GuC and HuC

Optional firmware for Intel GPU.

About

GuC - Graphics Microcontroller

HuC - HEVC/H.265 Microcontroller

HuC is required for bitrate control in low power VAAPI encoding (also for H.264).

GuC and HuC are not loaded by default. Typically both are bundled with the OS (e.g. Ubuntu). Loading HuC requires loading GuC.

# check current status
cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_guc_load_status
# check boot messages
dmesg | egrep "drm|i915"

To load GuC and HuC create a file /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf

kernel version	< 4.16 (default in Ubuntu 18.04)	>= 4.16 (default in Ubuntu 20.04)
file contents	`options i915 enable_guc_loading=1`	`options i915 enable_guc=2`

Reboot and check status again.