[Nouveau] Is binary firmware still necessary for GTX660 card (NVE0 family) in order to use DRM and/or VDPAU video acceleration?

[Ilia Mirkin]

On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 4:28 AM, Matthias Nagel
<matthias.h.nagel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> just a note for everybody who stumble across this thread in the future in
> order to bring this thread to a proper end.
>
> If I run the kernel with
>
> nouveau.debug="PVP=debug,PBSP=debug,PPPP=debug"
>
> I see messages about the firmware files gettings loaded. If the firmware files are
> missing, I get some warnings/errors. So far everything works as expected.
>
> But if I invoke "mplayer" with the "-vo vdpau -vc ..." option either way
> mplayer claims to use vdpau and starts playing the video, even if the firmware
> files are not there. Hence, either mplayer or the nouveau driver can do vdpau
> without the firmware files, but then I wonder how, or mplayer silently falls
> back to another output driver.

It should all be detailed in mplayer's output as to what precisely is
going on. VDPAU stands for Video Decoding *and* Presentation. You can
use it for presentation even if you don't use it for decoding (and
vice versa). You only need the firmware for decoding, presentation is
just displaying textures on the screen.

>
> Anyway, as far as I am concerned, the issue is closed. I use vdpau with the
> firmware files and I am happy.
>
> Matthias
>
> Am Donnerstag, 12. Dezember 2013, 07:18:48 schrieb Ilia Mirkin:
>> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 2:32 AM, Matthias Nagel
>>
>> <matthias.h.nagel at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > I run the Gentoo Linux distribution and use a self-compiled Linux 3.10.17
>> > kernel. According to
>> >
>> > [1] http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/InstallDRM/
>> > [2] http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/VideoAcceleration/
>> >
>> > I need the original firmware from the binary driver in order to sucessully
>> > use DRM and to use VDPAU video acceleration. I used the python script from
>> > [2] and I had a look at the ebuild from
>> >
>> > [3] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=480832
>> >
>> > to extract the firmware and to place it at /lib/firmware/nouveau. But I do
>> > not see any dmesg output about loading the firmware. I do not see any
>> > dmesg
>> > output about nouveau failing to do so either. I neither do no see any
>> > "nouveau <pci id>: firmware: requesting nouveau/" in my kernel output.
>>
>> Try booting with
>>
>> nouveau.debug=PVP=debug,PBSP=debug,PPPP=debug
>>
>> Note the new-found kernel output.
>>
>> > Anyway VDPAU seems to work. If I call mplayer with "-vo vdpau -vc
>> > ffmpeg12vdpau,...", I don't get any error message and my CPU load drops
>> > from 30% to 7% for a recent mpeg transport stream 1080p video.
>> >
>> > In conclusion, do I still need the firmware? Do the information given at
>> > [1], [2] still apply or are they outdated?
>>
>> You definitely need firmware to do vdpau (just try removing it and
>> reboot, and see what happens) on all NV84+ cards. AFAIK there is no
>> active work being done to replace the firmware on VP5 cards (nvd0+),
>> although that is the one that is probably the most feasible since the
>> actual video decoding is done with firmware that's on the card (or
>> with dedicated hardware, who knows) so all that's left is providing
>> the little "os" running on the connected falcon processors.
>>
>> Unless you're booting with nouveau.NvGrUseFW=1, you don't need the
>> pgraph firmware. It generally tends to work for nve0 cards nowadays,
>> although some people have issues with hangs (e.g.
>> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70354,
>> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=72180). I believe there
>> were a bunch of fixes to the fuc ucode in 3.11, which is probably why
>> Martin suggested you use a more recent kernel. But if it's working
>> fine for you, no need to worry about it.
>>
>>   -ilia
>
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