Current status of VDPAU on r600g?

[evolution]

Greetings,

After the news that AMD will stop supporting all DX10-generation cards (with Catalyst) on Windows/Linux, I'd like to give another try to the FOSS radeon drivers (even if the PM is not working very well) on my radeon HD4650 AGP, but before that, I'd like to ask a few qustions about VDPAU:

1) How's the current status of VDPAU support with r600g? In radeon feature matrix, they say it's still a WIP, but... Can I use it with H.264 videos or it currently only works with MPEG-2 videos?

2) If r600g VDPAU already works with H.264, how can I enable that support on mesa (mesa configure options)?

3) Can I use mesa stable / master branch or do I need a special branch to use VDPAU? Do I need to create any kind of symlinking or can I expect it to work properly just installing mesa?

I hope someone can help me with these steps.

Cheers

p.s.: Distro I'm using: ArchLinux i686

[Panix]

I look at the feature matrix page anticipating a change or new feature finally implemented but there's never anything new.

The hardware acceleration for cards that have no proprietary support is always non-existent and one can see that VDPAU/VA-API features remain as WIP forever all the way back to R300 cards.

I guess this means AMD/ATI intend to never support them. Furthermore, there's no place to inquire about support since AMD doesn't have any place to ask questions. At least, Nvidia card owners have the nvnews website.

There's some answers for FOSS drivers but nothing that confirms the inevitable - the fact, AMD/ATI won't support their video hardware in Linux. :-(

I'd like to try an AMD video card in Linux but I would like hardware acceleration, too, and they don't support that or many other features in Linux and/or the quality of the driver is subpar.

[Kano]

Yes, i know you buy an amd card for >1 year now

[Panix]

Yes, i know you buy an amd card for >1 year now

I don't like to waste money.

[Kano]

Well you did not buy a nvidia card as well - maybe it is enough for you to dream about a new card

[DanL]

Back to the OP's topic...

No, VDPAU does not support h264 at the moment. I don't know about Arch, but I use Debian experimental mesa (8.0.x) and it's enabled by default. If building your own mesa, you can use --enable-gallium-g3dvl and --enable-vdpau. Obviously you need libvdpau headers/-dev package.

[evolution]

Well you did not buy a nvidia card as well - maybe it is enough for you to dream about a new card

Yes, I bought a laptop with a nVidia optimus card indeed, but in that case, as I'm using bumblebee I'm not sure if I can use vdpau in my vídeo apps (mplayer for instance). I'm using bumblebee only to accelerate my programs with CUDA. Btw, vaapi acceleration with Intel SB works pretty well

This computer I'm mentioning is a 10y P4 desktop that I put a radeon HD4650 AGP 2y ago. It's an EOL computer I use only to watch videos / web browsing. Now that AMD won't support Catalyst in the near future, I'd like to know if I can already replace Catalyst+xvba with radeon+vdpau. If so, how can I do it? I'd be grateful.

Cheers

[Panix]

Well you did not buy a nvidia card as well - maybe it is enough for you to dream about a new card

Well, I am talking to someone about buying a GTX 460 1gb card (used, of course) or buying a GT210 or GT540 so I'm just comparing cards right now and assessing finances.

I read that's it's a PITA to try ATI cards with VDPAU.