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Hardware acceleration

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Alex X edited this page May 5, 2023 · 7 revisions

You DON'T need hardware acceleration if:

  • you not using FFmpeg source
  • you using only #video=copy for FFmpeg source
  • you using only #audio=... (any audio) transcoding for FFmpeg source

You NEED hardware acceleration if you using #video=h264, #video=h265, #video=mjpeg (video) transcoding.

Important

  • At the moment it doesn't supports #video=h265!!!
  • Acceleration is disabled by default because it can be unstable (it can be changed in future)
  • go2rtc can automatically detect supported hardware acceleration if enabled
  • go2rtc will enable hardware decoding only if hardware encoding supported
  • go2rtc will use the same GPU for decoder and encoder
  • Intel and AMD will switch to software decoder if input codec is not supported with hardware decoder
  • NVidia will fail if input codec is not supported with hardware decoder
  • Raspberry always uses software decoder
streams:
  # auto select hardware encoder
  camera1_hw: ffmpeg:rtsp://rtsp:[email protected]/av_stream/ch0#video=h264#hardware
  
  # manual select hardware encoder (vaapi, cuda, v4l2m2m, dxva2, videotoolbox)
  camera1_vaapi: ffmpeg:rtsp://rtsp:[email protected]/av_stream/ch0#video=h264#hardware=vaapi

Docker and Hass Addon

There are two versions of the Docker container and Hass Add-on:

  • Latest (alpine) support hardware acceleration for Intel iGPU (CPU with Graphics) and Raspberry.
  • Hardware (debian 12) support Intel iGPU, AMD GPU, NVidia GPU.

Intel iGPU

Supported on: Windows binary, Linux binary, Docker, Hass Addon.

If you have Intel CPU Sandy Bridge (2011) with Graphics, you already have support hardware decoding/encoding for AVC/H.264.

If you have Intel CPU Skylake (2015) with Graphics, you already have support hardware decoding/encoding for AVC/H.264, HEVC/H.265 and MJPEG.

Read more here and here.

Linux and Docker:

  • It may be important to have the latest version of the OS with the latest version of the Linux kernel. For example, on my Debian 10 (kernel 4.19) it did not work, but after update to Debian 11 (kernel 5.10) all was fine.
  • In case of troube check you have /dev/dri/ folder on your host.

Docker users should add --privileged option to container for access to Hardware.

PS. Supported via VAAPI engine on Linux and DXVA2+QSV engine on Windows.

AMD GPU

I don't have the hardware for test support!!!

Supported on: Linux binary, Docker, Hass Addon.

Docker users should install: alexxit/go2rtc:master-hardware. Docker users should add --privileged option to container for access to Hardware.

Hass Addon users should install go2rtc master hardware version.

PS. Supported via VAAPI engine.

NVidia GPU

Supported on: Windows binary, Linux binary, Docker.

Docker users should install: alexxit/go2rtc:master-hardware.

Read more here and here.

PS. Supported via CUDA engine.

Raspberry Pi 3

Supported on: Linux binary, Docker, Hass Addon.

I don't recommend using transcoding on the Raspberry Pi 3. It's extreamly slow, even with hardware acceleration. Also it may fail when transcoding 2K+ stream.

Raspberry Pi 4

I don't have the hardware for test support!!!

Supported on: Linux binary, Docker, Hass Addon.

PS. Supported via v4l2m2m engine.

macOS

In my tests, transcoding is faster on the M1 CPU than on the M1 GPU. Transcoding time on M1 CPU better than any Intel iGPU and comparable to NVidia RTX 2070.

PS. Supported via videotoolbox engine.

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