# GPU Acceleration ## Firefox Hardware Video Acceleration ### Configuring the nvidia-vaapi-driver As of Debian 13 (Trixie) it is now fairly easy to configure VAAPI hardware video acceleration as this release ships with an updated version of the `nvidia-vaapi-driver`. The only package that needs to be manually installed now is the `nvidia-driver`. Tested working packages: - nvidia-driver v570.169 (manually installed without the package manager) - nvidia-vaapi-driver v0.0.13 - firefox-esr v128.11 - vainfo v2.22 In the future when the Debian repository ships a newer release of the `nvidia-driver` make sure you also have the `libnvidia-encode1` package installed (this package already comes with the manually installed `nvidia-driver`). Ensure you have the following kernel parameters set for the `nvidia-driver`: `/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf` ``` options nvidia-drm modeset=1 ``` If this parameter is not currently set you will have to rebuild initramfs and reboot: ``` sudo mkinitramfs -u sudo reboot ``` Once you have installed the packages above you can verify `nvidia-vaapi-driver` is working by running `vainfo`: ``` user@debian:~$ vainfo Trying display: wayland Trying display: x11 error: can't connect to X server! Trying display: drm libva info: VA-API version 1.22.0 libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/nvidia_drv_video.so libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_0 libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0 vainfo: VA-API version: 1.22 (libva 2.22.0) vainfo: Driver version: VA-API NVDEC driver [direct backend] vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVP8Version0_3 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileAV1Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileHEVCMain12 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileHEVCMain444 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileHEVCMain444_10 : VAEntrypointVLD VAProfileHEVCMain444_12 : VAEntrypointVLD ``` Here we are looking to see that the driver has loaded without errors and that we are using the `[direct backend]`. If the driver is defaulting to the`[egl backend]` you can force it to use `direct` by setting the following environment variable: ``` export NVD_BACKEND=direct ``` ### Configuring Firefox Before launching Firefox I recommend setting the following environment variable in your terminal to enable NV logging: ``` export NVD_LOG=1 ``` Now launch Firefox using the following parameters: ``` MOZ_DISABLE_RDD_SANDBOX=1 firefox ``` In Firefox you will need to set the `media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled` option to `true` in the `about:config` page:  Now close Firefox and restart using the same command. To verify that video hardware decoding is working you can play a YouTube video and check the output of `nvidia-smi`: ``` user@debian:~$ nvidia-smi Fri Jun 20 19:14:17 2025 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NVIDIA-SMI 570.169 Driver Version: 570.169 CUDA Version: 12.8 | |-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+ | GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC | | Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. | | | | MIG M. | |=========================================+========================+======================| | 0 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Off | 00000000:06:00.0 On | Off | | 0% 38C P2 80W / 450W | 1090MiB / 24564MiB | 5% Default | | | | N/A | +-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Processes: | | GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory | | ID ID Usage | |=========================================================================================| | 0 N/A N/A 989 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 317MiB | | 0 N/A N/A 33599 G alacritty 29MiB | | 0 N/A N/A 40272 G ...ler --variations-seed-version 48MiB | | 0 N/A N/A 42045 G alacritty 15MiB | | 0 N/A N/A 49174 G alacritty 15MiB | | 0 N/A N/A 52330 G firefox-esr 130MiB | | 0 N/A N/A 55294 C+G /usr/lib/firefox-esr/firefox-esr 423MiB | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ``` We are looking for a Firefox process with a `Type` or either `C` or `C+G`. You can also use `nvidia-smi pmon` to show the usage of the decode engine: ``` user@debian:~$ nvidia-smi pmon # gpu pid type sm mem enc dec jpg ofa command # Idx # C/G % % % % % % name 0 49174 G - - - - - - alacritty 0 52330 G 0 0 - - - - firefox-esr 0 55294 C+G 1 0 - 4 - - firefox-esr 0 989 G 1 0 - - - - Xorg 0 33599 G - - - - - - alacritty 0 40272 G - - - - - - chrome --type=g 0 42045 G - - - - - - alacritty ``` I had to bump up the video quality to 1080p@60 for it to show a usage greater than 0%. ### References - https://wiki.debian.org/Firefox#Nvidia - https://github.com/elFarto/nvidia-vaapi-driver