Encountering difficulties with browser-based GPU-accelerated video encoding on Linux using Playwright

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1

I’m stuck trying to get GPU acceleration for video encoding when using a browser on a Linux VM with Playwright. I’ve experimented with different approaches:

Firefox:

  • There are no direct flags for enabling GPU acceleration
  • Headless mode uses some GPU power but seems to rely on the CPU for encoding
  • Using a virtual display like Xvfb in headful mode results in no GPU usage

Chromium:

  • Claims to lack encoding and decoding support on Linux, even though it has GPU flags, but doesn’t offer VideoEncoder support

While Windows Server supports GPU and VideoEncoder perfectly, it’s too expensive for my needs.

Here’s a script I put together to test GPU and VideoEncoder support:

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

gpu_settings = [
    '--gpu-mode=advanced',
    '--force-gpu-rasterization',
    '--enable-zero-copy'
]

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch(headless=True, args=gpu_settings)
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto('https://gpucheck.example.com')
    
    gpu_info = page.evaluate('''
    () => {
        const canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
        const ctx = canvas.getContext('webgl');
        return {
            renderer: ctx.getParameter(ctx.getExtension('WEBGL_debug_renderer_info').UNMASKED_RENDERER_WEBGL),
            hasVideoEncoder: 'VideoEncoder' in window
        };
    }
    ''')
    
    print(f"GPU: {gpu_info['renderer']}")
    print(f"VideoEncoder: {'Available' if gpu_info['hasVideoEncoder'] else 'Not available'}")
    
    browser.close()

Any suggestions on how to enable GPU-accelerated encoding on Linux? I’m really hoping to find a solution!

2

I’ve faced similar challenges with GPU acceleration for video encoding on Linux VMs. One approach that worked for me was using Chrome/Chromium with specific flags and a custom build.

First, ensure you have the latest Chromium build with VA-API support. You might need to compile it yourself or find a specialized build.

Then, launch Chromium with these additional flags:

–use-gl=egl --enable-features=VaapiVideoDecoder,VaapiVideoEncoder --ignore-gpu-blocklist --enable-gpu-rasterization --enable-zero-copy

Also, make sure your VM has the necessary GPU drivers and libraries installed. For NVIDIA GPUs, you’ll need the CUDA toolkit and NVENC libraries.

In your Playwright script, you can pass these flags like this:

browser = p.chromium.launch(headless=False, args=[‘–use-gl=egl’, ‘–enable-features=VaapiVideoDecoder,VaapiVideoEncoder’, ‘–ignore-gpu-blocklist’, ‘–enable-gpu-rasterization’, ‘–enable-zero-copy’])

This setup has allowed me to achieve GPU-accelerated encoding on Linux VMs. It’s not perfect, but it’s a significant improvement over CPU-only encoding.

3

Have you considered using a Docker container with GPU passthrough? This approach can be quite effective for GPU-accelerated encoding on Linux. You’d need to set up NVIDIA Docker runtime and ensure your host system has the appropriate NVIDIA drivers installed.

For the container, you could use an image with Chromium and the necessary GPU libraries pre-installed. Launch it with something like:

docker run --gpus all -it --rm nvidia/cudagl:11.4.0-base-ubuntu20.04

Inside the container, you can run your Playwright script with the GPU flags others have mentioned. This method bypasses some of the compatibility issues you might face with a standard VM setup.

Remember to mount your script directory and expose any necessary ports. It’s a bit more complex to set up initially, but it provides a consistent environment for GPU-accelerated encoding across different Linux distributions.

4

hey Alex, try using chromium with vaapi. install libva and intel-media-driver packages. then run chromium with --enable-features=VaapiVideoEncoder flag. might need to tweak some kernel parameters too. let me kno if it works for u!