[gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Allan Gottlieb]

I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.

I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
would have sold laptops that can't play dvds

Any comments or experiences?

thanks,
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Michael Mol]

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
>
> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
>
> Any comments or experiences?

My Duron 750MHz was able to decode DVDs in realtime. After that, all
you're doing is blitting (or using xv) the frames to the screen. I
would be absolutely shocked if the Intel HD 4000 GPU couldn't handle
that basic of a 2D acceleration function.

Now, DVDs use MPEG2. Blu-Ray uses h.264, which is a much harder beast
to decode in realtime. It's possible the HD 4000 GPU can't handle
hardware decode of h.264, but I don't know. I've never looked into it.
(Software decode of 1080p h.264 on my Phenom 9650 worked somewhat, but
highly active scenes would cause frame drops.)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Florian Philipp]

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Am 27.07.2012 22:22, schrieb Michael Mol:
> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
>> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
>> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
>>
>> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
>> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
>> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
>> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
>>
>> Any comments or experiences?
> 
> My Duron 750MHz was able to decode DVDs in realtime. After that, all
> you're doing is blitting (or using xv) the frames to the screen. I
> would be absolutely shocked if the Intel HD 4000 GPU couldn't handle
> that basic of a 2D acceleration function.
> 
> Now, DVDs use MPEG2. Blu-Ray uses h.264, which is a much harder beast
> to decode in realtime. It's possible the HD 4000 GPU can't handle
> hardware decode of h.264, but I don't know. I've never looked into it.
> (Software decode of 1080p h.264 on my Phenom 9650 worked somewhat, but
> highly active scenes would cause frame drops.)
> 

I've experienced issues playing DVDs on fullscreen with the OSS radeon
driver. Therefore I'm cautious of assumptions that something works
simply because the input is easy to decode. Upscaling to large displays
with high resolutions can be an issue.

I'm not saying the Intel driver cannot handle it. I'm just saying you
should try it or look for reports.

Regards,
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Michael Mol]

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Florian Philipp <lists@binarywings.net> wrote:
> Am 27.07.2012 22:22, schrieb Michael Mol:
>> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
>>> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
>>> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
>>>
>>> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
>>> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
>>> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
>>> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
>>>
>>> Any comments or experiences?
>>
>> My Duron 750MHz was able to decode DVDs in realtime. After that, all
>> you're doing is blitting (or using xv) the frames to the screen. I
>> would be absolutely shocked if the Intel HD 4000 GPU couldn't handle
>> that basic of a 2D acceleration function.
>>
>> Now, DVDs use MPEG2. Blu-Ray uses h.264, which is a much harder beast
>> to decode in realtime. It's possible the HD 4000 GPU can't handle
>> hardware decode of h.264, but I don't know. I've never looked into it.
>> (Software decode of 1080p h.264 on my Phenom 9650 worked somewhat, but
>> highly active scenes would cause frame drops.)
>>
>
> I've experienced issues playing DVDs on fullscreen with the OSS radeon
> driver. Therefore I'm cautious of assumptions that something works
> simply because the input is easy to decode. Upscaling to large displays
> with high resolutions can be an issue.
>
> I'm not saying the Intel driver cannot handle it. I'm just saying you
> should try it or look for reports.

How high is 'high' resolution? I was upscaling to 1600x1200 using an a
Radeon 9600; that card would now be almost ten years old. A bit later,
I did the same on a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 using an i845-based Intel
graphics card. Here's the line from lspci, as run in May of 2007:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation
82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)

Hardware scaling a 2D image is one of the most trivial
hardware-accelerated options GPUs perform. If someone had difficulties
upscaling a 480p (roughly what DVDs are) to 1080p at 24 or 33fps, I
would be very highly suspicious of a software misconfiguration. That
kind of scaling should even be comfortably doable in software on any
modern x86-derived processor. (With the plausible exclusion of the
Atom CPU)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Florian Philipp]

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Am 27.07.2012 22:57, schrieb Michael Mol:
> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Florian Philipp <lists@binarywings.net> wrote:
>> Am 27.07.2012 22:22, schrieb Michael Mol:
>>> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
>>>> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
>>>> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
>>>>
>>>> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
>>>> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
>>>> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
>>>> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
>>>>
>>>> Any comments or experiences?
>>>
>>> My Duron 750MHz was able to decode DVDs in realtime. After that, all
>>> you're doing is blitting (or using xv) the frames to the screen. I
>>> would be absolutely shocked if the Intel HD 4000 GPU couldn't handle
>>> that basic of a 2D acceleration function.
>>>
>>> Now, DVDs use MPEG2. Blu-Ray uses h.264, which is a much harder beast
>>> to decode in realtime. It's possible the HD 4000 GPU can't handle
>>> hardware decode of h.264, but I don't know. I've never looked into it.
>>> (Software decode of 1080p h.264 on my Phenom 9650 worked somewhat, but
>>> highly active scenes would cause frame drops.)
>>>
>>
>> I've experienced issues playing DVDs on fullscreen with the OSS radeon
>> driver. Therefore I'm cautious of assumptions that something works
>> simply because the input is easy to decode. Upscaling to large displays
>> with high resolutions can be an issue.
>>
>> I'm not saying the Intel driver cannot handle it. I'm just saying you
>> should try it or look for reports.
> 
> How high is 'high' resolution? I was upscaling to 1600x1200 using an a
> Radeon 9600; that card would now be almost ten years old. A bit later,
> I did the same on a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 using an i845-based Intel
> graphics card. Here's the line from lspci, as run in May of 2007:
> 
> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation
> 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
> 
> Hardware scaling a 2D image is one of the most trivial
> hardware-accelerated options GPUs perform. If someone had difficulties
> upscaling a 480p (roughly what DVDs are) to 1080p at 24 or 33fps, I
> would be very highly suspicious of a software misconfiguration. That
> kind of scaling should even be comfortably doable in software on any
> modern x86-derived processor. (With the plausible exclusion of the
> Atom CPU)
> 

1920x1080, on-board Radeon HD 4250. I haven't diagnosed it further
(except of playing around with mplayer2 options) as it was easier to use
the closed source driver.

Regards,
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Florian Philipp]

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Am 28.07.2012 10:22, schrieb Florian Philipp:
> Am 27.07.2012 22:57, schrieb Michael Mol:
>> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Florian Philipp <lists@binarywings.net> wrote:
>>> Am 27.07.2012 22:22, schrieb Michael Mol:
>>>> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>>> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
>>>>> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
>>>>> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
>>>>>
>>>>> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
>>>>> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
>>>>> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
>>>>> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
>>>>>
>>>>> Any comments or experiences?
>>>>
>>>> My Duron 750MHz was able to decode DVDs in realtime. After that, all
>>>> you're doing is blitting (or using xv) the frames to the screen. I
>>>> would be absolutely shocked if the Intel HD 4000 GPU couldn't handle
>>>> that basic of a 2D acceleration function.
>>>>
>>>> Now, DVDs use MPEG2. Blu-Ray uses h.264, which is a much harder beast
>>>> to decode in realtime. It's possible the HD 4000 GPU can't handle
>>>> hardware decode of h.264, but I don't know. I've never looked into it.
>>>> (Software decode of 1080p h.264 on my Phenom 9650 worked somewhat, but
>>>> highly active scenes would cause frame drops.)
>>>>
>>>
>>> I've experienced issues playing DVDs on fullscreen with the OSS radeon
>>> driver. Therefore I'm cautious of assumptions that something works
>>> simply because the input is easy to decode. Upscaling to large displays
>>> with high resolutions can be an issue.
>>>
>>> I'm not saying the Intel driver cannot handle it. I'm just saying you
>>> should try it or look for reports.
>>
>> How high is 'high' resolution? I was upscaling to 1600x1200 using an a
>> Radeon 9600; that card would now be almost ten years old. A bit later,
>> I did the same on a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 using an i845-based Intel
>> graphics card. Here's the line from lspci, as run in May of 2007:
>>
>> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation
>> 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
>>
>> Hardware scaling a 2D image is one of the most trivial
>> hardware-accelerated options GPUs perform. If someone had difficulties
>> upscaling a 480p (roughly what DVDs are) to 1080p at 24 or 33fps, I
>> would be very highly suspicious of a software misconfiguration. That
>> kind of scaling should even be comfortably doable in software on any
>> modern x86-derived processor. (With the plausible exclusion of the
>> Atom CPU)
>>
> 
> 1920x1080, on-board Radeon HD 4250. I haven't diagnosed it further
> (except of playing around with mplayer2 options) as it was easier to use
> the closed source driver.
> 
> Regards,
> Florian Philipp


I realize this thread is pretty stale but since I talked bullshit and
just now realized it, I want to correct myself:

Since updating the kernel to 3.5 forced me to update the X server beyond
1.11 which in turn forced me to update ati-drivers to a version that no
longer supported my Radeon HD 4250, I had to look into my issues with
the open source driver.

It turns out, my problems had two reasons:
- I didn't enable KMS and DRM for radeon in the kernel
- I didn't have x11-drivers/radeon-ucode installed

Both resulted in a fully functioning X server that
- could run glxgears just fine
- could (with some tuning) render videos in DVD quality with opengl output
- was too slow for videos in any higher resolution

Regards,
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Allan Gottlieb]

On Sat, Dec 01 2012, Florian Philipp wrote:

> Am 28.07.2012 10:22, schrieb Florian Philipp:
>> Am 27.07.2012 22:57, schrieb Michael Mol:
>>> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Florian Philipp
>>> <lists@binarywings.net> wrote:
>>>> Am 27.07.2012 22:22, schrieb Michael Mol:
>>>>> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>>>>>> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
>>>>>> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
>>>>>> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
>>>>>> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
>>>>>> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
>>>>>> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any comments or experiences?
>>>>>
>>>>> My Duron 750MHz was able to decode DVDs in realtime. After that, all
>>>>> you're doing is blitting (or using xv) the frames to the screen. I
>>>>> would be absolutely shocked if the Intel HD 4000 GPU couldn't handle
>>>>> that basic of a 2D acceleration function.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now, DVDs use MPEG2. Blu-Ray uses h.264, which is a much harder beast
>>>>> to decode in realtime. It's possible the HD 4000 GPU can't handle
>>>>> hardware decode of h.264, but I don't know. I've never looked into it.
>>>>> (Software decode of 1080p h.264 on my Phenom 9650 worked somewhat, but
>>>>> highly active scenes would cause frame drops.)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I've experienced issues playing DVDs on fullscreen with the OSS radeon
>>>> driver. Therefore I'm cautious of assumptions that something works
>>>> simply because the input is easy to decode. Upscaling to large displays
>>>> with high resolutions can be an issue.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not saying the Intel driver cannot handle it. I'm just saying you
>>>> should try it or look for reports.
>>>
>>> How high is 'high' resolution? I was upscaling to 1600x1200 using an a
>>> Radeon 9600; that card would now be almost ten years old. A bit later,
>>> I did the same on a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 using an i845-based Intel
>>> graphics card. Here's the line from lspci, as run in May of 2007:
>>>
>>> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation
>>> 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
>>>
>>> Hardware scaling a 2D image is one of the most trivial
>>> hardware-accelerated options GPUs perform. If someone had difficulties
>>> upscaling a 480p (roughly what DVDs are) to 1080p at 24 or 33fps, I
>>> would be very highly suspicious of a software misconfiguration. That
>>> kind of scaling should even be comfortably doable in software on any
>>> modern x86-derived processor. (With the plausible exclusion of the
>>> Atom CPU)
>>>
>> 
>> 1920x1080, on-board Radeon HD 4250. I haven't diagnosed it further
>> (except of playing around with mplayer2 options) as it was easier to use
>> the closed source driver.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Florian Philipp
>
>
> I realize this thread is pretty stale but since I talked bullshit and
> just now realized it, I want to correct myself:
>
> Since updating the kernel to 3.5 forced me to update the X server beyond
> 1.11 which in turn forced me to update ati-drivers to a version that no
> longer supported my Radeon HD 4250, I had to look into my issues with
> the open source driver.
>
> It turns out, my problems had two reasons:
> - I didn't enable KMS and DRM for radeon in the kernel
> - I didn't have x11-drivers/radeon-ucode installed
>
> Both resulted in a fully functioning X server that
> - could run glxgears just fine
> - could (with some tuning) render videos in DVD quality with opengl output
> - was too slow for videos in any higher resolution
>
> Regards,
> Florian Philipp

Thanks for the response.  I should say that I have indeed purchased the
laptop with intel graphics and it works fine with DVDs.

allan

Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Jackson]

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On 12/02/2012 03:02 AM, Allan Gottlieb wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 01 2012, Florian Philipp wrote:
>
>> Am 28.07.2012 10:22, schrieb Florian Philipp:
>>> Am 27.07.2012 22:57, schrieb Michael Mol:
>>>> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Florian Philipp
>>>> <lists@binarywings.net>  wrote:
>>>>> Am 27.07.2012 22:22, schrieb Michael Mol:
>>>>>> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Allan Gottlieb<gottlieb@nyu.edu>  wrote:
>>>>>>> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
>>>>>>> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
>>>>>>> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
>>>>>>> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
>>>>>>> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
>>>>>>> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Any comments or experiences?
>>>>>> My Duron 750MHz was able to decode DVDs in realtime. After that, all
>>>>>> you're doing is blitting (or using xv) the frames to the screen. I
>>>>>> would be absolutely shocked if the Intel HD 4000 GPU couldn't handle
>>>>>> that basic of a 2D acceleration function.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Now, DVDs use MPEG2. Blu-Ray uses h.264, which is a much harder beast
>>>>>> to decode in realtime. It's possible the HD 4000 GPU can't handle
>>>>>> hardware decode of h.264, but I don't know. I've never looked into it.
>>>>>> (Software decode of 1080p h.264 on my Phenom 9650 worked somewhat, but
>>>>>> highly active scenes would cause frame drops.)
>>>>>>
>>>>> I've experienced issues playing DVDs on fullscreen with the OSS radeon
>>>>> driver. Therefore I'm cautious of assumptions that something works
>>>>> simply because the input is easy to decode. Upscaling to large displays
>>>>> with high resolutions can be an issue.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not saying the Intel driver cannot handle it. I'm just saying you
>>>>> should try it or look for reports.
>>>> How high is 'high' resolution? I was upscaling to 1600x1200 using an a
>>>> Radeon 9600; that card would now be almost ten years old. A bit later,
>>>> I did the same on a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 using an i845-based Intel
>>>> graphics card. Here's the line from lspci, as run in May of 2007:
>>>>
>>>> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation
>>>> 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
>>>>
>>>> Hardware scaling a 2D image is one of the most trivial
>>>> hardware-accelerated options GPUs perform. If someone had difficulties
>>>> upscaling a 480p (roughly what DVDs are) to 1080p at 24 or 33fps, I
>>>> would be very highly suspicious of a software misconfiguration. That
>>>> kind of scaling should even be comfortably doable in software on any
>>>> modern x86-derived processor. (With the plausible exclusion of the
>>>> Atom CPU)
>>>>
>>> 1920x1080, on-board Radeon HD 4250. I haven't diagnosed it further
>>> (except of playing around with mplayer2 options) as it was easier to use
>>> the closed source driver.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Florian Philipp
>>
>> I realize this thread is pretty stale but since I talked bullshit and
>> just now realized it, I want to correct myself:
>>
>> Since updating the kernel to 3.5 forced me to update the X server beyond
>> 1.11 which in turn forced me to update ati-drivers to a version that no
>> longer supported my Radeon HD 4250, I had to look into my issues with
>> the open source driver.
>>
>> It turns out, my problems had two reasons:
>> - I didn't enable KMS and DRM for radeon in the kernel
>> - I didn't have x11-drivers/radeon-ucode installed
>>
>> Both resulted in a fully functioning X server that
>> - could run glxgears just fine
>> - could (with some tuning) render videos in DVD quality with opengl output
>> - was too slow for videos in any higher resolution
>>
>> Regards,
>> Florian Philipp
> Thanks for the response.  I should say that I have indeed purchased the
> laptop with intel graphics and it works fine with DVDs.
>
> allan
>
>

My laptop HP g4-1057tu of HD 3000 GPU can handle hardware decode of 720P easily with vaapi-mplayer¡«¡«¡«¡«

Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Allan Gottlieb]

On Fri, Jul 27 2012, Michael Mol wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 3:41 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 26 2012, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>>> Check the nvidia site. It will tell you the exact driver Rev that
>>> supports this GPU.
>>
>> Thanks.  I see that 295.53 supports the NVS 5200M.  Am I right in
>> believing that this means all drivers >= 295.53 support it.
>> This would be good as there are a few such in portage.
>
> It's actually very rare for nVidia to remove support for a card that it has.

Thanks.  I agree and now that I think about it, I can always get the
older nvidia-driver from somewhere.

> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
>> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
>> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
>>
>> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
>> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
>> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
>> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
>>
>> Any comments or experiences?
>
> My Duron 750MHz was able to decode DVDs in realtime. After that, all
> you're doing is blitting (or using xv) the frames to the screen. I
> would be absolutely shocked if the Intel HD 4000 GPU couldn't handle
> that basic of a 2D acceleration function.
>
> Now, DVDs use MPEG2. Blu-Ray uses h.264, which is a much harder beast
> to decode in realtime. It's possible the HD 4000 GPU can't handle
> hardware decode of h.264, but I don't know. I've never looked into it.
> (Software decode of 1080p h.264 on my Phenom 9650 worked somewhat, but
> highly active scenes would cause frame drops.)

Thanks.  I am not getting a blu-ray player.

I forgot a big point.  I have a very high res 30" monitor (2560x1600)
and need to insure that the graphics card can drive the monitor at full
res (I don't care about dvd's just software development and writing my
lectures).  I haven't received a definitive answer from dell about that.

I am really in a quandary over the graphics card.  The nvidia card is a
little new and not listed on the nouveau page (I have found nouveau
works much better than nvidia-drivers).  Also it requires a bigger
battery and power adapter.  Indeed with the intel 4000, I could get a
physically smaller dell 6430s with the same 14" screen (but somewhat
lower res).

allan

Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:14 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
> I forgot a big point.  I have a very high res 30" monitor (2560x1600)
> and need to insure that the graphics card can drive the monitor at full
> res (I don't care about dvd's just software development and writing my
> lectures).  I haven't received a definitive answer from dell about that.

I think monitors with resolution that high usually require a DVI-D
dual link connection. Ensure your new computer supports that. If it's
a newer laptop, it might not have DVI at all, but DisplayPort or HDMI
instead. There are DisplayPort and HDMI to DVI adapters available,
though I'm not familiar enough with the specifics to say which would
be compatible with your monitor.

Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Allan Gottlieb]

On Fri, Jul 27 2012, Paul Hartman wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 4:14 PM, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@nyu.edu> wrote:
>> I forgot a big point.  I have a very high res 30" monitor (2560x1600)
>> and need to insure that the graphics card can drive the monitor at full
>> res (I don't care about dvd's just software development and writing my
>> lectures).  I haven't received a definitive answer from dell about that.
>
> I think monitors with resolution that high usually require a DVI-D
> dual link connection. Ensure your new computer supports that. If it's
> a newer laptop, it might not have DVI at all, but DisplayPort or HDMI
> instead. There are DisplayPort and HDMI to DVI adapters available,
> though I'm not familiar enough with the specifics to say which would
> be compatible with your monitor.

I am embarrassed to report that I again forgot to say everything needed.
I have an "e-port-replicator", which is dell-speak for something you
plug the laptop into and which then has a bunch of ports, including
displayport.  My current laptop plugs into the replicator fine and does
indeed drive the 2560x1600 display.

All the new machines I am considering do support the e-port-replicator
so the only question I see remaining is whether the intel 4000 can drive
all these bits.  I haven't yet got a definitive answer from dell so was
hoping someone here knew.

Thanks and sorry for not giving the info initially.
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Walter Dnes]

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 04:10:30PM -0400, Allan Gottlieb wrote
> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
> 
> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
> 
> Any comments or experiences?

  2 personal experiences...

1) I have a Dell D530, over 4 years old, that could not keep up with the
slowest feed of hockey games on NHLGameCenterLive.  The feed runs via
Flash.  This was just after I had done a fresh install, and most of the
system was lowest-common-denominator i686 code from the i686 install CD.
After I ran "emerge system" and "emerge world", optimised with CFLAGS...

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -mfpmath=sse -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"

...the machine was able to keep up stutter-free on the low-speed feed.
BTW, my current CFLAGS are...

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -mfpmath=sse -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -fno-unwind-tables -fno-asynchronous-unwind-tables"

2) I have an early ASUS Atom netbook, 2 gigs ram, with a Poulsbo GMA500.
With the in-kernel GMA500 driver, it plays 720p HD from Youtube no
problem.  By setting "mem=1920mb" in the boot parameters, I now have it
playing 1080p just fine even in Youtube's "large player", but not in
fullscreen mode.  If this old POS can play 1080p Youtube clips, a newer
machine should easily be able to handle it.

  Additional comments...

1) Dell is probably thinking Windows built with lowest-common-denominator
i686 code, running with full visual eye-candy.  Yes, that would slow it
down to a crawl.

2) Gentoo optimised to your machine has a huge advantage over any binary
distro, be it Windows or linux.

3) I run ICEWM, a lightweight but powerful WM with minimal eye-candy.
This allows the CPU and GPU to devote their power to doing stuff you
really want/need.  See my sig.

4) Use mplayer to play DVDs.  It is much lighter than other popular
linux players, and it can be optimised to your machine.  My setup...

[ebuild   R    ] media-video/mplayer-1.1-r1  USE="X a52 alsa dga encode
gif iconv jpeg mmx mng mp3 opengl png quicktime rtmp sse sse2 ssse3
theora truetype vdpau vorbis win32codecs x264 xv xvid -3dnow -3dnowext
-aalib (-altivec) (-aqua) -bidi -bindist -bl -bluray -bs2b -cddb -cdio
-cdparanoia -cpudetection -debug -directfb -doc -dts -dv -dvb -dvd
-dvdnav -dxr3 -enca -faac -faad -fbcon -ftp -ggi -gsm -ipv6 -jack
-joystick -jpeg2k -ladspa -libass -libcaca -libmpeg2 -lirc -live -lzo
-mad -md5sum -mmxext -nas -network -nut -openal -osdmenu -oss -pnm
-pulseaudio -pvr -radio -rar -real -rtc -samba -sdl -shm -speex -tga
-toolame -tremor -twolame -unicode -v4l -vidix -xanim -xinerama
-xscreensaver -xvmc -zoran" VIDEO_CARDS="-mga -s3virge -tdfx"

Note... do *NOT* blindly copy my flags.  Select the ones appropriate to
your CPU and GPU and playback/recording needs.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] intel HD graphics 4000 and viewing DVDs

[Allan Gottlieb]

On Sun, Dec 02 2012, Walter Dnes wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 04:10:30PM -0400, Allan Gottlieb wrote
>> I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430).
>> The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M.
>> Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M.
>> 
>> I do not need 3D or fast response.  Dell hinted that DVDs might not play
>> with the intel HD 4000.  This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed
>> to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others
>> would have sold laptops that can't play dvds
>> 
>> Any comments or experiences?
>
>   2 personal experiences...
>
> 1) I have a Dell D530, over 4 years old, that could not keep up with the
> slowest feed of hockey games on NHLGameCenterLive.  The feed runs via
> Flash.  This was just after I had done a fresh install, and most of the
> system was lowest-common-denominator i686 code from the i686 install CD.
> After I ran "emerge system" and "emerge world", optimised with CFLAGS...
>
> CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -mfpmath=sse -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
>
> ...the machine was able to keep up stutter-free on the low-speed feed.
> BTW, my current CFLAGS are...
>
> CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -mfpmath=sse -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe
> -fno-unwind-tables -fno-asynchronous-unwind-tables"
>
> 2) I have an early ASUS Atom netbook, 2 gigs ram, with a Poulsbo GMA500.
> With the in-kernel GMA500 driver, it plays 720p HD from Youtube no
> problem.  By setting "mem=1920mb" in the boot parameters, I now have it
> playing 1080p just fine even in Youtube's "large player", but not in
> fullscreen mode.  If this old POS can play 1080p Youtube clips, a newer
> machine should easily be able to handle it.
>
>   Additional comments...
>
> 1) Dell is probably thinking Windows built with lowest-common-denominator
> i686 code, running with full visual eye-candy.  Yes, that would slow it
> down to a crawl.
>
> 2) Gentoo optimised to your machine has a huge advantage over any binary
> distro, be it Windows or linux.
>
> 3) I run ICEWM, a lightweight but powerful WM with minimal eye-candy.
> This allows the CPU and GPU to devote their power to doing stuff you
> really want/need.  See my sig.
>
> 4) Use mplayer to play DVDs.  It is much lighter than other popular
> linux players, and it can be optimised to your machine.  My setup...
>
> [ebuild   R    ] media-video/mplayer-1.1-r1  USE="X a52 alsa dga encode
> gif iconv jpeg mmx mng mp3 opengl png quicktime rtmp sse sse2 ssse3
> theora truetype vdpau vorbis win32codecs x264 xv xvid -3dnow -3dnowext
> -aalib (-altivec) (-aqua) -bidi -bindist -bl -bluray -bs2b -cddb -cdio
> -cdparanoia -cpudetection -debug -directfb -doc -dts -dv -dvb -dvd
> -dvdnav -dxr3 -enca -faac -faad -fbcon -ftp -ggi -gsm -ipv6 -jack
> -joystick -jpeg2k -ladspa -libass -libcaca -libmpeg2 -lirc -live -lzo
> -mad -md5sum -mmxext -nas -network -nut -openal -osdmenu -oss -pnm
> -pulseaudio -pvr -radio -rar -real -rtc -samba -sdl -shm -speex -tga
> -toolame -tremor -twolame -unicode -v4l -vidix -xanim -xinerama
> -xscreensaver -xvmc -zoran" VIDEO_CARDS="-mga -s3virge -tdfx"
>
> Note... do *NOT* blindly copy my flags.  Select the ones appropriate to
> your CPU and GPU and playback/recording needs.

Thank you walter for you thoughtful reply.
allan