Re: Xorg 3D acceleration question (Alder lake)

11 Aug 2023

      Hello,
...
This is probably because you are not using hardware video acceleration.
As I have said in a previous email in this thread, I did enable Hardware 
video acceleration, I explained how I beleive this improved the battery 
life considerably, but again as I have no scientific method of testing 
this (I need the laptop and i don't want to leave it unattended playing 
video to get a dataset, I can't full tell :)
...
If hardware video acceleration is enabled and working in your browser,
but does not work on YouTube,
it is possible your CPU does not support the AV1 (or VP9 or VP8) video codec.
I used youtube as a backup, I rather use mpv to play the videos and the 
audio, browsers are notoriously inefficient when doing compression and 
decompression of audio, so I did not expect to get good battery life 
within the browser.

Also:

❯ vainfo
Trying display: wayland
Trying display: x11
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.19 (libva 2.19.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel iHD driver for Intel(R) Gen Graphics - 
23.3.0 ()
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
       VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointVideoProc
       VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointStats
       VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointFEI
       VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointFEI
       VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointEncPicture
       VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointFEI
       VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileVP8Version0_3          : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCMain               : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCMain               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileHEVCMain               : VAEntrypointFEI
       VAProfileHEVCMain               : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileHEVCMain10             : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCMain10             : VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileHEVCMain10             : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileVP9Profile0            : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileVP9Profile0            : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileVP9Profile1            : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileVP9Profile1            : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileVP9Profile2            : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileVP9Profile2            : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileVP9Profile3            : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileVP9Profile3            : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileHEVCMain12             : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCMain12             : VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileHEVCMain422_10         : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCMain422_10         : VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileHEVCMain422_12         : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCMain422_12         : VAEntrypointEncSlice
       VAProfileHEVCMain444            : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCMain444            : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileHEVCMain444_10         : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCMain444_10         : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileHEVCMain444_12         : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCSccMain            : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCSccMain            : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileHEVCSccMain10          : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCSccMain10          : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileHEVCSccMain444         : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCSccMain444         : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
       VAProfileAV1Profile0            : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCSccMain444_10      : VAEntrypointVLD
       VAProfileHEVCSccMain444_10      : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP

All the codecs you have asked about have a valid entrypoint, thus they 
are supported for hardware video acceleration.

I have been using the laptop for about 3 hours now without charging it, 
and I am at 67%, which is 33% drop, so I can just times this time by 3, 
and in theory that means it should last for 9 hours at the current usage 
rate, but I do need to point out that I have also only been replying to 
emails and talking on XMPP, which are desktop applications and are 
relatively efficient.

I have noticed that although Intel has tried to make efficient CPUs for 
laptops, the added cores does cause higher idle energy draw, ideally you 
want the performance cores downclocked by a lot.

I assume you could optimise this for the best battery life by disabiling 
the performance cores and only keeping the efficiency cores, but at the 
end of the day this is x86, a complex instruction set, you don't expect 
good battery life.

In all honesty it is not even a big deal, I do not particularly care 
about the battery life its actually I would like to use as little power 
as possible, less power == less environmental impact, and also the 
energy bill is cheaper, the battery life is an added bonus!

Like... I do find it funny how people complain about battery life 
because you almost always have a charger on you, and there is plug 
sockets everywhere. In cafe, on the train, on the plane even in some 
bathrooms.

I am not going to pass up additional energy efficiency if it is easy to 
achieve thats all :)

Thanks for the help!

Take care,
-- 
Polarian
GPG signature: 0770E5312238C760
Website: https://polarian.dev
JID/XMPP: polarian@icebound.dev