Ubuntu – How to know whether hardware acceleration is working on VLC

hardware accelerationintel graphicsvaapivlc

I'm on Ubuntu 15.10 and I've installed packages related to vaapi shown on this link How do I enable hardware accelerated video in VLC with Intel HD 4000 GPU?

I've tried playing a 1080p vid (H264-MPEG-4 AVC).
And on gnome-system-monitor I see vlc using about 16~20% of cpu.
Does this mean that Hardware acceleration is enabled on vlc?
I'd like to know if there is a way to check if hardware acceleration
is working

the settings related to codec and video output on vlc are set to automatic

here is my vainfo output

libva info: VA-API version 0.38.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_38
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.38 (libva 1.6.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) CherryView - 1.6.0
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
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointEncPicture
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileHEVCMain               : VAEntrypointVLD

Best Answer

Run VLC from a terminal with a path to a video file, you should see in the output whether it's using VA-API. E.g. here's mine output:

$ vlc "https://youtu.be/6An_c0FOlew"
VLC media player 2.2.4 Weatherwax (revision 2.2.3-37-g888b7e89)
[000000000094f148] core libvlc: Запуск vlc с интерфейсом по умолчанию. Используйте 'cvlc' для запуска vlc без интерфейса.
[0000000000a5fb28] core playlist: stopping playback
libva info: VA-API version 0.39.2
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: User requested driver 'r600'
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/r600_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_39
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
[00007f21bc5f1a28] avcodec decoder: Using mesa gallium vaapi for hardware decoding.

It worked for me out of the box, but just in case it won't for you, check settings of VLC for enabled renderer.

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