x86 ES video preview - high cpu usage
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Did my best to search this out, but most topics revolved around the Pi and OMX player...
Video preview works great in Carbon theme (using mp4 videos from sselphs scraper) on x86 retropie/emulationstation, but I tracked very heavy CPU usage using top while the videos play. I tested hardware acceleration using the same videos in VLC player and had ~6x <less> CPU usage indicating the hardware acceleration works.
Are there any settings I need to set in ES to enable hardware acceleration?
hardware: Intel Atom Z8350
RetroPie Version Used: 4.4
Built From: Source using retropie install script on Ubuntu 18.04
USB Devices connected: 8bitdo sn30
Controller used: 8bitdo sn30
Error messages received: NONE - tracked high CPU usageHow to replicate the problem: Turn on video preview in carbon theme/emulationstation and run top to track CPU usage while videos play
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@praetorian55 said in x86 ES video preview - high cpu usage:
How to replicate the problem
That's going to be a bit difficult since the problem appears only when using VLC on your particular config, on the PI the OMXPlayer takes care of this automatically.
In ES, the only setting is toggling between OMXPlayer and the VLC based playback, but in your case OMXPlayer is not available so you always use libVLC.
How did you test the HW accelerated playback in VLC in your case ?
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@mitu - Thanks for the info. I tested from the terminal in X - It shows "va-api" is in use and the CPU usage was dramatically reduced in comparison to the same video playing in emulationstation.
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@praetorian55 OK, try to force libVlc to use the
va-apibackend by using an environment variable (LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME) (see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hardware_video_acceleration#Configuring_VA-API). Check if you get the same hardware accelerated playback in ES after this change. -
@mitu - Thanks for the link. I added the system environment variables mentioned in the ARCH wiki and verified the were set and showed up using vainfo. VLC itself still was accelerated (~30% CPU), emulationstation was still not @~165% cpu
pc@pc:~$ vainfo
libva info: VA-API version 1.1.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: User requested driver 'i965'
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_1
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.1 (libva 2.1.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) CherryView - 2.1.0
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264StereoHigh : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264StereoHigh : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoProc
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointEncPicture
VAProfileVP8Version0_3 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP8Version0_3 : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD
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