FFmpeg with NVIDIA Acceleration

Using NVIDIA hardware acceleration in FFmpeg/libav requires the following steps

1. Download and install the compatible driver from NVIDIA web site
2. Download and install ffnvcodec:

        git clone https://git.videolan.org/git/ffmpeg/nv-codec-headers.git
        cd nv-codec-headers && sudo make install && cd -

3. Download and install the CUDA Toolkit CUDA toolkit

For Linux Mint 19.3:

wget https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/ubuntu1804/x86_64/cuda-ubuntu1804.pin
sudo mv cuda-ubuntu1804.pin /etc/apt/preferences.d/cuda-repository-pin-600
sudo apt-key adv --fetch-keys https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/ubuntu1804/x86_64/7fa2af80.pub
sudo add-apt-repository "deb https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/ubuntu1804/x86_64/ /"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install cuda

4. Ensure that your PATH includes the bin directory where you installed the Toolkit

export PATH=/usr/local/cuda-10.2/bin${PATH:+:${PATH}}

5. Install sudo apt install nasm yasm
6. Download the latest FFmpeg or libav source code, by cloning the corresponding GIT repositories
   • FFmpeg: https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git
   • Libav: https://github.com/libav/libav
7. Use the following configure command (Use correct CUDA library path in config command below)

./configure --enable-cuda-nvcc --enable-cuvid --enable-nvenc --enable-nonfree --enable-libnpp --extra-cflags=-I/usr/local/cuda/include --extra-ldflags=-L/usr/local/cuda/lib64

8. Use the following command to compile:

make -j $(nproc)

9. Install

sudo make install

Sources:

• https://developer.nvidia.com/ffmpeg
• https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-linux/