[Bug]: Intel VA-API Hardware Acceleration Fails on Xe-LPG (i5-1335U, Fedora 42)

[HanFarJR]

Which component impacted?

Decode

Is it regression? Good in old configuration?

No, this issue exist a long time

What happened?

Hardware acceleration via VA-API on an Intel i5-1335U (Raptor Lake, Xe-LPG) fails despite proper driver installation. VAAPI initializes, but playback stutters and hundreds of frames are dropped. The GPU video engine shows no load, indicating fallback to software decode or failed interop.

System Info

• Laptop: Acer Swift Go 14 (SFG14-71-59Y7)
  

• CPU: Intel Core i5-1335U (13th Gen, Raptor Lake-U)
  

• GPU: Integrated Intel Xe (Gen12.7, "Xe-LPG")
  

• Display: 14" OLED 2880×1800 @ 90Hz
  

• OS: Fedora 42
  

• Kernel: 6.14.9-300.fc42.x86_64
  

• Session Type: X11 (also tested Wayland, same result)
  

• Mesa Version: 25.0.6
  

• VAAPI Driver: Intel iHD built from source media-driver (commit 214c88e69)
  

• libva: 2.22.0 (VA-API 1.23.0)
  

Software Stack

• MPV: 0.40.0
     Compiled with VAAPI, DRM, Wayland, EGL, Vulkan, FFmpeg 7.1.1
  

• FFmpeg: 7.1.1
  

• VA-API utilities: libva-utils, vainfo, etc. installed and functional
  

• No Flatpak used
  

What's the usage scenario when you are seeing the problem?

Playback

What impacted?

This issue blocks functional hardware-accelerated decoding for Intel Xe-LPG (iGPU on 13th Gen Intel i5-1335U) under Fedora 42 using VA-API and intel-media-driver.

Both standalone players (e.g. mpv) and browsers (e.g. Firefox) fail to offload H.264 video decoding to the GPU despite all components initializing successfully.

This affects:

• Desktop video playback performance (e.g., YouTube, H.264 1080p/4K content)
  

• Browser streaming (e.g., NRK TV and other sites using MediaSource)
  

• CPU usage and battery life, especially in mobile laptops
  

• Any program using VA-API via ffmpeg, mpv, GStreamer, or Chromium/Firefox
  

The video decode engine (intel_gpu_top) shows 0% usage even when vainfo confirms support, and the iHD driver is loaded.

Without resolution, all video workloads are CPU-decoded on this platform — defeating the purpose of integrated hardware decode.

Debug Information

libva / libva-utils / media-driver version:
libva 2.22.0
libva-utils 2.22.0
media-driver 25.2.4 (from commit 214c88e built manually)

gmmlib version:
Using gmmlib from Fedora 42 repository (version unknown, assumed recent)

GPU hardware:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 80 Jun 4 18:04 by-path
crw-rw---- 1 root video 226, 1 Jun 4 18:04 card1
crw-rw-rw-. 1 root render 226, 128 Jun 4 18:04 renderD128

GPU PCI info:

0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Raptor Lake-P [Iris Xe Graphics] [8086:a7a1]
(rev 04)

Vainfo:
vainfo.log

Strace:
mpv-strace.log

Do you want to contribute a patch to fix the issue?

No.