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Revision as of 23:17, 19 March 2023 by Ngompa (talk | contribs) (→‎Video decoding: Update to account for ffmpeg-free + libavcodec-freeworld combination)

Firefox Hardware acceleration on Fedora

Firefox on Fedora supports hardware acceleration on Linux so let's look how to configure it and diagnose potential issues. This guide is adjusted for Fedora only and may not work for stock Mozilla binaries or other distros.

Web page rendering

Accelerated web page rendering is supported on both X11 and Wayland backends via WebRender.

Please note that Firefox requires a GPU with support for OpenGL 3.2 or newer or GLES 3.0 or newer to enable hardware acceleration (Source and further info). You can check your hardware using glxinfo | grep "profile version" for OpenGL and eglinfo | grep version for GLES.

You can check hardware acceleration state at about:support page, look at Compositing row. If there's WebRender, you're running on hardware. If there's WebRender (software) you're on non-accelerated backend.

WebRender Firefox setup

Web page rendering on Wayland

Hardware acceleration should work out-of-the-box on Wayland. If not please file a bug for it.

Web page rendering on X11

X11 backend can tun in two modes - EGL and XGL. You should be on EGL unless you're running on unsupported config (old NVIDIA drivers, NVIDIA drivers on XWayland or so).

Force disable hardware acceleration

For testing purposes you can disable hardware WebRender. Go to about:config page, set gfx.webrender.software to true and restart browser. There should be WebRender (software) at about:support page then.

Video decoding

Hardware accelerated video decoding (for video playback or for WebRTC) is available via VA-API for both X11 and Wayland. Since firefox-101.0.1-4 package it's enabled by default for Intel/AMD users.

You can check VA-API acceleration state at about:support page, look at HARDWARE_VIDEO_DECODING row. If there's available by default, you're running on hardware by default.

Correct VA-API setup

You can disable it at about:config page setting media.hardware-video-decoding.enabled to false.

You may install enhanced-h264ify Firefox extension to disable non-accelerated video formats.

Configure VA-API Video decoding on AMD

Accelerated video decoding works well on AMD as free drivers are available. Free video formats (e.g. VP8/VP9/AV1) should be accelerated out of the box. You can add support for H.264 VA-API decode by these steps:

  • F36 and older: Install ffmpeg from RPM Fusion repository. It's needed for H.264 decoding.
  • On Fedora 37 and newer, install libavcodec-freeworld and mesa-va-drivers-freeworld. See RPM Fusion howto (section Hardware codecs with AMD (mesa)) for instructions. It's needed for VA-API H.264 decoding.
  • Run vainfo on terminal to verify that VA-API works.
  • Restart browser.

Configure VA-API Video decoding on Intel

Accelerated video decoding works well on most Intel GPUs as free drivers are available. There are two[1] drivers for Intel cards, libva-intel-driver (provides i965_drv_video.so) and intel-media-driver (iHD_drv_video.so). Currently, Firefox works with either libva-intel-driver or intel-media-driver.

Refer to this Intel chipsets video features table on Wikipedia to determine which codecs your hardware supports.

You can enable VA-API on Intel by these steps:

  • F36 and older: Install ffmpeg from RPM Fusion repository for H.264 decoding.
  • Fedora 37 and newer: After installing ffmpeg-free, install libavcodec-freeworld from RPM Fusion repository for H.264 decoding.
  • Install libva-intel-driver package to enable VA-API on Intel.
  • Run vainfo on terminal to verify that VA-API works. If VA-API is disabled you're running on new hardware[2] and you need intel-media-driver from RPM Fusion repository non-free.
  • Restart browser.

Configure VA-API Video decoding on NVIDIA

Accelerated video decoding works on NVIDIA proprietary drivers thanks to Stephen "elFarto" and his nvidia-vaapi-driver project. It's VA-API implemention using NVIDIA's NVDEC decoder.

You can enable VA-API on NVIDIA / Fedora 37 by these steps:

  • Install NVIDIA proprietary drivers. Don't forget to install cuda/nvdec/nvenc support.
  • After installing ffmpeg-free, install libavcodec-freeworld from RPM Fusion repository for H.264 decoding.
  • Install nvidia-vaapi-driver from RPM Fusion repository non-free. Don't use Fedora provided libva-vdpau-driver package as it's old and broken.
  • Run Firefox and force enable VA-API as it's disabled on NVIDIA by default. Go to about:config page and set media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled to true.
  • Run Firefox with NVD_BACKEND=direct MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 env variables.

Troubleshooting

  • Verify you're running on HW accelerated backend (WebRender) under Wayland or X11/EGL at about:support.
  • Run vainfo on terminal to verify that VA-API works.
  • Run Firefox on terminal with MOZ_LOG="PlatformDecoderModule:5" env variable. It produces a playback and decode log with VA-API / ffmpeg details.
  • VA-API is also used for WebRTC (video conferencing like Google Meet, Zoom, Bluejeans). If you see any video artifacts you can disable VA-API for it. At about:config page set media.navigator.mediadatadecoder_vpx_enabled to false and restart browser.

Video encoding

Hardware accelerated video encoding (for WebRTC for instance) is not supported/implemented in Firefox, no matter which preference you set at about:config page.

  1. ↑ There's also libva-intel-hybrid-driver, but that only adds support for VP8 encoding and VP9 decoding with selected chips.
  2. ↑ Ice Lake or newer
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