2

so I’ve got a Dell laptop with an i5-7300u. I’ve recently upgraded to a 4k monitor at home that I plan on using for video playback and programming (i have a desktop PC for gaming).

Now, according to Intel’s website and other platforms (youtube guides, web articles, etc), the i5 should be able to handle 4k video, etc. It’s alright with general tasks (I’m writing this on the 4k monitor just now). But as soon as I put youtube on at 1080p/4k the CPU hits 100% and stutters like mad. I’m not sure if this is a Ubuntu issue, browser issue or if my CPU just isn’t meant for 4k despite Intel saying it is.

Any advice would be great, sorry if the post is too long I tried to fit as much information in as I could.

Woddell
  • 31
  • i don't have an onboard intel cpu, nor do i have a 4k monitor but from my past experience with onboard gpu you should not see your cpu spiking at all. If everything goes right the gpu should render / play the videos for you. As a hint i would be searching for hardware acceleration, or how to properly install your graphics card: Intel® HD Graphics 620. Perhaps have a look here https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Video-Dekodierung_beschleunigen/#Systeme-mit-Intel-Grafik and here: https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/ – AlexOnLinux Apr 19 '19 at 07:53
  • (Integrated) GPUs usually have hardware decoding support for certain video formats. If the video you are playing has a different format, it will be decoded in software using the CPU. Video decoding is really resource intensive so your high CPU load sounds reasonable to me. If the format is supported by the GPU but it is not used for decoding, check if hardware acceleration is enabled in your browser. – danzel Apr 19 '19 at 08:44
  • According to guides I've found, the drivers should be included with Ubuntu 18.04. Ive got hardware acceleration enabled. As a text, I installed windows10 on the laptop and the CPU barely hits 20% with YouTube at 4k so I'm certain it's a driver/Ubuntu issue. Just unsure how to fix it. – Woddell Apr 19 '19 at 10:33

2 Answers2

1

Skylake drivers aren't necessarily included for your iGPU. See: Updated kernel to 4.8 now missing firmware warnings

After these new drivers are loaded you can turn on more Intel iGPU features via grub command line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="noplymouth fastboot acpiphp.disable=1 pcie_aspm=force scsi_mod.use_blk_mq=1 vt.handoff=7 i915.enable_guc_loading=1 i915.enable_guc_submission=1 i915.edp_vswing=2 nopti nospectre_v2 nospec"

Notice the i915. enhancements in my grub command line that take advantage of new drivers downloaded in above link.

WinEunuuchs2Unix
  • 102,282
0

@Woddell, if you can provide the service tag, I can check in my DELL EMC Partner portal. DELL usually builds and tests both Windows and Ubuntu on newer machines like yours

Jbizboca
  • 21