Playback on certain videos is now extremely choppy, playing for only a few seconds, then freezing for several seconds while audio continues uninterrupted, then video plays again for a few seconds, ad infinitum.
When I disable hardware acceleration, video plays back perfectly. However, Firefox uses approximately double or more CPU than previously. For comparison, Brave browser with hardware acceleration enabled uses around half of the CPU that Firefox uses.
Oddly, while VLC is now broken with hardware acceleration set to Automatic (which is how it was set for the whole time), setting it to Disable results in not even 10% of the CPU usage of even Brave (it's hardly anything - as if hardware acceleration is working).
I have not changed any other settings, and this does not occur with all videos.
Here is a video I found that this happens on:
https://odysee.com/@libertyweekly:3/residentevil7:fc
Odysee allows me to download the video so I can confirm this one also doesn't play in VLC with hardware acceleration set to Automatic.
Since this is a new thing happening simultaneously on more than one package, I first wonder if there was something that changed at the OS level, though I did discover a Mozilla post about changing something in FF 94.0 with regards to Linux graphics here.
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$ inxi -Fxxxrz
System: Kernel: 5.4.0-90-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.0.7
wm: muffin 5.0.2 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal
Machine: Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: SABERTOOTH P67 v: Rev 1.xx serial: <filter>
UEFI: American Megatrends v: 3602 date: 11/01/2012
CPU: Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-2600K bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Sandy Bridge rev: 7
L2 cache: 8192 KiB
flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 56043
Speed: 1648 MHz min/max: 1600/5900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1648 2: 1648 3: 1648 4: 1648 5: 1648
6: 1648 7: 1648 8: 1648
Graphics: Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Barts PRO [Radeon HD 6850] vendor: ASUSTeK EAH6850
driver: radeon v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 1002:6739
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: ati,radeon unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa
resolution: 2560x1600~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: AMD BARTS (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.4.0-90-generic LLVM 12.0.0) v: 3.3 Mesa 21.0.3
compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes