Intel Broadwell On Linux Has Working OpenCL 1.2, VP8 Video Acceleration

In the past few days when begining to deliver a number of initial Linux tests from Intel's new Broadwell processors, a number of Phoronix readers have inquired about the OpenCL and VA-API support for the new hardware.

When it comes to Intel's VA-API video acceleration API with Broadwell, VP8 encode/decode is a new feature. (Sadly there's no H.265 or VP9!) The vainfo command does report the VP8 support when running this VA-API information utility from the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon with Intel Core i7 5600U Broadwell processor.

$ vainfo
libva info: VA-API version 0.36.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib64/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_36
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.36 (libva 1.4.1)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Broadwell - 1.4.1
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
VAProfileVP8Version0_3 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264StereoHigh : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264StereoHigh : VAEntrypointEncSlice

For those running Fedora, it's a simple matter of running sudo yum install libva-intel-driver libva-utils. This information was from a Fedora 21 installation with the Linux 3.17 kernel and Mesa 10.4.

When it comes to the open-source OpenCL support via Beignet, the Core i7 5600U with HD Graphics 5500 claims OpenCL 1.2 support on the Fedora 21 installation. On a Fedora installation this is just a matter of sudo yum install beignet clinfo to setup to yield the clinfo output.

Number of platforms 1
Platform Name Intel Gen OCL Driver
Platform Vendor Intel
Platform Version OpenCL 1.2 beignet 1.0.0
Platform Profile FULL_PROFILE
Platform Extensions cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_byte_addressable_store cl_khr_icd

Platform Name Intel Gen OCL Driver
Number of devices 1
Device Name Intel(R) HD Graphics BroadWell U-Processor GT2
Device Vendor Intel
Device Version OpenCL 1.2 beignet 1.0.0
Driver Version 1.0.0
Device OpenCL C Version OpenCL C 1.2 beignet 1.0.0
Device Type GPU
Device Profile FULL_PROFILE
Max compute units 24
Max clock frequency 1000MHz
Device Partition (core)
Max number of sub-devices 1
Supported partition types none, none, none
Max work item dimensions 3
Max work item size[0] 1024
Max work item size[1] 1024
Max work item size[2] 1024
Max work group size 512
Preferred work group size multiple 16
Preferred / native vector sizes
char 8 / 8
short 8 / 8
int 4 / 4
long 2 / 2
half 0 / 8 (n/a)
float 4 / 4
double 0 / 2 (n/a)
Half-precision Floating-point support (n/a)
Single-precision Floating-point support
Denormals No
Infinity and NANs Yes
Round to nearest Yes
Round to zero No
Round to infinity No
IEEE754-2008 fused multiply-add No
Correctly-rounded divide and sqrt operations No
Support is emulated in software No
Double-precision Floating-point support (n/a)
Address bits 32, Little-Endian
Global memory size 1073741824 ( 1024MB)
Error Correction support No
Max memory allocation 268435456 ( 256MB)
Unified memory for Host and Device No
Minimum alignment for any data type 128 bytes
Alignment of base address 1024 bits (128 bytes)
Global Memory cache type Read/Write
Global Memory cache size 8192 ( 8KB)
Global Memory cache line 128 bytes
Image support Yes
Max number of samplers per kernel 16
Max 1D image size 8192 pixels
Max 1D or 2D image array size 2048 images
Max 2D image size 8192x8192 pixels
Max 3D image size 8192x8192x2048 pixels
Max number of read image args 128
Max number of write image args 8
Local memory type Global
Local memory size 65536 ( 64KB)
Max constant buffer size 524288 ( 512KB)
Max number of constant args 8
Max size of kernel argument 1024
Queue properties
Out-of-order execution No
Profiling Yes
Profiling timer resolution 80ns
Execution capabilities
Run OpenCL kernels Yes
Run native kernels Yes
Prefer user sync for interops Yes
printf() buffer size 1048576 ( 1024KB)
Device Built-in kernels __cl_copy_region_align4;__cl_copy_region_align16;__cl_cpy_region_unalign_same_offset;__cl_copy_region_unalign_dst_offset;__cl_copy_region_unalign_src_offset;__cl_copy_buffer_rect;__cl_copy_image_1d_to_1d;__cl_copy_image_2d_to_2d;__cl_copy_image_3d_to_2d;__cl_copy_image_2d_to_3d;__cl_copy_image_3d_to_3d;__cl_copy_image_2d_to_buffer;__cl_copy_image_3d_to_buffer;__cl_copy_buffer_to_image_2d;__cl_copy_buffer_to_image_3d;__cl_fill_region_unalign;__cl_fill_region_align2;__cl_fill_region_align4;__cl_fill_region_align8_2;__cl_fill_region_align8_4;__cl_fill_region_align8_8;__cl_fill_region_align8_16;__cl_fill_region_align128;__cl_fill_image_1d;__cl_fill_image_1d_array;__cl_fill_image_2d;__cl_fill_image_2d_array;__cl_fill_image_3d;
Device Available Yes
Compiler Available Yes
Linker Available Yes
Device Extensions cl_khr_global_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_global_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_base_atomics cl_khr_local_int32_extended_atomics cl_khr_byte_addressable_store cl_khr_icd

I'll have some Intel Broadwell OpenCL benchmarks on Linux to share shortly.

While from my initial Core i7 5600U Linux benchmarks published thus far you can obtain the system logs via OpenBenchmarking.org, for those curious about the /proc/cpuinfo output for this Core i7 Broadwell ultrabook processor the output shows:

processor : 3
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 61
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5600U CPU @ 2.60GHz
stepping : 4
microcode : 0x16
cpu MHz : 2756.812
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 4
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 3
initial apicid : 3
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 20
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch ida arat epb pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm rdseed adx smap xsaveopt
bugs :
bogomips : 5188.12
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: