The driver was not configured properly. Kernel module parameter nvidia-drm.modeset=1 was not set. You need to follow the instructions from here
As for SMPlayer, try to set Preferences → General → Video → Output driver to gpu or gpu-next and Performance → Performance → Hardware decoding to Auto
inxi -Gz ✔ at 12:34:11
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA GP107GL [Quadro P620] driver: nvidia v: 550.67
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.12 driver: X: loaded: nvidia
gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch s-res: 9600x2160 resolution: 1: 3840x2160
2: 1920x1080 3: 1920x1080 4: 1920x1080
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: nvidia,swrast
platforms: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device
API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 550.67
renderer: Quadro P620/PCIe/SSE2
API: Vulkan v: 1.3.279 drivers: nvidia surfaces: xcb,xlib
sudo cat /sys/module/nvidia_drm/parameters/modeset ✔ at 12:34:18
[sudo] password for:
Y
Thank you I now enabled it. I’m getting tearing with all FF settings but “Use recommended performance settings”. So that’s ok I think. However Video Engine Utilization: 0%
Now that I added the kernel module to be loaded, SMPlayer (with your settings above) and VLC (default settings) do not get >0%. However before the restart it did work on these settings.
For me it’s complicating things though now … 
Edit, it’s working on VLC most of the time and in SMPlayer with the setting Performance > nvdec-copy as well, just not for 4k videos in both apps, but still all tear-free.
Could you provide output of vainfo?
If that command is not recognized install libva-utils package first.
vainfo ✔ at 17:42:54
Trying display: wayland
Trying display: x11
libva error: vaGetDriverNames() failed with unknown libva error
vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit
printenv | grep -i libva ✔ took 1m 41s at 17:45:08
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia vainfo 0|1 ✘ at 17:47:36
Trying display: wayland
Trying display: x11
libva error: vaGetDriverNames() failed with unknown libva error
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.20 (libva 2.20.1)
vainfo: Driver version: VA-API NVDEC driver [egl backend]
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain12 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointVLD
lib32-libva-vdpau-driver is still installed.
vainfo --display drm ✔ at 17:51:33
Trying display: drm
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.20 (libva 2.20.1)
vainfo: Driver version: VA-API NVDEC driver [egl backend]
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain12 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointVLD
I see that you didn’t set necessary environmental variables system wide. Did you put them in firefox.desktop file? Post “Exec=” sting from firefox.desktop.
Exec=/usr/lib/firefox/firefox %u
I did not put MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 into /etc/environment because it was said to have been fixed and a security risk.
Oh and in that file I have
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME nvidia
should that be 
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia
didnt pay attention there
MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX was fixed for Mesa i.e. for AMD GPUs, it can’t possibly be fixed for libva-nvidia-driver.
You need to set NVD_BACKEND=direct MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia.
So you ignored a lot of required parameters. Which raises the question - what else did you ignore?
You should configure all parameters exactly as it said on the driver configuration page otherwise HW acceleration is not going to work.
Ok thanks, next try.
Here is what I was referring to:
I knew what you were referring to. That bug was in mesa driver which provides VA-API.
libva-nvidia-driver doesn’t really provide VA-API, it’s a wrapper around NVDEC, pretending to be VA-API. So fixes of mesa bugs have nothing to do with our driver.
Ok I do not seem to get it working in Firefox. Thank for the help with SMPlayer and most likely VLC (that auto-configured correctly).
I concluded also that my small GPU can’t help/handle 4K videos so CPU’s gotta do that job.
Here is me summarizing myself of what I did:
sudo pacman -S meson gst-plugins-bad ffnvcodec-headers# GRUB boot loader configuration
GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="Manjaro"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet cryptdevice=UUID=Y:luks-Y root=/dev/mapper/luks-Y splash resume=/dev/mapper/luks-Z udev.log_priority=3 nvidia-drm.modeset=1"
[...] [Y,Z=uuids]
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg#Exec=/usr/lib/firefox/firefox %u
Icon=firefox
Terminal=false
Type=Application
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;text/mml;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;application/x-xpinstall;application/pdf;application/json;
StartupNotify=true
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
Actions=new-window;new-private-window;profile-manager-window;
StartupWMClass=firefox
#Exec=/usr/lib/firefox/firefox --ProfileManager
Exec=env LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia NVD_BACKEND=direct NVD_MAX_INSTANCES=11 MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 NVD_LOG=1 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox --ProfileManager
or must the last line end in %u ?
^ guess my fault is somewhere in the above point
in about:config set:
media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled true
media.rdd-ffmpeg.enabled true
media.av1.enabled false (but also tried with true)
gfx.x11-egl.force-enabled true
rebooted several times between the steps.
my next step would be to try in the dev edition of Ff, but other than that, I’m clueless. And even that would just be trial and error.
Greetings.
Does HW acceleration work for videos having lower resolution than 4K?
Can you navigate to about:support page, scroll down and take a screenshot of Codec Support Information?
Yes, it shows in nvidia-settings.
Thanks this may provide useful info, after a logout/in, screen-tearing seems to be gone.
I had set the media.av1.enabled setting in about:config to false and use enhanced-h264ify addon to block Vp8 and Av1 now. However, still 0% in nvidia-settings :).
Looks like you set up everything right. Lets see some logs.
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia NVD_BACKEND=direct NVD_LOG=1 MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 firefox 2>&1 | tee nvdec.log
~/nvdec.log to any free file hosting and provide a link to that file hereThe first two tries, Ff crashed when I tried to resize the window (before trying to navigate to Yt respectively playing a video). I had wanted to debug that and I think the Dark Reader addon is the culprit, anyway these logs then got overwritten:
I played 1 4K video, afterwards an HD vid, also skipped a bit forward, both for a bit more than 15-20 seconds in total. Looks like my 2 GB VRAM memory is the issue?
The crash only happens when I resize the newly opened browser with last sessions’ tabs to smaller. Initially the size is around 3K. Then it logs as follows:
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia NVD_BACKEND=direct NVD_LOG=1 MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 firefox 2>&1 | tee nvdec.log
[Parent 3174666, Main Thread] WARNING: Theme directory 64/devices of theme Gruvbox has no size field
: 'glib warning', file /usr/src/debug/firefox/firefox-125.0.1/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187
(firefox:3174666): Gtk-WARNING **: 18:35:35.342: Theme directory 64/devices of theme Gruvbox has no size field
[GFX1-]: GFX: RenderThread detected a device reset in PostUpdate
[Parent 3174666, Main Thread] WARNING: The program 'firefox' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)'.
(Details: serial 1979 error_code 2 request_code 156 (NV-GLX) minor_code 24)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the GDK_SYNCHRONIZE environment
variable to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.): 'glib warning', file /usr/src/debug/firefox/firefox-125.0.1/toolkit/xre/nsSigHandlers.cpp:187
(firefox:3174666): Gdk-WARNING **: 18:35:44.945: The program 'firefox' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)'.
(Details: serial 1979 error_code 2 request_code 156 (NV-GLX) minor_code 24)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the GDK_SYNCHRONIZE environment
variable to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Exiting due to channel error.
Driver works for a while and then crashes with ‘out of memory’ error.
Try to use
NVD_MAX_INSTANCES=2
Value of 11 is way too much for 2 Gb
Thank you for your debugging support. Then maybe it’s also a bug that nothing shows in nvidia-settings? Or I have to p(l)ay closer attention.
Is the exec file fine like this and is ok it stays outside home folder in /user/share/applications/firefox.desktop ?
Exec=env LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia NVD_BACKEND=direct NVD_MAX_INSTANCES=2 MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 NVD_LOG=1 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox %u
Try
LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia NVD_BACKEND=direct NVD_LOG=1 NVD_MAX_INSTANCES=2 MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 firefox 2>&1 | tee nvdec.log
from the Konsole first and see if ‘out of memory’ error is gone
If it’s gone, then modify .desktop file. If not, then I’m afraid it’s not gonna work
No I played the same videos again and also the error came twice.
256130.718570267 [3227829-3227892] ../nvidia-vaapi-driver-0.0.11/src/vabackend.c:1754 nvQuerySurfaceAttributes with 10 (8) (nil) 0
256130.718572314 [3227829-3227892] ../nvidia-vaapi-driver-0.0.11/src/vabackend.c:1754 nvQuerySurfaceAttributes with 10 (8) 0x7fc34c0c0100 8
256130.720470931 [3227829-3227892] ../nvidia-vaapi-driver-0.0.11/src/vabackend.c:1821 nvQuerySurfaceAttributes Returning constraints: width: 128 - 8192, height: 128 - 8192
256130.720478029 [3227829-3227892] ../nvidia-vaapi-driver-0.0.11/src/vabackend.c: 984 nvCreateContext with 18 render targets, 18 surfaces, at 1920x1080
256130.975393439 [3227829-3227892] ../nvidia-vaapi-driver-0.0.11/src/vabackend.c:1037 nvCreateContext CUDA ERROR 'out of memory' (2)
[...]
256312.122275263 [3227829-3228089] ../nvidia-vaapi-driver-0.0.11/src/vabackend.c:2064 nvTerminate Now have 1 (2 max) instances
256312.368993184 [3227829-3228084] ../nvidia-vaapi-driver-0.0.11/src/vabackend.c:1037 nvCreateContext CUDA ERROR 'out of memory' (2)
Would you keep it like that, or change the exec lines back to default?
Will try with the untouched dev-edition later.
You can comment exec line containing environmental variables with # and use the default line.
Switch between them when necessary.
Do you per chance know which one it is?
#Exec=/usr/lib/firefox/firefox %u
#Exec=/usr/lib/firefox/firefox --ProfileManager
I mean, do I have to uncomment both? The last one is at the bottom and lists default-release, default, dev-edition-default to me (create, delete, rename them).