(Bug) VideoProcessing enabled by default only on Intel's discrete Arc cards during video playback.

[NikosD]

Hello.

Another technically deep and specific issue with Intel's drivers that will need to be raised to Video Engineers.

I was running a few playback performance benchmarks using various HEVC and VP9 clips with Intel Hardware like Core i7 8700 (Coffee Lake GT2 iGPU – UHD 630) and newer Iris Xe iGPU (Tigerlake GT2) from Core i5 1135G7.

The tool I used is the famous DXVA Checker v4.6.0 application.

Both iGPUs have zero VideoProcessing utilization while normal Playback and during Playback performance (benchmark mode)

But when I used the Intel’s Arc A380 discrete GPU using the same clips and same decoders MF HEVC (D3D11), MF VP9 (D3D11), LAV (DXVA2 for both HEVC/VP9) and even SW decoder LAV (SW) I always see a huge utilization of VideoProcessing value ~85% in Playback performance mode, dropping the speed of decoding and the speed overall– a lot.

Even normal playback of Arc A380 uses a lot of VideoProcessing power, dropping the performance of Arc A380 lower than Iris Xe and even UHD 630 iGPUs when iGPUs use fast dual-channel RAM.

This is ridiculous for Intel.

Pure video decoding (not playback) is a lot faster for Arc A380, of course.

QUESTION:

Are there any hidden VideoProcessing parameters enabled by default in the driver and how could I disable them ?

It seems that only Arc discrete cards have them enabled by default.

Intel's Arc control and Intel Graphics Command Center (Beta) do not expose Video Processing settings/ parameters in order to disable them. I tried them both.

It is very important and mandatory for users to be able to disable video parameters that trigger Video Processing that could affect video decoding performance even for discrete cards.

A user should be able to disable ALL video processing parameters in the drivers.

Thanks in advance!

[Esteban_Intel]

@NikosD,

To reiterate, Intel does force any software developer to use any of the hardware accelerated features from the GPU's media engine. Each software developer has 2 options:

1. Implement encoding and decoding using pure software codecs
2. Leverage the Intel GPU's hardware accelerated features via VPL or MediaSDK

So, it's up to the software developer, not Intel, to choose if they want to use or not use the hardware accelerated video processing offered by Intel in its GPUs.

Here is an example:

1. Download official VLC media player for Windows - VideoLAN
2. Download the sample HEVC video https://x265.com/hevc-video-files/: x265 – Tears Of Steel 1080P @ 400kbps
3. Open the Window's Task Manager -> Performance tab -> Click GPU -> monitor "Video Decode 1" and "Video Processing"
4. Play the sample video
5. Observe as there is activity on the "Video Decode 1", but not on "Video Processing"

[NikosD]

Interesting.

Try the same file using MPC-HC (LAV filters video decoding) or MPC-BE which are different players using different video decoders.

They both have VideoProcessing > VideoDecoding using hardware decoding and they even have VideoProcessing when using software decoding - no hardware decoding at all.

I also tried the standalone video filters of LAV Video and the standalone filters of MPC-BE outside of MPC-HC and MPC-BE players - avoiding the overhead and possible mysterious settings of these players - using just DXVA Checker and both standalone filters have VideoProcessing > VideoDecoding even without using video players apps and even using software decoding.

Are those bugs of both Video Players/ Standalone filters ?

Both Video Players/ Filters have no such behavior when using Intel's iGPU video decoding.

They have zero VideoProcessing like VLC.

Does VLC have a secret sauce - a different access to Intel's video decoding/filtering modes ?

What has changed with ARC cards regarding to Video decoding that @AlfredoS_Intel has posted before ?

@AlfredoS_Intel:

"on ARC GPUs and newer hardware the VideoProcessing will in fact be utilized and this is expected behavior."

What is the difference between ARC GPUs and newer hardware regarding VideoProcessing compared to older hardware ?

TY

Nikos

[Esteban_Intel]

Hi @NikosD,

There is no secret sauce. Whether or not to use hardware accelerated Video Processing (or Encoding or Decoding) is up for each software's developer to decide.

Also, the main difference between older iGPUs vs dGPUs and newer iGPUs is the API used by software developers to access to these hardware accelerated features. As detailed below, the older iGPUs use Media SDK, while dGPUs and newer iGPUs use Intel VPL. So, if the same software shows a different behavior on DG2 vs Coffee Lake, it might be because the developer of that software has programed it differently for Media SDK vs Intel VPL.

GPU	Media SDK	Intel® VPL
Earlier platforms, back to BDW (Broadwell)	✔️
ICL (Ice Lake)	✔️
JSL (Jasper Lake)	✔️
EHL (Elkhart Lake)	✔️
TGL (Tiger Lake)	✔️	✔️
DG1 (Intel® Iris® Xe MAX graphics)	✔️	✔️
RKL (Rocket Lake)		✔️
ADL-S (Alder Lake S)		✔️
ADL-P (Alder Lake P)		✔️
DG2 (Intel® Arc™ A-Series Graphics)		✔️
ATSM (Intel® Data Center GPU Flex Series)		✔️
Future platforms...		✔️

[NikosD]

@Esteban_Intel 

@RamyerM_Intel 

@AlfredoS_Intel 

More testing more interesting results.

Clip: Samsung_SUHD_Journey_of_Color-50Mbps (HEVC 10bit 4K@60fps)
GPU: Intel ARC A380 - Drivers v5590 (10/6/24)

Windows 11 (all updates installed)

1) MPC-HC v2.3.4 (Latest & Greatest - Using internal LAV filters v0.79.2.18)

SW decoding
EVR        3D usage 45% VideoProcessing 20%
EVR-CP 3D usage 57% VideoProcessing 40%
MPC VR 3D usage 15% VideoProcessing 26%
MPC VR (no D3D11/DXVA processing) 3D usage 52% VideoProcessing 0%

DXVA2 native decoding
EVR        3D usage 8% VideoProcessing 33%
EVR-CP 3D usage 11% VideoProcessing 33%
MPC VR (no D3D11/DXVA processing) 3D usage 70% VideoProcessing 0%

2) VLC v3.0.21
3D usage 5% VideoProcessing 0%

All usage values reported by Task Manager.

There is definitely something completely different regarding Intel ARC GPUs video playback using VLC vs other open-source Video Players (MPC-HC & MPC-BE)

MPC-HC & MPC-BE are using directly DXVA2/D3D11 video decoding/ processing, not Intel's libraries.

What is VLC using ?

That's what I call secret sauce.

[Esteban_Intel]

Hi Nikos,

Unfortunately, knowing exactly how an app developer decided to code their app is something only the developer knows. You will need to contact the VLC developers to ask them.