VA-API and OpenCL no longer work on Intel Gen8 (Iris 6100), but Mesa still reports support.

[Yaume2]

On Intel Gen8 (Iris Graphics 6100), VA-API and OpenCL are no longer supported, but Mesa still reports the GPU as active. This causes confusion and may lead to software attempting hardware acceleration that silently fails. Please consider clarifying fallback behavior or disabling VA-API/OpenCL detection for unsupported hardware.

[macdaddyaz20]

1. Force software fallback / hide unsupported APIs

This avoids “false positives” and cleans up detection.

Disable VA-API for Intel: Run the command:

sudo apt remove intel-media-va-driver-non-free intel-opencl-icd
sudo apt install mesa-va-drivers

This removes Intel’s media driver (which dropped support) and falls back to Mesa’s va_softpipe (pure software).

2. Disable OpenCL (if you don’t need it):

sudo apt remove intel-opencl-icd beignet

Applications will only see CPU OpenCL (via pocl) or none at all.

You can also set environment variables globally:

export LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=softpipe
export OCL_ICD_VENDORS=""

(Add to /etc/environment if permanent.)