[arch-general] PC build for hardware video acceleration
Dear community, I want to build a new CPU-focused Arch Linux PC. No requirements for GPU, except for H.265 4K decode, in decent profiles (whatever that means). What hardware is best supported by libraries like VA-API and VDPAU? Are there other relevant libraries? Which libraries are still maintained and up-to-date, which are open source? I see three options right now: 1. High-end Intel CPU (e.g. i9-9900K) w/ integrated HD 630 GPU, or 2. CPU w/o iGPU (e.g. AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2920X) + dedicated, low-end AMD GPU (e.g. Radeon RX 560) 3. CPU w/o iGPU and low-end NVidia GPU (e.g. GTX 1050) I couldn't find out which setup works best using the wiki and other sources. Maybe anyone could point me to the right direction? What hardware is recommended for good H.265 4K playback on GPU? Thanks in advance, kind regards, L.
On Fri, 2019-07-19 at 13:00 +0300, L. Rose wrote:
Dear community,
I want to build a new CPU-focused Arch Linux PC. No requirements for GPU, except for H.265 4K decode, in decent profiles (whatever that means).
What hardware is best supported by libraries like VA-API and VDPAU? Are there other relevant libraries? Which libraries are still maintained and up-to-date, which are open source?
I see three options right now:
1. High-end Intel CPU (e.g. i9-9900K) w/ integrated HD 630 GPU, or 2. CPU w/o iGPU (e.g. AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2920X) + dedicated, low- end AMD GPU (e.g. Radeon RX 560) 3. CPU w/o iGPU and low-end NVidia GPU (e.g. GTX 1050)
I couldn't find out which setup works best using the wiki and other sources. Maybe anyone could point me to the right direction? What hardware is recommended for good H.265 4K playback on GPU?
Thanks in advance, kind regards,
L.
Hi there, I can vouch for option 3, and am pretty confident option 1 will do as well. I only used AMD at a time where their driver was absolutely terrible so I can't say for option 2. Got a Xeon paired with a 1050 which does x265 4K HDR effortlessly, you'll want to use the binary blob paired with NVDEC if you go that route. For option 1 you'll want to use VAAPI paired with the recent intel- media-driver, should tackle the workload just fine as well. FYI VDPAU is pretty much dead, you can forget about it. Cheers, -- Maxime
Le 19/07/2019 à 12:00, L. Rose a écrit :
Dear community,
I want to build a new CPU-focused Arch Linux PC. No requirements for GPU, except for H.265 4K decode, in decent profiles (whatever that means).
What hardware is best supported by libraries like VA-API and VDPAU? Are there other relevant libraries? Which libraries are still maintained and up-to-date, which are open source?
I see three options right now:
1. High-end Intel CPU (e.g. i9-9900K) w/ integrated HD 630 GPU, or 2. CPU w/o iGPU (e.g. AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2920X) + dedicated, low-end AMD GPU (e.g. Radeon RX 560) 3. CPU w/o iGPU and low-end NVidia GPU (e.g. GTX 1050)
I couldn't find out which setup works best using the wiki and other sources. Maybe anyone could point me to the right direction? What hardware is recommended for good H.265 4K playback on GPU?
Thanks in advance, kind regards,
L.
I would prefer solution 1 or 2, which use VA-API and have the broader support (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hardware_video_acceleration#Application...). Haven’t tried an AMD GPU, but it should be working fine nowadays. So at this point this is mostly a question of which CPU you want. And currently AMD ones seems to be quite above Intel solutions. ;) 3 would work too, but as Maxime pointed out relies on NVDEC, which might not be supported everywhere and of course relies on Nvidia proprietary driver (which, depending on the lifetime expectancy for your new PC, could become an issue at some point —e.g. when the driver version for your GPU won’t support newer X/Wayland/whatever display server will be used by then). Regards, Bruno
On Fri, 19 Jul 2019 15:54:23 +0200, Bruno Pagani via arch-general wrote:
And currently AMD ones seems to be quite above Intel solutions. ;)
My experiences with AMD for real-time audio are that bad, that I'm in favour of suffering from Meltdown and Spectre, than ever using an AMD based machine again. YMMV!
On Fri, 19 Jul 2019 18:37:42 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Fri, 19 Jul 2019 15:54:23 +0200, Bruno Pagani wrote:
And currently AMD ones seems to be quite above Intel solutions. ;)
My experiences with AMD for real-time audio are that bad, that I'm in favour of suffering from Meltdown and Spectre, than ever using an AMD based machine again.
YMMV!
I forgot to point out, the graphics, ATI as well as NVIDIA contributed a lot to the issues I experienced with AMD based machines. My Intel machine isn't perfect and I can't say much about hardcore video acceleration, but I have no regrets about migrating to my first Linux Intel machine and the easier living includes the Intel GPU.
participants (4)
-
Bruno Pagani
-
L. Rose
-
Maxime Gauduin
-
Ralf Mardorf