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Hardware Acceleration

When you install OvenMediaEngine Enterprise with the distributed RPM/DEB package, hardware-accelerated video encoding is enabled automatically if a hardware-acceleration-capable device and its driver are present. Drivers can be reinstalled, updated, or removed after installation without affecting program execution. This section describes the supported versions and codecs, along with the methods for installing and verifying the drivers.

Supported OS, Drivers, and Codecs​

DeviceSupport OSDriver VersionDecoderEncoder
NVIDIAUbuntu 22.04 / 24.04, Rocky 9Driver 535+H.264, H.265H.264, H.265
Xilinx Alveo U30MAUbuntu 22.04 / 24.04Video SDK 3.0H.264, H.265H.264, H.265
NETINT VPUComing soon

Driver Installation​

NVIDIA Graphics Driver​

The contents of this section are based on the misc/install_nvidia_driver.sh script provided by OvenMediaEngine as Open-Source. The minimum required version is NVIDIA Driver 535. The CUDA Toolkit does not need to be installed separately, as OvenMediaEngine includes the CUDA runtime it requires. If installation issues arise, please refer to the Official NVIDIA Documentation.

Ubuntu Linux 22.04 / 24.04​

# Install prerequisites
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
    apt-utils ca-certificates curl gnupg2 lshw \
    software-properties-common ubuntu-drivers-common

# Uninstall any previously installed NVIDIA driver and CUDA Toolkit packages
sudo apt-get remove -y --purge 'nvidia-*' 'cuda-*' 'libnvidia-*' 'nsight-*'
sudo apt-get autoremove -y

# Disable the nouveau driver if it is loaded (a reboot is required afterwards)
if lsmod | awk '{print $1}' | grep -qx nouveau; then
    sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf > /dev/null <<EOF
blacklist nouveau
blacklist lbm-nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
alias nouveau off
alias lbm-nouveau off
EOF
    sudo update-initramfs -u
    echo "nouveau disabled. Reboot and re-run this script to continue."
    exit 0
fi

# Register the official NVIDIA CUDA repository
# Replace 'ubuntu2204' with 'ubuntu2404' on Ubuntu 24.04
REPO_DIST=ubuntu2204
REPO_BASE=https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/${REPO_DIST}/x86_64
curl -fsSLo cuda-${REPO_DIST}.pin ${REPO_BASE}/cuda-${REPO_DIST}.pin
sudo install -m 644 cuda-${REPO_DIST}.pin /etc/apt/preferences.d/cuda-repository-pin-600
rm -f cuda-${REPO_DIST}.pin
sudo apt-key adv --fetch-keys ${REPO_BASE}/3bf863cc.pub
sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb ${REPO_BASE}/ /"
sudo apt-get update

# Install the NVIDIA driver
sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends nvidia-driver-535

Rocky Linux 9​

# Install prerequisites
sudo dnf update -y
sudo dnf install -y epel-release dnf-plugins-core lshw

# Uninstall any previously installed NVIDIA driver and CUDA Toolkit packages
sudo dnf remove -y 'nvidia-driver*' 'cuda*' 'libnvidia*' 'nsight*'
sudo dnf module reset -y nvidia-driver
sudo dnf clean all

# Disable the nouveau driver if it is loaded (a reboot is required afterwards)
if lsmod | awk '{print $1}' | grep -qx nouveau; then
    sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf > /dev/null <<EOF
blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
EOF
    sudo dracut --force
    echo "nouveau disabled. Reboot and re-run this script to continue."
    exit 0
fi

# Register the official NVIDIA CUDA repository
OS_MAJOR=9
REPO_BASE=https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/rhel${OS_MAJOR}/x86_64
sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo=${REPO_BASE}/cuda-rhel${OS_MAJOR}.repo
sudo dnf clean all

# Install the NVIDIA driver
sudo dnf module install -y nvidia-driver:535

Install and Check the Driver​

# nvidia-smi 
Wed Jul  3 23:30:00 2024       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 535.183.01   Driver Version: 535.183.01   CUDA Version: 12.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce ...  Off  | 00000000:0A:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| 55%   33C    P8    10W / 120W |      2MiB /  3018MiB |      0%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+                                                                  
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

XILINX Video SDK Driver​

The Xilinx Video SDK 3.0 driver officially supports Ubuntu, Red Hat Linux 7.8, and Amazon Linux 2. For detailed information, please refer to the Official Xilinx Documentation.

Verify Hardware Acceleration​

Once the RPM/DEB package and driver installation are complete, you need to verify that the drivers are correctly loaded and the Hardware-Accelerated Video Encoding is activated in OvenMediaEngine. This can be checked through the OvenMediaEngine's Log files.

$ cd /var/log/ovenmediaengine
$ cat ovenmediaengine.log | grep transcoder_gpu

[OvenMediaEngine:1234] TAG| transcoder_gpu.cpp:43   | Trying to check the hardware accelerator
[OvenMediaEngine:1234] TAG| transcoder_gpu.cpp:278  | NVIDIA. DeviceId(0), Name(NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB), BusId(10), CudaId(0)
[OvenMediaEngine:1234] TAG| transcoder_gpu.cpp:48   | Supported NVIDIA Accelerator. Number of devices(1)
[OvenMediaEngine:1234] TAG| transcoder_gpu.cpp:62   | No supported Xilinx Media Accelerator
[OvenMediaEngine:1234] TAG| transcoder_gpu.cpp:82   | No supported Netint VPU Accelerator

Configuration​

To use hardware acceleration, add the <HWAccels> section under <OutputProfiles> and set <Enable> to true for the <Decoder> and/or <Encoder>. If a hardware codec is unavailable due to insufficient resources, it automatically falls back to a software codec.

<OutputProfiles>
    <HWAccels>
        <!-- 
        Setting for Hardware Modules.
            - nv : Nvidia Video Codec SDK
            - xma :Xilinx Media Accelerator
            - netint: Netint VPU (coming soon)

        You can use multiple modules by separating them with commas.
        For example, if you want to use xma and nv, you can set it as follows.

        <Modules>[ModuleName]:[DeviceId],[ModuleName]:[DeviceId],...</Modules>
        <Modules>nv:0,nv:1,xma:0</Modules>
        -->
        <Decoder>
                <Enable>true</Enable>
                <Modules>nv</Modules>
        </Decoder>
        <Encoder>
                <Enable>true</Enable>
                <Modules>nv</Modules>
        </Encoder>
    </HWAccels>
    
    <OutputProfile>
        ...
    </OutputProfile>
</OutputProfiles>

Set Modules per Encode​

The <Modules> in <HWAccels> applies to every encode. To use a different module or device for a specific encode, add <Modules> inside that <Video>. This value overrides the one in <HWAccels>.

Use the [ModuleName]:[DeviceId] format, and separate multiple modules with commas. They are tried in order, and the software codec is used if none are available.

<OutputProfile>
    <Encodes>
        <!-- Encode on NVIDIA device 0 -->
        <Video>
            <Modules>nv:0</Modules>
            ...
        </Video>
        <!-- Encode on NVIDIA device 1 -->
        <Video>
            <Modules>nv:1</Modules>
            ...
        </Video>
    </Encodes>
</OutputProfile>

Reference​