Chrome Flags' Latest 2024 Update, Web Browser Video Hardware Acceleration on Linux

There's an important change made to the flags to enable video hardware acceleration on Linux, starting from Chrome/Chromium 131, or Brave 1.73.89 which is based on Chromium 131. Other Chromium based browsers are all affected too.

It's on Chromium issue #40225939. Here are the updated flags for each GPU vendor:

Intel GPUs

--enable-features=AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxZeroCopyGL,AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxGL,AcceleratedVideoEncoder

The Vaapi part is replaced with Accelerated. Other than that, --use-gl=angle --use-angle=gl is no longer needed.

AMD GPUs

--enable-features=AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxZeroCopyGL,AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxGL,VaapiIgnoreDriverChecks

NVIDIA GPUs

--enable-features=AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxZeroCopyGL,AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxGL,VaapiIgnoreDriverChecks,VaapiOnNvidiaGPUs

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I am not sure whether adding AcceleratedVideoEncoder would enable video hardware encoding on AMD and NVIDIA GPUs like it does on my Intel GPU.

Here's how to check

1. Go to chrome://gpu or brave://gpu if you're using Brave.
2. Scroll down nearing the end of the page, see in the Video Acceleration Information section, if you have video decoding and encoding, it should show the info similar to this:

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Are we close to have video hardware acceleration enabled by default on Linux (in Chromium browsers)?

The answer would be yes and no. While AcceleratedVideoDecoder will be enabled in Chrome/Chromium 132 by default, it's not decided yet for AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxZeroCopyGL. And AcceleratedVideoEncoder is not getting much attention. Meaning that, we will still have to launch the browser with flags for the unforeseeable future.

What is the problem with the flags?

1. They change overtime, as they are considered experiment features.
2. It's inconvenient to make use of PWAs. If we need all the accelerations to work, we will have to launch the first instance of the browser with these flags. In other word, we can't just go straight to the PWA window. And it is not a good idea either to populate all these flags in all the PWAs' desktop files, as flags are changed/removed all the time. I don't think this is an ideal setup for my grandma's PC.

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Well, this is it for today! Thanks for reading. Bye 💨

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Cover Photo by Muhammad-Taha Ibrahim on Unsplash