How to set Environment Variable for VDPAU driver?

I am trying to enable Hardware Acceleration. My goal is to set VDPAU driver set “nvidia”. I am following the Arch Wiki.

When I run $ grep -iE 'vdpau | dri driver' /var/log/Xorg.0.log I can see that My VDPAU driver is set to va_gl. Which is for intel.

[     9.047] (II) intel(0): [DRI2]   DRI driver: i965
[     9.047] (II) intel(0): [DRI2]   VDPAU driver: va_gl

How ever I want to set VDPAU driver to nvidia. According to Arch Wiki to do that I have to add VDPAU_DRIVER=nvidia in Environment variable. But I have no idea How to do that.

Also I have Hybrid system. So, NVIDIA PRIME is set to default. But Arch Wiki says I have to set Environment variable for Hybrid system to DRI_PRIME=1. Which I have no idea.

Can anyone help me?

You do not have X11 running on nvidia but intel.
If X11 would run on nvidia it would automatically pick the nvidia vdpau driver.

ok. But My goal is to force it to set to nvidia. Arch wiki says I can do it by changing Environment variable. I have changed environment variable /etc/environment —> VDPAU_DRIVER = nvidia. After restarting it doesn’t work.

But why if you do not have nvidia hardware? vdpau is hardware acceleration after all.

The wiki also says:

Although the video driver should automatically enable hardware video acceleration support for both VA-API and VDPAU, it may be needed to configure VA-API/VDPAU manually. Only continue to this section if you went through #Verification.

I would guess it needs the nvidia drivers.

I already have nvidia driver properly installed.

$ mhwd -li
Installed PCI configs:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME VERSION FREEDRIVER TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-440xx-prime 2019.10.25 false PCI

$ vdpauinfo

 display: :0   screen: 0
API version: 1
Information string: OpenGL/VAAPI backend for VDPAU

Video surface:

name   width height types
-------------------------------------------
420     4096  4096  NV12 YV12 UYVY YUYV Y8U8V8A8 V8U8Y8A8 NV24 YV24 P010 P016 Y_U_V_444_16 
422     4096  4096  NV12 YV12 UYVY YUYV Y8U8V8A8 V8U8Y8A8 NV24 YV24 P010 P016 Y_U_V_444_16 
444     4096  4096  NV12 YV12 UYVY YUYV Y8U8V8A8 V8U8Y8A8 NV24 YV24 P010 P016 Y_U_V_444_16 
420_16  4096  4096  NV12 YV12 UYVY YUYV Y8U8V8A8 V8U8Y8A8 NV24 YV24 P010 P016 Y_U_V_444_16 
422_16  4096  4096  NV12 YV12 UYVY YUYV Y8U8V8A8 V8U8Y8A8 NV24 YV24 P010 P016 Y_U_V_444_16 
444_16  4096  4096  NV12 YV12 UYVY YUYV Y8U8V8A8 V8U8Y8A8 NV24 YV24 P010 P016 Y_U_V_444_16 

Decoder capabilities:

name                        level macbs width height
----------------------------------------------------
MPEG1                          --- not supported ---
MPEG2_SIMPLE                   --- not supported ---
MPEG2_MAIN                     --- not supported ---
H264_BASELINE                  51 16384  2048  2048
H264_MAIN                      51 16384  2048  2048
H264_HIGH                      51 16384  2048  2048
VC1_SIMPLE                     --- not supported ---
VC1_MAIN                       --- not supported ---
VC1_ADVANCED                   --- not supported ---
MPEG4_PART2_SP                 --- not supported ---
MPEG4_PART2_ASP                --- not supported ---
DIVX4_QMOBILE                  --- not supported ---
DIVX4_MOBILE                   --- not supported ---
DIVX4_HOME_THEATER             --- not supported ---
DIVX4_HD_1080P                 --- not supported ---
DIVX5_QMOBILE                  --- not supported ---
DIVX5_MOBILE                   --- not supported ---
DIVX5_HOME_THEATER             --- not supported ---
DIVX5_HD_1080P                 --- not supported ---
H264_CONSTRAINED_BASELINE      51 16384  2048  2048
H264_EXTENDED                  --- not supported ---
H264_PROGRESSIVE_HIGH          --- not supported ---
H264_CONSTRAINED_HIGH          --- not supported ---
H264_HIGH_444_PREDICTIVE       --- not supported ---
VP9_PROFILE_0                  --- not supported ---
VP9_PROFILE_1                  --- not supported ---
VP9_PROFILE_2                  --- not supported ---
VP9_PROFILE_3                  --- not supported ---
HEVC_MAIN                      --- not supported ---
HEVC_MAIN_10                   --- not supported ---
HEVC_MAIN_STILL                --- not supported ---
HEVC_MAIN_12                   --- not supported ---
HEVC_MAIN_444                  --- not supported ---
HEVC_MAIN_444_10               --- not supported ---
HEVC_MAIN_444_12               --- not supported ---

Output surface:

name              width height nat types
----------------------------------------------------
B8G8R8A8         16384 16384    y  
R8G8B8A8         16384 16384    y  
R10G10B10A2      16384 16384    y  
B10G10R10A2      16384 16384    y  
A8               16384 16384    y  

Bitmap surface:

name              width height
------------------------------
B8G8R8A8         16384 16384
R8G8B8A8         16384 16384
R10G10B10A2      16384 16384
B10G10R10A2      16384 16384
A8               16384 16384

Video mixer:

feature name                    sup
------------------------------------
DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL             -
DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL_SPATIAL     -
INVERSE_TELECINE                 -
NOISE_REDUCTION                  -
SHARPNESS                        -
LUMA_KEY                         -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L1        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L2        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L3        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L4        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L5        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L6        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L7        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L8        -
HIGH QUALITY SCALING - L9        -

parameter name                  sup      min      max
-----------------------------------------------------
VIDEO_SURFACE_WIDTH              -  
VIDEO_SURFACE_HEIGHT             -  
CHROMA_TYPE                      -  
LAYERS                           -  

attribute name                  sup      min      max
-----------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND_COLOR                 -  
CSC_MATRIX                       -  
NOISE_REDUCTION_LEVEL            -  
SHARPNESS_LEVEL                  -  
LUMA_KEY_MIN_LUMA                -  
LUMA_KEY_MAX_LUMA                -  


corrupted size vs. prev_size in fastbins
Aborted (core dumped)

$ vainfo

vainfo: VA-API version: 1.8 (libva 2.8.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Haswell Mobile - 2.4.1
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

This info clearly shows that you only have intel which is only supporting vaapi.
You can not use nvidia vdpau driver because you do not have the hardware.

If you need to use the vdpau command set you could use the wrapper library libvdpau-va-gl which is basically " the VDPAU driver with VA-API/OpenGL backend".

While checking something like vainfo, vdpauinfo, etc etc … make sure to preface with prime-run to see how it works when you are using the nvidia. ex:

glxinfo | grep renderer
prime-run glxinfo | grep renderer
vainfo
prime-run vainfo