not map 1:1 to the

chipset.

Toggle quote (11 lines)> This variant of intel-vaapi-driver is a backport of the ancient 
> g45-h264
> branch that used to be maintained by the intel-vaapi-driver 
> team. As far
> as I know, the reason they don't maintain this branch anymore is 
> that
> hardware accelerated h264 decoding on the G45 chipset was much 
> too slow
> for 1080p video, as by default it only had 32MB of VRAM to work 
> with.

This is good! :-) It should be slightly edited and used as a

description together with the original intel-vaapi-driver text.

Apart from that, the package LGTM. Thanks!

Kind regards,

T G-R

Jelle Licht wrote on 29 Nov 2019 12:00

Recipients:

Message-ID:87lfrzueuc.fsf@jlicht.xyz

Hey Tobias,

Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Guix-patches via <guix-patches@gnu.org>

writes:

Toggle quote (18 lines)> Jelle,
>
> Jelle Licht ???
>> I am not sure if this package offers any practical benefit or 
>> not, so I
>> defer to someone who actually knows what they are talking about 
>> to make
>> a judgment call ;-).
>
> I don't have a G45, but if this driver verifiably works for you 
> (and the regular version does not) I think it's good to to include 
> it.  Also because I expect this card to be overrepresented amongst 
> Guix users: there aren't that many common Librebootable machines.
>
> It needs its own clear synopsis, description, and home page 
> though.  Is there a home page?  I'm not good at navigating 
> BitBucket.

I am in contact with the upstream author (of this tarball): They do not
have access to a G45-based chipset, so we are currently looking into
options for the future. There is currently no home page.

The actual bitbucket repo has been made public only yesterday, so it was
not that weird that you could not find it :-).

Toggle quote (15 lines)>
>> This variant of intel-vaapi-driver is a backport of the ancient 
>> g45-h264
>> branch that used to be maintained by the intel-vaapi-driver 
>> team. As far
>> as I know, the reason they don't maintain this branch anymore is 
>> that
>> hardware accelerated h264 decoding on the G45 chipset was much 
>> too slow
>> for 1080p video, as by default it only had 32MB of VRAM to work 
>> with.
>
> These devices don't have their own RAM chips, so ‘by default’ here 
> means the BIOS menu setting, right?  If so, it should be mentioned 
> in the description for lack of upstream documentation.

This is correct. I think it makes sense to point people to the right

documentation for at least libreboot and coreboot, and refer them to

their BIOS supplier for other instructions.

OTOH, I do not feel that the package description is the right place to

do this. Where would such instructions normally exist on GNU/Linux

machines?

Toggle quote (4 lines)

> I'm guessing that your card identifies as an Intel® GMA X4500MHD.

> Is that correct? We should include the marketing name in the

> synopsis & description too, even if it might not map 1:1 to the

> chipset.

Yes on all fronts.

- Jelle

Vincent Legoll wrote on 13 Apr 2020 19:52

Recipients:(address . 38403@debbugs.gnu.org)(name . Jelle Licht)(address . jlicht@fsfe.org)

Message-ID:36a82919-98e3-cfa8-db98-e2c154d28f7a@gmail.com

Hello,

I have an old laptop (Vaio VGN-TT90S) with such a chipset,

that I can get out of the attic, if you need some testing.

Vincent Legoll

Jelle Licht wrote on 13 Apr 2020 22:01

Recipients:

Message-ID:87o8rvp338.fsf@jlicht.xyz

Hey,

Vincent Legoll <vincent.legoll@gmail.com> writes:

Toggle quote (5 lines)

> Hello,

> I have an old laptop (Vaio VGN-TT90S) with such a chipset,

> that I can get out of the attic, if you need some testing.

That would be nice! I am waiting until we remove all linux-libre kernels

between 5.0 and 5.5, as these lead to pretty bad crashes with this

package.

I have it on my agenda for early May to backport the latest

intel-vaapi-driver changes to the g45-h264 branch and subsequently push

it to Guix.

- Jelle

Vincent Legoll wrote on 16 Apr 2020 00:06

Recipients:

Message-ID:7e6c8e91-39b9-b640-c1e3-03dcb42fe738@gmail.com

On 13/04/2020 22:01, Jelle Licht wrote:

Toggle quote (4 lines)

> I have it on my agenda for early May to backport the latest

> intel-vaapi-driver changes to the g45-h264 branch and subsequently push

> it to Guix.

Just ping me when needed

Vincent Legoll

Tobias Geerinckx-Rice wrote on 16 Apr 2020 00:32

Recipients:(name . Jelle Licht)(address . jlicht@fsfe.org)(address . 38403@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87v9m0z8gq.fsf@nckx

Necro tiem (thanks Vincent),

Jelle Licht ???

Toggle quote (15 lines)>> These devices don't have their own RAM chips, so ‘by default’ 
>> here 
>> means the BIOS menu setting, right?  If so, it should be 
>> mentioned 
>> in the description for lack of upstream documentation.
> This is correct. I think it makes sense to point people to the 
> right
> documentation for at least libreboot and coreboot, and refer 
> them to
> their BIOS supplier for other instructions.
>
> OTOH, I do not feel that the package description is the right 
> place to
> do this.

I agree it's not ideal.

Toggle quote (3 lines)

> Where would such instructions normally exist on GNU/Linux

> machines?

Well… /share/doc. I check it; I don't know how many people

(still) do.

It seems to be less well known than it used to be, which is a

shame, but it's technically the answer to your question.

Kind regards,

T G-R

Jelle Licht wrote on 12 Sep 2020 13:20

Recipients:

Message-ID:87pn6rkzrc.fsf@jlicht.xyz

Vincent Legoll <vincent.legoll@gmail.com> writes:

Toggle quote (7 lines)

> On 13/04/2020 22:01, Jelle Licht wrote:

>> I have it on my agenda for early May to backport the latest

>> intel-vaapi-driver changes to the g45-h264 branch and subsequently push

>> it to Guix.

> Just ping me when needed

Some changes made in linux kernel 5.X made it harder to get this to work

reliably. Since getting this to work allows me to watch videos on my

laptop without melting my pants off, I'm still very much motivated to

get it to work in the long run ;-).

I been made aware that the 5.x series of kernels have seen a lot of

regressions (and improvements, probably) for intel-drm related code

paths; my hope is that this still somehow stabilizes in the coming

months.

For now, it seems to work on linux kernel 4.19.143. See [1] for the

maintainer of the AUR package that I based my work on.

Is there some way to 'park' this debbugs issue? As in, keep it open, but

rather as a reminder to revisit this issue in the future?

Thanks,

Jelle

[1] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/libva-intel-driver-g45-h264

iung wrote on 31 Jan 2022 18:51

[PATCH] gnu: Add intel-vaapi-driver-g45-h264.

Recipients:(address . 38403@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:d076db27e9f88fdd5699b8576eed1cbc@autistici.org

Still doesn't work on linux 5.15. Situation same as in comments to aur

package: version 2.4.1 hangs gpu, 2.4.1-experimental doesn't work.

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