Intel Graphics Problems

English Hardware
1

I’ve had openSUSE 13.2 i586 running for a while (I’m loving it with Cinnamon) on my old clunky laptop, but I still am having some problems with my graphics. Here’s what I get when playing media in VLC:

[VS] Software VDPAU backend library initialized
libva info: VA-API version 0.34.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/i915_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
[aa8ebef0] vdpau_avcodec generic error: decoder profile not supported: 8
[VS] Software VDPAU backend library initialized
libva info: VA-API version 0.34.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/i915_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
[a9697d28] vdpau_display vout display error: video mixer surface width capabilities query failure: VDP_STATUS_NO_IMPLEMENTATION
[VS] Software VDPAU backend library initialized
libva info: VA-API version 0.34.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/i915_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
[a2bcfff0] vdpau_avcodec generic error: decoder profile not supported: 8

Usually it gets to some point into the video (with chopped frames every few seconds) and then something happens and it stops playing. The above appears as soon as the video begins playing.

Relevant parts if lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

lscpu:

Architecture:          i686
CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit
Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                2
On-line CPU(s) list:   0,1
Thread(s) per core:    1
Core(s) per socket:    2
Socket(s):             1
NUMA node(s):          1
Vendor ID:             GenuineIntel
CPU family:            6
Model:                 14
Model name:            Genuine Intel(R) CPU           T2300  @ 1.66GHz
Stepping:              8
CPU MHz:               1667.000
CPU max MHz:           1667.0000
CPU min MHz:           1000.0000
BogoMIPS:              3329.17
L1d cache:             32K
L1i cache:             32K
L2 cache:              2048K
NUMA node0 CPU(s):     0,1

uname -r:

3.16.7-21-desktop

Shouldn’t I have a laptop/mobile kernel?

I installed the “unstable” version 2.99.917 of xf86-video-intel from here (and it updated some other X things too), but it didn’t help. I only subscribed to the X11 repo temporarily to install the driver.

I have plans to turn this computer into a media center (with Kodi), so I really want this to work. I have an older computer with the same graphics (but an older single core CPU) running Lubuntu that can play 1080p video after using the “installer” thing from 01.org. I’d like to use openSUSE for my next media center.

Also, is there any way I can upgrade from i586 to i686-pae? I feel that that might boost performance a little more.

Any help is very welcome,
DaAwesomeP

2

Also, when I switch VLC’s output from “Automatic” to “VDPAU output,” it plays only the audio from the video and I get the following:

[VS] Software VDPAU backend library initialized
libva info: VA-API version 0.34.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/i915_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
[b67046d8] vdpau_avcodec generic error: decoder profile not supported: 8
[VS] Software VDPAU backend library initialized
libva info: VA-API version 0.34.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/i915_drv_video.so
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
[a9368718] vdpau_display vout display error: video mixer surface width capabilities query failure: VDP_STATUS_NO_IMPLEMENTATION
[b6751db0] core video output error: video output creation failed
[a9338c70] core decoder error: failed to create video output
3

Try to uninstall libvdpau_va_gl1.
intel doesn’t support VDPAU, this package redirects VDPAU to VA-API. But VLC in particular seems to have problems with it, and it’s not really necessary anyway as VLC supports VA-API directly too.

Shouldn’t I have a laptop/mobile kernel?

There is no laptop/mobile kernel.

The “desktop” in kernel-desktop means “for desktop usage”, i.e. it is tuned for a GUI.

I installed the “unstable” version 2.99.917 of xf86-video-intel from here (and it updated some other X things too), but it didn’t help. I only subscribed to the X11 repo temporarily to install the driver.

It’s normally not a good idea to just install one driver from there.
Better do a full switch.

But the driver shipped in 13.2 should work well.

I have plans to turn this computer into a media center (with Kodi), so I really want this to work. I have an older computer with the same graphics (but an older single core CPU) running Lubuntu that can play 1080p video after using the “installer” thing from 01.org. I’d like to use openSUSE for my next media center.

Have you tried Kodi already? That’s something else completely than VLC anyway.

Also, is there any way I can upgrade from i586 to i686-pae? I feel that that might boost performance a little more.

You’re wrong, it won’t boost performance.
And no, that’s not possible.
Only glibc is available as specific i686 version.
But that’s practically irrelevant.

4

PS: I want to add that PAE is enabled in the “desktop” kernel. But there is no specific i686 kernel, and it would not really give you any advantage.

5

It works much better now! I downgraded back down my xf86-video-intel driver (and all of the other X stuff) and removed -. The video isn’t choppy anymore and it actually plays through the whole thing! Great!

It seems to think that I have an Nvidia card somehow (I think I might have a Nouveau driver installed as well), but it works, and when I set up the media center it’ll be on a clean installation anyways. This is my new log output:

Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

It also fails when I set the output method in VLC to VDPAU instead of Automatic, but it works well, so whatever.

Kodi works fine. I didn’t test it before, but VLC often performs better on my older computer, so I wanted to make sure that it works.

That’s the main thing that I was looking for. I’m used to Debian/Ubuntu style of things where “i686-pae” is everywhere. I thought that it was running without PAE.

6

VDPAU is actually nvidia’s hardware decoding.
So it tries to open the nvidia driver, if nothing else is explicitly set.
But you can ignore that.

It also fails when I set the output method in VLC to VDPAU instead of Automatic, but it works well, so whatever.

Yes. You cannot use VDPAU on an intel system without libvdpau_va_gl1 installed.
But again, it shouldn’t be necessary. VLC supports VA-API (intel’s hardware decoding) directly as well.