Can anybody here explain whether or not libVA could be used to bring video acceleration to Haiku?
Video Acceleration API (VA API) is a royalty-free API as well as its implementation as free and open-source library (libVA) distributed under the MIT License. The cross-platform API enables and provides access to hardware-accelerated video processing, using hardware like for example graphics processing units (GPU) to accelerate video processing in order to offload the central processing unit (CPU) to decode and encode compressed digital video.
Hi,
It seems vaapi uses DRI and DRM for interaction with X11 and the Linux graphics drivers. I dont know if it can be made to work without these, and which hardware would be supported in that case (maybe only specific chips that are not GPUs, like Broadcom's CrystalHD).
Just like OpenGL, getting it to work with a GPU would need a kernel side driver for the GPU, which we don't have yet.
ffmpeg 0.10 does support vaapi (and other alternatives such as xvmc and vdpau), so once we get the vaapi library working, we could try to enable that in ffmpeg and enjoy hardware video decoding in all Media Kit and ffmpeg enabled software.
Do you know if some work has been done on that?
This is what I could find in regards to supported hardware:
The VA API specification was originally designed by Intel for its GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) series of GPU hardware, but today the API is no longer limited to only GPUs nor to Intel specific hardware.
As of January 17, 2012 VA API is natively supported by the following open source drivers :
Open source drivers of Broadcom Crystal HD
Open source drivers of Intel HD Graphics 2000/2500/3000/4000) inside Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 Processor Family
Open source drivers of the Intel G45 chipset(Intel GMA X4500HD integrated graphics)
Additional information about other supported hardware and codecs was found here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VA-API
Here’s an interesting update on Gallium/Mesa regarding video acceleration:
- http://www.freelists.org/post/haiku-development/Mesa-drop-swrast-code