Hardware Acceleration
It is highly recommended to use a GPU for hardware acceleration in Frigate. Some types of hardware acceleration are detected and used automatically, but you may need to update your configuration to enable hardware accelerated decoding in ffmpeg.
Depending on your system, these parameters may not be compatible. More information on hardware accelerated decoding for ffmpeg can be found here: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/HWAccelIntro
Officially Supported
Raspberry Pi 3/4
Ensure you increase the allocated RAM for your GPU to at least 128 (raspi-config
> Performance Options > GPU Memory).
If you are using the HA addon, you may need to use the full access variant and turn off Protection mode
for hardware acceleration.
# if you want to decode a h264 stream
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-rpi-64-h264
# if you want to decode a h265 (hevc) stream
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-rpi-64-h265
If running Frigate in Docker, you either need to run in privileged mode or
map the /dev/video*
devices to Frigate. With Docker compose add:
services:
frigate:
...
devices:
- /dev/video11:/dev/video11
Or with docker run
:
docker run -d \
--name frigate \
...
--device /dev/video11 \
ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable
/dev/video11
is the correct device (on Raspberry Pi 4B). You can check
by running the following and looking for H264
:
for d in /dev/video*; do
echo -e "---\n$d"
v4l2-ctl --list-formats-ext -d $d
done
Or map in all the /dev/video*
devices.
Intel-based CPUs
Via VAAPI
VAAPI supports automatic profile selection so it will work automatically with both H.264 and H.265 streams. VAAPI is recommended for all generations of Intel-based CPUs.
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-vaapi
With some of the processors, like the J4125, the default driver iHD
doesn't seem to work correctly for hardware acceleration. You may need to change the driver to i965
by adding the following environment variable LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=i965
to your docker-compose file or in the frigate.yaml
for HA OS users.
Via Quicksync (>=10th Generation only)
If VAAPI does not work for you, you can try QSV if your processor supports it. QSV must be set specifically based on the video encoding of the stream.
H.264 streams
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-intel-qsv-h264
H.265 streams
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-intel-qsv-h265
Configuring Intel GPU Stats in Docker
Additional configuration is needed for the Docker container to be able to access the intel_gpu_top
command for GPU stats. There are two options:
- Run the container as privileged.
- Add the
CAP_PERFMON
capability (note: you might need to set theperf_event_paranoid
low enough to allow access to the performance event system.)
Run as privileged
This method works, but it gives more permissions to the container than are actually needed.
Docker Compose - Privileged
services:
frigate:
...
image: ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable
privileged: true
Docker Run CLI - Privileged
docker run -d \
--name frigate \
...
--privileged \
ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable
CAP_PERFMON
Only recent versions of Docker support the CAP_PERFMON
capability. You can test to see if yours supports it by running: docker run --cap-add=CAP_PERFMON hello-world
Docker Compose - CAP_PERFMON
services:
frigate:
...
image: ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable
cap_add:
- CAP_PERFMON
Docker Run CLI - CAP_PERFMON
docker run -d \
--name frigate \
...
--cap-add=CAP_PERFMON \
ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable
perf_event_paranoid
Note: This setting must be changed for the entire system.
For more information on the various values across different distributions, see https://askubuntu.com/questions/1400874/what-does-perf-paranoia-level-four-do.
Depending on your OS and kernel configuration, you may need to change the /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid
kernel tunable. You can test the change by running sudo sh -c 'echo 2 >/proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid'
which will persist until a reboot. Make it permanent by running sudo sh -c 'echo kernel.perf_event_paranoid=2 >> /etc/sysctl.d/local.conf'
AMD/ATI GPUs (Radeon HD 2000 and newer GPUs) via libva-mesa-driver
VAAPI supports automatic profile selection so it will work automatically with both H.264 and H.265 streams.
You need to change the driver to radeonsi
by adding the following environment variable LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=radeonsi
to your docker-compose file or in the frigate.yaml
for HA OS users.
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-vaapi
NVIDIA GPUs
While older GPUs may work, it is recommended to use modern, supported GPUs. NVIDIA provides a matrix of supported GPUs and features. If your card is on the list and supports CUVID/NVDEC, it will most likely work with Frigate for decoding. However, you must also use a driver version that will work with FFmpeg. Older driver versions may be missing symbols and fail to work, and older cards are not supported by newer driver versions. The only way around this is to provide your own FFmpeg that will work with your driver version, but this is unsupported and may not work well if at all.
A more complete list of cards and their compatible drivers is available in the driver release readme.
If your distribution does not offer NVIDIA driver packages, you can download them here.
Configuring Nvidia GPUs in Docker
Additional configuration is needed for the Docker container to be able to access the NVIDIA GPU. The supported method for this is to install the NVIDIA Container Toolkit and specify the GPU to Docker. How you do this depends on how Docker is being run:
Docker Compose - Nvidia GPU
services:
frigate:
...
image: ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable
deploy: # <------------- Add this section
resources:
reservations:
devices:
- driver: nvidia
device_ids: ['0'] # this is only needed when using multiple GPUs
count: 1 # number of GPUs
capabilities: [gpu]
Docker Run CLI - Nvidia GPU
docker run -d \
--name frigate \
...
--gpus=all \
ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable
Setup Decoder
The decoder you need to pass in the hwaccel_args
will depend on the input video.
A list of supported codecs (you can use ffmpeg -decoders | grep cuvid
in the container to get the ones your card supports)
V..... h263_cuvid Nvidia CUVID H263 decoder (codec h263)
V..... h264_cuvid Nvidia CUVID H264 decoder (codec h264)
V..... hevc_cuvid Nvidia CUVID HEVC decoder (codec hevc)
V..... mjpeg_cuvid Nvidia CUVID MJPEG decoder (codec mjpeg)
V..... mpeg1_cuvid Nvidia CUVID MPEG1VIDEO decoder (codec mpeg1video)
V..... mpeg2_cuvid Nvidia CUVID MPEG2VIDEO decoder (codec mpeg2video)
V..... mpeg4_cuvid Nvidia CUVID MPEG4 decoder (codec mpeg4)
V..... vc1_cuvid Nvidia CUVID VC1 decoder (codec vc1)
V..... vp8_cuvid Nvidia CUVID VP8 decoder (codec vp8)
V..... vp9_cuvid Nvidia CUVID VP9 decoder (codec vp9)
For example, for H264 video, you'll select preset-nvidia-h264
.
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-nvidia-h264
If everything is working correctly, you should see a significant improvement in performance.
Verify that hardware decoding is working by running nvidia-smi
, which should show ffmpeg
processes:
nvidia-smi
may not show ffmpeg
processes when run inside the container due to docker limitations.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 455.38 Driver Version: 455.38 CUDA Version: 11.1 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| 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 GeForce GTX 166... Off | 00000000:03:00.0 Off | N/A |
| 38% 41C P2 36W / 125W | 2082MiB / 5942MiB | 5% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 12737 C ffmpeg 249MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 12751 C ffmpeg 249MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 12772 C ffmpeg 249MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 12775 C ffmpeg 249MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 12800 C ffmpeg 249MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 12811 C ffmpeg 417MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 12827 C ffmpeg 417MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
If you do not see these processes, check the docker logs
for the container and look for decoding errors.
These instructions were originally based on the Jellyfin documentation.
Community Supported
NVIDIA Jetson (Orin AGX, Orin NX, Orin Nano*, Xavier AGX, Xavier NX, TX2, TX1, Nano)
A separate set of docker images is available that is based on Jetpack/L4T. They come with an ffmpeg
build
with codecs that use the Jetson's dedicated media engine. If your Jetson host is running Jetpack 4.6, use the
stable-tensorrt-jp4
tagged image, or if your Jetson host is running Jetpack 5.0+, use the stable-tensorrt-jp5
tagged image. Note that the Orin Nano has no video encoder, so frigate will use software encoding on this platform,
but the image will still allow hardware decoding and tensorrt object detection.
You will need to use the image with the nvidia container runtime:
Docker Run CLI - Jetson
docker run -d \
...
--runtime nvidia
ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable-tensorrt-jp5
Docker Compose - Jetson
version: '2.4'
services:
frigate:
...
image: ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable-tensorrt-jp5
runtime: nvidia # Add this
The runtime:
tag is not supported on older versions of docker-compose. If you run into this, you can instead use the nvidia runtime system-wide by adding "default-runtime": "nvidia"
to /etc/docker/daemon.json
:
{
"runtimes": {
"nvidia": {
"path": "nvidia-container-runtime",
"runtimeArgs": []
}
},
"default-runtime": "nvidia"
}
Setup Decoder
The decoder you need to pass in the hwaccel_args
will depend on the input video.
A list of supported codecs (you can use ffmpeg -decoders | grep nvmpi
in the container to get the ones your card supports)
V..... h264_nvmpi h264 (nvmpi) (codec h264)
V..... hevc_nvmpi hevc (nvmpi) (codec hevc)
V..... mpeg2_nvmpi mpeg2 (nvmpi) (codec mpeg2video)
V..... mpeg4_nvmpi mpeg4 (nvmpi) (codec mpeg4)
V..... vp8_nvmpi vp8 (nvmpi) (codec vp8)
V..... vp9_nvmpi vp9 (nvmpi) (codec vp9)
For example, for H264 video, you'll select preset-jetson-h264
.
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-jetson-h264
If everything is working correctly, you should see a significant reduction in ffmpeg CPU load and power consumption.
Verify that hardware decoding is working by running jtop
(sudo pip3 install -U jetson-stats
), which should show
that NVDEC/NVDEC1 are in use.
Rockchip platform
Hardware accelerated video de-/encoding is supported on all Rockchip SoCs using Nyanmisaka's FFmpeg 6.1 Fork based on Rockchip's mpp library.
Prerequisites
Make sure to follow the Rockchip specific installation instructions.
Configuration
Add one of the following FFmpeg presets to your config.yaml
to enable hardware video processing:
# if you try to decode a h264 encoded stream
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-rk-h264
# if you try to decode a h265 (hevc) encoded stream
ffmpeg:
hwaccel_args: preset-rk-h265
Make sure that your SoC supports hardware acceleration for your input stream. For example, if your camera streams with h265 encoding and a 4k resolution, your SoC must be able to de- and encode h265 with a 4k resolution or higher. If you are unsure whether your SoC meets the requirements, take a look at the datasheet.