VAAPI for FreeBSD with AMD Hardware

2025-02-07 (Updated 2025-02-10)

To use vaapi on FreeBSD, follow these steps:

Install the following packages:

graphics/drm-kmod
graphics/mesa-gallium-va

multimedia/libva-utils

The first two are required for vaapi driver, and the last one is used to test vaapi.

Follow the FreeBSD Handbook Chapter 5.3 Graphic card drivers :

For my AMD zen4 iGPU system, run the following:

sysrc kld_list+=amdgpu

Then reboot.

After reboot, you can give video permission to users that need it:

pw groupmod video -m <user>

You can run vainfo to verify as root or user with video group, or try some ffmpeg transcoding:

ffmpeg -vaapi_device /dev/dri/card0 -i input.webm -vf 'format=nv12,hwupload' -c:v h264_vaapi output.mp4