This is a step by step guide shows how to enable NVIDIA GPU accelerated video decoding for Google Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Edge, etc web browsers in Ubuntu.

As you may know, Chromium based web browsers do not support NVDEC (NVIDIA Decoder) for video acceleration in Linux by default. The open-source NVIDIA VA-API driver workaround the issue by translating VA-API calls (that most browsers supported) into NVIDIA’s NVDEC video decoding functionality.

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to install the workaround and set it up for Chrome/Chromium based browsers on Ubuntu.

NOTE: This tutorial does NOT work on Optimus laptop. See this bug report. It does NOT for Snap apps as well!

This tutorial was tested and works in Ubuntu 26.04 with Google Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Brave browsers. It should also work in Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and with other Chromium based browsers.

Step 1: Install NVIDIA VA-API Driver

The open-source driver was initially designed for Firefox web browser, while, Chromium browser support was added since version 0.0.18.

1. To install the driver, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to launch terminal, and run command to add this unofficial PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/nvidia-vaapi

2. Then refresh cache by running command:

sudo apt update

Ubuntu now updates the cache automatically while adding PPA, though Linux Mint user needs to run it manually unless adding PPA through the built-in “Software Sources” utility.

3. Finally, the driver package:

sudo apt install nvidia-vaapi-driver

During the installing process, you may keep an eye on the terminal output to see if the package from PPA (version >= 0.0.18) is being installed.

For those who don’t trust 3rd-party PPAs, download the source tarball from Github releases page, then extract and open the source folder in terminal.

Finally run the commands below one by one to build from source:

Install the build dependencies:

sudo apt install build-essential meson gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad libffmpeg-nvenc-dev libva-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-dev libgles2-mesa-dev

Next, run the commands below to test, build and install (make sure running the commands inside the source folder):
```
./test.sh
```
```
meson setup build
```
```
meson install -C build
```

Step 2: Test If the Driver Works for You

To make it work, you need to launch your Chromium based browser with certain parameters. It’s better to try it out in command line before making it permanent.

1. First, launch terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run commands to set environment variable and display VA-API driver information:

export LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia

vainfo

Run sudo apt install vainfo to install the tool if command not found. If everything goes well, it should output driver version: “VA-API NVDEC drver [direct backend]” as the screenshot below shows you.

2. For beginners who are new to Linux and don’t even know how to launch an app from command line, do this step to find out the command to launch your browser.

If you installed the web browser through the native .deb package, then the executable file was mostly installed in /usr/bin directory.

In the case, run the similar command line to tell the executable name:

ls /usr/bin/ |grep -i "chromium"

Here replace chromium with chrome, edge, brave, opera etc according what browser you use.

In my case as the screenshot below shows, I can run google-chrome or google-chrome-stable to launch the Chrome browser from command line, and run chromium-browser to launch chromium from terminal.

If your browser was installed as Flatpak package, then run the command below to find out the App ID:

flatpak list --app --columns=name,application

According to the app ID, you can launch the browser with a command similar to the one below:

flatpak run org.chromium.Chromium

Here replace org.chromium.Chromium with your browser’s app ID, e.g., com.brave.Browser.

3. Once you find out how to launch your web browser from command line, run a command similar to the one below to launch it with the parameters that use NVIDIA VA-API driver:

LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia google-chrome --enable-features=AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxGL,VaapiOnNvidiaGPUs --ignore-gpu-blocklist --use-gl=angle --use-angle=gl --ozone-platform=wayland

Here replace google-chrome in command with chromium-browser, microsoft-edge, or flatpak run org.chromium.Chromium etc according the last step. And, skip ozone-platform=wayland if you’re NOT on Wayland that’s default in GNOME and KDE Plasma desktops.

When the browser opens, play a video from either your local folder or websites, such as Youtube. (You probably need to install enhanced-h264ify extension for Youtube vi...

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