README.md
1About
2=====
3
4Briefly, this is the [VDPAU](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU) driver with
5[VA-API](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Acceleration_API)/OpenGL backend.
6
7There are applications exists that can use VDPAU. Amongst them are Adobe Flash Player
8and Mplayer. They both can use VDPAU, but since there is no VDPAU available on Intel
9chips, they fall back to different drawing techniques. And while Mplayer can use
10XVideo extension to offload scaling to GPU, Flash Player can not and does all
11scaling in software. If there was VDPAU available, CPU usage could be significantly
12lower.
13
14VDPAU is not vendor-locked technology. Even official documentation mentions
15possibility of other drivers. They should be named as `libvdpau_drivername.so.1` and
16placed where linker could find them. `/usr/lib` usually works fine.
17Which driver to use is determined by asking X server about current driver name or by
18using `VDPAU_DRIVER` environment variable.
19
20Here is one. Named libvdpau_va_gl.so.1, it uses OpenGL under the hood to
21accelerate drawing and scaling and VA-API (if available) to accelerate video
22decoding. For now VA-API is available on some Intel chips, and on some AMD video
23adapters with help of [xvba-va-driver](http://cgit.freedesktop.org/vaapi/xvba-driver/).
24OpenGL is available, you know, on systems with OpenGL available.
25
26
27Install
28=======
29 1. `sudo apt-get install cmake libva-dev libgl1-mesa-dev`
30 2. `mkdir build; cd build`
31 3. `cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ..`
32 4. `sudo make install`
33 5. Add `VDPAU_DRIVER=va_gl` to your environment
34
35Commands above should work for any Debian-based distro. Fedora names packages in a
36different way, so package installation step will look like:
37`sudo yum install cmake libva-devel mesa-libGL-devel`.
38
39Run time configuration
40======================
41Besides `VDPAU_DRIVER` variable which selects which driver to use there are other
42variables that control runtime behavior of va_gl driver.
43
44`VDPAU_QUIRKS` contains comma-separated list of enabled quirks. Here is the list:
45
46 * `XCloseDisplay` Disables calling of XCloseDisplay which may segfault on some video drivers
47 * `ShowWatermark` Enables displaying string "va_gl" in bottom-right corner of window
48 * `AvoidVA` Makes libvdpau-va-gl NOT use VA-API
49
50Parameters of VDPAU_QUIRKS are case-insensetive.
51
52Copying
53=======
54libvdpau-va-gl is distributed under the terms of the MIT license. See
55LICENSE file for details.
56
57Contact
58=======
59Author can be reached at email
60`ibragimovrinat-at-mail.ru` or at github: https://github.com/i-rinat/
61