I am a Kubuntu user, and have been for many years. Started with 8.04, and am currently running 20.04.2. Also, I currently own an i7-3770 and a Nvidia GTX780ti.
No matter what I try, Stadia will only run my games in Software mode. Even if I use "Stadia Enhanced" to force h.264, it still only uses Software decoding.
Now, I have been trying all of these online walk-throughs on how to enable HW Acceleration on the Chrome Browser... but to no avail.
https://www.linuxuprising.com/2021/01/how-to-enable-hardware-accelerated.html?m=1
I don't really want to upgrade my video card either. A GTX1660 is going for $700 - $800 right now... and the Video Card "crisis" is kinda why I decided to start using Stadia in the first place.
What can be done here to allow Stadia to decide h.264 in Hardware?
hi @Shibblet,
try enabling the hardware acceleration video decoding flag. it is under "chrome://flags". called "hardware accelerated video decoding". Let me know how that goes
edit: I misread your message. let me compare my windows pc with my ubuntu system and get back to you
@Shibblet have you tried this yet?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/mehoan/stadia_on_linux_guide_to_hardware_decoding/
That's a great link to follow as well. And as I do have an Intel i7-3770 with an HD 4000 built in, my monitor is plugged into my GTX780ti.
That particular link shows how to enable hardware decoding for my iGPU, and not my dGPU.
Hey Shadow,
Thanks for the quick response.
Yes, I have turned on that flag in chrome://flags. If I go to the chrome://gpu screen, it will show that it is enabled. However, it does not work. Stadia still uses Software H.264, and limits my resolution to 1280x720. The Stadia "Decode Time" is not fast enough to do 1920x1080.
If you followed the link I posted, I have gone through that checklist, and followed the instructions to the "T" multiple times. Unfortunately, I still do not get Hardware Video Decoding.
I'm in the same boat as you. I've been trying all kinds of things to get hardware decoding to work with ubuntu and nvidia hardware. Different browsers, different drivers, tons of different settings and experimental stuff.
The sad thing is that it just doesn't work. The software side for it just isn't ready or is just plain dysfunctional.
I ran into a new problem with that last night. I was trying to download the a Chromium-Dev branch that supports hardware acceleration. However, even after I put in the PPA, I couldn't get the new Chromium to download... it kept installing the Snap instead.
Yep... believe it or not "sudo apt install chromium-browser" launched "snap" to do the installation.
So, I went a step further and removed "snap" entirely... Then when I went to install "chromium-browser," it installed "snap" itself, and then went on to install the snap of "chromium-browser" on it's own!
Check this link out: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.10 (and 20.04 LTS) - Kevin Custer (kevin-custer.com)
it explains the whole thing.
Unfortunately, until Google steps up to the plate, and bakes it into the browser, it appears we are going to be out of luck.
Getting a browser that supports hardware decoding is quite easy actually.
The problem is that it won't be able to talk to the hardware of your NVidia card to do the actual hardware decoding. For that you need software between the browser and the card, and that's where the problem resides. The nvidia driver and vdpau stuff.
The browser vendor unfortunately isn't responsible for the whole chain and thus can't fix it. And NVidia won't do anything from their end besides providing the necessary access to the hardware decoders, which the latest drivers do. And apparently the middle guys aren't doing anything about it either. So even if you manage to install a chrome browser that has hardware decoding enabled, it still won't work. Since chrome, vppau and the nvidia drivers won't integrate properly.
You might be able to follow the NVidia parts of this guide (But read the warning below before you do) :
https://www.linuxuprising.com/2021/01/how-to-enable-hardware-accelerated.html?m=1
It has links to a ppa with vdpau stuff that supposedly is patched to be able to do hardware decoding.
WARNING! It didn't work for me, perhaps it will for you. Just be aware that it may leave your system in a state where you can't play any video at all (like youtube) via your browsers. And backing out to fix it to a usable state may prove problematic.
Those are the PPA's and Chromium-Dev / Chromium-Beta builds that I was referring to. I followed that list multiple times, and was never able to get things to work.
It may be partially Nvidia's fault, but it seems to me that if someone can patch "Chromium" to add Hardware Acceleration, then that patch could be included in Chrome builds as well.
That being said... Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux Distros, especially with their entire Linux Distro Branch (Pop_OS, Linux Mint, etc.). Why couldn't Nvidia work with Ubuntu to fix this issue? I promise, that once Ubuntu has it working, it will spread throughout the Linux world. I mean, look what's happened with Proton / Wine. That took off like crazy to all of the other non Debian based distros.
Anyway, I do appreciate the help.
What about it Google? How about patching Chrome to use H.264 / VP9 Hardware Acceleration in Linux?
It does work. After some doing... I was able to get it to work for Hardware Video Acceleration.
However, it only works for things like YouTube. It does not work for Stadia.
Stadia still gives me the "Software H.264" decoding. With the Decode Time as high as it is, it will eventually bump the resolution down to 1280x720...
I would love to get this to work. Please someone, help!
I have the same problem. It took me long enough to enable hardware decoding for my Nvidia card, then realized that Stadia still uses software decoding. The games are unplayable.
Here we are. Almost a full year later, and no one has resolved, or even found a workaround, for this issue.
All of the people I know who run Stadia on Windows (10, 11) do not have this problem in ANY of the Chrome based browsers. Edge, Brave, Chrome, etc.
I'm not asking Google to support anything outside of their own... Please add hardware acceleration to Stadia for the Linux Chrome Browser.
You can try this guide to install Chrome on Ubuntu.
Something tells me you're not familiar with the actual problem and/or didn't read the thread.
We don't need to know how to install Chrome. We need Hardware Acceleration FOR Chrome.
How to Enable Microphone and GPU Acceleration in Linux on Chrome?
Hi everyone,
This is an older post so we're going to go ahead and lock it now. If anyone still needs help after trying the suggestions here, I'd recommend creating a new post so that you can get better visibility in our community.
Thank you,
James