Kodi Community Forum

Are there any guides to achieving PERFECT playback on Kodi 18 running Ubuntu 18.04 desktop version as the OS, on systems with VAAPI graphics?  I am trying to minimize or preferably eliminate dropped frames.

VAAPI for which hardware? Intel or AMD? We are not keeping track of which hardware every single Kodi forum user has...

(2018-09-28, 07:02)Klojum Wrote: [ -> ]VAAPI for which hardware? Intel or AMD? We are not keeping track of which hardware every single Kodi forum user has...

 Intel.

(2018-09-28, 12:48)FernetMenta Wrote: [ -> ]https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=231955

 Thanks but that is for AMD and also it is horribly complicated.  I was hoping that there might be Intel-specific instructions that are simpler than those!

The main thing I am trying to avoid is dropping frames from certain sources such as PVR recordings from some channels.

This thread started 2015, long before we supported VAAPI for AMD. 

What is complicated with this? You just need to copy/paste a couple of commands.

(2018-09-28, 17:32)FernetMenta Wrote: [ -> ]This thread started 2015, long before we supported VAAPI for AMD. 

What is complicated with this? You just need to copy/paste a couple of commands.

 If you are talking about the thread at https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=231955 I am looking at the first post there, which has way way more than a couple of commands.  Is there some other post I should be looking at?  And anyway that thread does not really seem relevant to what I asked for two reasons, first because neither Kodi 18 nor Ubuntu 18.04 were around yet when that was written, and second because it's specifically for an AMD processor which is not what I have.  If there are a couple of commands in those instructions that would be relevant to users of Kodi 18 and Ubuntu 18.04 on machines with Intel processors and VAAPI graphics, I would really appreciate it if you could show me which ones those are.  Is it possible that maybe you sent me the wrong link?

Refresh your browser cache ... "Intel VAAPI howto with Leia v18 nightly based on Ubuntu 18.04 server"  - This howto was done by more than 250 thousand users. You don't seem to become one of them.

Make sure you have TripleBuffer disabled in xorg.conf. This is enabled by default

(2018-09-29, 08:23)FernetMenta Wrote: [ -> ]Make sure you have TripleBuffer disabled in xorg.conf. This is enabled by default

Thank you for that tip but I am really confused now.  I cannot seem to find xorg.conf in Ubuntu 18.04.  I know that Ubuntu supposedly went back to xorg, and IIRC xorg.conf used to be in the /etc/X11 directory in older (pre-Unity) versions of Ubuntu but it isn't there now - the /etc/X11 directory exists but there is no xorg.conf at all.  I checked this on two different systems running Ubuntu 18.04, and there is no xorg.conf on either of them!  Is there perhaps a sample xorg.conf I should use with this setting in it?  I never really knew much about xorg.conf to start with and I think the last time I had to tweak it was back in Ubuntu 12.04 or thereabouts and truthfully I don't remember much of anything about it.  EDIT: Also I just remembered that back then I was running nVidia graphics, now my Intel-based system has VAAPI graphics so it would probably not be the same procedure even if I could remember it.

This problem seems to have started (or at least gotten noticeably worse) after some Ubuntu updates were applied early in the week.  I can't say for sure that they were the cause, but the timing seems a little suspicious.  I was originally running Kodi Titan on this system and then upgraded to Leia and if anything that seemed to make the problem more noticeable.  I'm about at the point that I am thinking of blowing the entire system away and installing Ubuntu 16.04 just to go back to the previous graphics system, which seemed to work much better with Kodi, but if there is some way to fix this using an xorg.conf file I am open to suggestions, I just have no idea how to create one anymore or if that is what you are supposed to do, or even if it is still supposed to go in the /etc/X11 directory.

(2018-09-28, 20:41)fritsch Wrote: [ -> ]Refresh your browser cache ... "Intel VAAPI howto with Leia v18 nightly based on Ubuntu 18.04 server"  - This howto was done by more than 250 thousand users. You don't seem to become one of them.

Well no, because as I said before this is not applicable to my setup.  Again I am running Ubuntu 18.04 desktop.  When you look at that complicated howto, it tells you to install on Ubuntu server, and then as part of the instructions you install openbox which is a desktop environment which is used when you launch Kodi. That's not what I have or want - I am running the standard Ubuntu Desktop which in 18.04 already includes the Gnome desktop, and in previous versions included the Unity desktop. I don't really want to have to give up a decent desktop just to be able to run Kodi, and never had to do so in the past - Kodi always ran fine in Ubuntu 16.04 and previous (well, with occasional crashes at startup but otherwise it ran fine and no dropped frames!). That is why in my first post I asked specifically if there any guides to achieving PERFECT playback on Kodi 18 running Ubuntu 18.04 desktop version as the OS, on systems with VAAPI graphics?  I had seen the guide you are talking about and maybe more than 250 thousand users have done it, but that still doesn't mean it is applicable to people who want to use a stock Ubuntu desktop system.

Also, are you seriously telling me that a quarter of a million Linux users were willing to blow away their Ubuntu desktops and start over with Ubuntu server and the openbox desktop environment?  Wow!  Even if that's true, I'm not one who is willing to do that.  That's why I was hoping there might be another guide that was written specifically for Ubuntu desktop users, that's less complicated than that one.  The last time I installed Kodi in a Ubuntu 16.04 system I just followed the instructions on the page at https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Install_Kodi_for_Linux and everything worked wonderfully. Now all of a sudden 18.04 comes along and it's like everything has gone to hell in a handbasket, and you are saying the only way to fix it is by blowing away my Ubuntu desktop system and starting over with Ubuntu server and then add on an inferior desktop environment using instructions that are much, much longer and more complicated than any previous Kodi installation instructions?  I would not be so adverse to trying to follow those instructions if it didn't mean blowing away my current installation and starting over - if I have to do all that I might just as well go back to Ubuntu 16.04 and be done with it, and hope that by the time 20.04 comes along either you guys or the Ubuntu people will have fixed whatever's causing these issues.

As I indicated in my previous post, maybe all I really need is a decent xorg.conf file, but Ubuntu 18.04 doesn't seen to include one by default and I have no idea how or where to get one, especially on an Intel-based system with VAAPI graphics.  Any suggestions?

My hardware: Thinkpad L380 (VAAPI)
My software: Ubuntu 18.04.1 Desktop
My kodi-version: Version 18 nightly
My problems with LiveTV (including 1080i / 576i / 720p): zero

It's as simply as adding the ppa and installing kodi.

(2018-09-29, 08:23)FernetMenta Wrote: [ -> ]Make sure you have TripleBuffer disabled in xorg.conf. This is enabled by default

 I don't have triple buffer disabled on current intel hardware. No frame drops at all ....

(2018-09-30, 20:15)boba23 Wrote: [ -> ]

(2018-09-29, 08:23)FernetMenta Wrote: [ -> ]Make sure you have TripleBuffer disabled in xorg.conf. This is enabled by default

 I don't have triple buffer disabled on current intel hardware. No frame drops at all .... 

 Which does not change the fact that kodi sync works best if you use double buffering. But: if you don't have an issue, don't fix it :-)

I was just wondering @fritsch . U don't have that in your guide, do you?