[gentoo-user] mplayer and/or X optimization

[gentoo-user] mplayer and/or X optimization

[waltdnes]

  I'm running an AMD64 3000+ with 2 gigs of ram and an ATI Radeon X300.
It's dropping frames on internet TV sites where it should easily be able
to keep up.  I've built mplayer with mmx/mmxext/3dnow/3dnowext/sse/sse2
so I don't see any room for speedup there.  I can get "-vo sdl" and
"-vo xv" to work, but not "-vo radeon_vid".  As a matter of fact, I
can't find any vidix modules at all.  They're simply not being built.
Here's the output of "emerge -pv mplayer".

[ebuild   R   ] media-video/mplayer-1.0_pre7-r1  -3dfx +3dnow +3dnowext
+X +aac -aalib +alsa (-altivec) -arts -bidi -bl -cdparanoia -cpudetection
+custom-cflags -debug +dga -directfb +divx4linux -doc -dts -dv -dvb +dvd
+dvdread -edl +encode -esd -fbcon -ggi +gif -gtk +i8x0 -ipv6 -jack
-joystick +jpeg -libcaca -lirc -live -lzo -mad -matroska -matrox +mmx
+mmxext -mythtv -nas -nls -nvidia +opengl -oss +png +real -rtc -samba
+sdl +sse +sse2 -svga -tga +theora +truetype -v4l -v4l2 +vorbis
+win32codecs -xanim -xinerama -xmms +xv -xvid -xvmc 7,397 kB

  For some reason the video card shows up twice in hardware detection.
Does this have any affect on X Window speed?  Here's output from "cat
/proc/pci"...

    VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)] (rev 0).
      IRQ 5.
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe0000000 [0xe7ffffff].
      I/O at 0x9000 [0x90ff].
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe9000000 [0xe900ffff].
  Bus  5, device   0, function  1:
    Display controller: PCI device 1002:5b70 (ATI Technologies Inc) (rev 0).
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe9010000 [0xe901ffff].


and here's what "lspci -v" shows...

0000:05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV370 5B60 [Radeon X300 (PCIE)] (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 1b60
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 5
        Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        I/O ports at 9000 [size=256]
        Memory at e9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] #10 [0001]
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-

0000:05:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV370 [Radeon X300SE]
        Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 1b61
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Memory at e9010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [58] #10 [0001]

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
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Re: [gentoo-user] mplayer and/or X optimization

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Hi,

On Wednesday 07 September 2005 03:08, waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:
>   I'm running an AMD64 3000+ with 2 gigs of ram and an ATI Radeon X300.
> It's dropping frames on internet TV sites where it should easily be able
> to keep up.  I've built mplayer with mmx/mmxext/3dnow/3dnowext/sse/sse2
> so I don't see any room for speedup there.  I can get "-vo sdl" and
> "-vo xv" to work, but not "-vo radeon_vid".  As a matter of fact, I
> can't find any vidix modules at all.  They're simply not being built.
> Here's the output of "emerge -pv mplayer".

does xine also have a speed problem?
If yes:

could you please post xorg.conf/Xorg.0.log?

Maybe they contain somethin obvious...
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Re: [gentoo-user] mplayer and/or X optimization

[waltdnes]

On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 03:15:51AM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote

> does xine also have a speed problem?
> If yes:

  I don't have xine loaded.  I've had problems building it in the past.
mplayer has been trouble-free.

> could you please post xorg.conf/Xorg.0.log?
> 
> Maybe they contain somethin obvious...

  To avoid cluttering up the list, I've posted them on my webpage; see
http://www.waltdnes.org/xorg.conf.txt
http://www.waltdnes.org/Xorg.0.log.txt

  According to the box, the card is a PowerColor X300 SE, with PCI
Express and full DirectX 9 support.

  One thing I notice is at the very end of xorg.conf...

# Section "DRI"
#    Mode 0666
# EndSection

According to "man radeon"

   Option "BusType" "string"
          Used to replace previous ForcePCIMode option.   Should  only  be
          used  when  driver's  bus  detection is incorrect or you want to
          force a AGP card to PCI mode. Should NEVER force a PCI  card  to
          AGP bus.
          PCI    -- PCI bus
          AGP    -- AGP bus
          PCIE   -- PCI Express (falls back to PCI at present)
          (used only when DRI is enabled)
          The default is auto detect.

  I uncommented the 3 lines and in the video card section I added...

Option      "BusType"       "PCIE"

  but it looks like it's not enabled.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
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Re: [gentoo-user] mplayer and/or X optimization

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Wednesday 07 September 2005 12:56, waltdnes@waltdnes.org wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 03:15:51AM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote
>
> > does xine also have a speed problem?
> > If yes:
>
>   I don't have xine loaded.  I've had problems building it in the past.
> mplayer has been trouble-free.
>
> > could you please post xorg.conf/Xorg.0.log?
> >
> > Maybe they contain somethin obvious...
>
>   To avoid cluttering up the list, I've posted them on my webpage; see
> http://www.waltdnes.org/xorg.conf.txt
> http://www.waltdnes.org/Xorg.0.log.txt
>
>   According to the box, the card is a PowerColor X300 SE, with PCI
> Express and full DirectX 9 support.
>
>   One thing I notice is at the very end of xorg.conf...
>
> # Section "DRI"
> #    Mode 0666
> # EndSection
>
> According to "man radeon"
>
>    Option "BusType" "string"
>           Used to replace previous ForcePCIMode option.   Should  only  be
>           used  when  driver's  bus  detection is incorrect or you want to
>           force a AGP card to PCI mode. Should NEVER force a PCI  card  to
>           AGP bus.
>           PCI    -- PCI bus
>           AGP    -- AGP bus
>           PCIE   -- PCI Express (falls back to PCI at present)
>           (used only when DRI is enabled)
>           The default is auto detect.
>
>   I uncommented the 3 lines and in the video card section I added...
>
> Option      "BusType"       "PCIE"
>
>   but it looks like it's not enabled.
>


you have to load dri in the modules section first (and glx maybe too).
BUT from your log: your card is to new for dri/render, so it falls back to 
some.. I don't know-mode ;)

but you can try to load them. Change this:
# This loads the GLX module
#    Load       "glx"
# This loads the DRI module
#    Load       "dri"

to this:
# This loads the GLX module
   Load       "glx"
# This loads the DRI module
   Load       "dri"

but I am pretty sure, that it will not help much.
Hm - xv and ATI were never good friends...
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Re: [gentoo-user] mplayer and/or X optimization

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 06:47:38PM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote

> you have to load dri in the modules section first (and glx maybe too).
> BUT from your log: your card is to new for dri/render, so it falls
> back to some.. I don't know-mode ;)

  The log file now says...

(**) RADEON(0): PCI Express not supported yet, using PCI mode

  So much for that idea.  The Gatos project page on Sourceforge says
they've recently received docs and sample hardware from ATI, and work is
under way to support this card.  But nothing released yet.  Before I
send off my dead machine to the re-cycling centre, would a Radeon 7000
be better supported?  I can pull that card from the dead machine and try
it out.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] mplayer and/or X optimization

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Thursday 08 September 2005 05:58, Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 06:47:38PM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote
>
> > you have to load dri in the modules section first (and glx maybe too).
> > BUT from your log: your card is to new for dri/render, so it falls
> > back to some.. I don't know-mode ;)
>
>   The log file now says...
>
> (**) RADEON(0): PCI Express not supported yet, using PCI mode
>
>   So much for that idea.  The Gatos project page on Sourceforge says
> they've recently received docs and sample hardware from ATI, and work is
> under way to support this card.  But nothing released yet.  Before I
> send off my dead machine to the re-cycling centre, would a Radeon 7000
> be better supported?  I can pull that card from the dead machine and try
> it out.

you should definitely try it.
The elderly radeon cards are more or less well supported.
 I don't had ATi cards since I sold my Xpert2000 some years ago, BUT when I 
remember right the articles I read, the Radeon7000 (up to 9200, but ATI users 
can say more about this) should be very well supported by the dri/gatos 
drivers.

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Re: [gentoo-user] mplayer and/or X optimization

[Walter Dnes]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2005 at 06:13:27AM +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote

> > Before I
> > send off my dead machine to the re-cycling centre, would a Radeon 7000
> > be better supported?  I can pull that card from the dead machine and try
> > it out.
> 
> you should definitely try it.
> The elderly radeon cards are more or less well supported.
>  I don't had ATi cards since I sold my Xpert2000 some years ago, BUT when I 
> remember right the articles I read, the Radeon7000 (up to 9200, but ATI users 
> can say more about this) should be very well supported by the dri/gatos 
> drivers.

  No luck.  I don't know how they managed to do it, but I'd can't see
any way of getting the video card out without at least taking off the
cpu cooler, if not the actual cpu itself.  Another thing that hadn't
occured to me before is that the dead machine (ATI Radeon 700) and my
6-year-old emergency backup PIII (ATI Rage Pro, actually a Mach64 chip)
are both AGP cards, but the Radeon X300 is PCI-Express, so the slots are
probably different.

  Strange, but true.  I can get the Radeon 7000 into my 6-year-old Dell's
AGP slot, but I can't get the old Rage Pro into the newer dead machine's
AGP slot, not that it matters.  Oh well, at least my 6-year-old Dell
emergency backup has now been upgraded from an 8 megabyte RagePro to a
32 megabyte Radeon 7000.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] mplayer and/or X optimization

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Saturday 10 September 2005 04:27, Walter Dnes wrote:
Radeon X300 is PCI-Express, so the slots are
> probably different.
>
>   Strange, but true.  I can get the Radeon 7000 into my 6-year-old Dell's
> AGP slot, but I can't get the old Rage Pro into the newer dead machine's
> AGP slot, not that it matters.  Oh well, at least my 6-year-old Dell
> emergency backup has now been upgraded from an 8 megabyte RagePro to a
> 32 megabyte Radeon 7000.

that is because of the different AGP standards (1,2,3.0) which have different 
voltages (3v,1,5v,0,8v) and different 'identifaction' keys, which prevent 
inserting a card into a slot, that could damage her with overvoltages and 
vice versa.
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