AMD Vega/Mesa GPU (VAAPI support?)

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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az2020
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Jun 03, 2021 3:22 pm

AMD Vega/Mesa GPU (VAAPI support?)

Post by az2020 »

Description of problem or question:
I have an AMD Ryzen 5/Vega 8 laptop (running MX Linux 19.4 which installs Mesa 20.3.4 graphics driver).

When I use obs-studio (26.1.2+dfsg1-1~mx19+1) for screen recording, settings>output gives me an encoder choice "FFMPEG VAAPI" (which in turn enables VAAPI choices "rendererD128" and codec "h.264" (the only codec available, btw).

Using handbrake 1.3.3 (installed .deb, not the flatpak) I don't have that VAAPI choice of encoders. However, I've read that some nvidia/intel users do have it.

So, I'm wondering if anyone knows anything about this? If it should be available to AMD/Mesa users?

I'm very pleased with handbrake's results (software h.264 encoding). There's no problem. It's just that discovering VAAPI in obs-studio was a game changer. Much faster and better quality result (CQP with QP=0 seems almost lossless and a remarkably small file compared to QP=1 to 8, which are enormous files without discernible quality. QP=0 might be the "indistinguishable" option I've heard Nvida users have.). So, I have a nagging curiosity what handbrake would be like if it recognized this gpu too.
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s55
HandBrake Team
Posts: 10350
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:05 pm

Re: AMD Vega/Mesa GPU (VAAPI support?)

Post by s55 »

HandBrake does not support VAAPI.

VCN is supported but you need the native AMD drivers to use it.
az2020
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Jun 03, 2021 3:22 pm

Re: AMD Vega/Mesa GPU (VAAPI support?)

Post by az2020 »

@s55 , thank you. I googled about it. I'm not brave enough to venture into this (with my Linux desktop). I like stability. It always seems like Linux problems have to do with video drivers and kernel versions (conflicts). I'm not that passionate to go down that route (trying to figure out why VCE/N? is not a choice on the video tab, installing things that might destablize/break what I have now. What I have no works great.).

I was being greedy, hoping for another automatic/seamless easter-egg like obs-studio's FFMPEG VAAPI felt like. (Also, I read something that VCE/N reduces quality vs size, only improving speed. Maybe encoding isn't the same thing as screen recording. Maybe using the gpu for screen recording was a noticeable quality improvement, but wouldn't be when just encoding.). What I have no is great.
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