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XBMC for Linux VDPAU - NVIDIA GPU video decoding support (now in the mainline SVN) - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: XBMC for Linux VDPAU - NVIDIA GPU video decoding support (now in the mainline SVN) (/showthread.php?tid=45525)



- freddyflinty - 2009-05-10

motd2k Wrote:9.04 is released so it'd make no difference. There is talk of having a 9.04fixes release with any bugfixes, if this happens it'll be in there.

doh! I assumed there are ongoing fixes releases for the stable. (crossing fingers)

Thanks again motd2k.


- pyrates - 2009-05-11

ronin Wrote:VDPAU fails completely for me when I try and turn it on.

am using Ubuntu 9.04 updated as of May10th/2009 i686 arch Linux 2.6.28-12-generic
Nvidia drivers 185.18.08
AMD 7750BE 2gb of RAM Geforce 9400 GT 512mb

XBMC r19947

xbmc.log http://pastebin.com/mcbdd748
screenshot- http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/8175/screenshot000.png

I'm currently updating from svn

Try it on Ubuntu 8.04. If it's a minimal install, there's no reason to move to a newer version. VDPAU works great for me in Ubuntu 8.04.


- AllanMar - 2009-05-11

pyrates Wrote:Try it on Ubuntu 8.04. If it's a minimal install, there's no reason to move to a newer version. VDPAU works great for me in Ubuntu 8.04.

I'm using a 9400GT on 9.04 with no problems. I was on a basic ubuntu install but I am now using XBMC Live. Had no issues on either.


- Tuxwielder - 2009-05-11

@motd2k

Could you look again at http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/6145 ?

Maybe you can weigh in your insights here Wink

Regards,

Tuxwielder


- kross - 2009-05-12

I made an interesting discovery regarding video playback on my 8200 IGP. Previously, I have mentioned that, even with the safe fullscreen patch, there were some videos that would still be a little jumpy in spots. mplayer and mythtv would play these same videos fine.

However, it seems I can play these videos in XBMC just fine if I set the CPU frequency to maximum. Previously I had it set to at least 1.8 GHz, which seemed to be fine for mplayer, etc. If I understand the technical details correctly, the memory controller is implemented on the CPU in the AMD architecture, so the speed of memory access by the GPU is affected by the CPU speed. This is not the case with Intel architecture.

I also discovered that I can reproduce the same jumpiness in mplayer, if I run glxgears fullscreen and then start up the video, even if I increase the CPU frequency to maximum.

So what this leads me to believe is that the XBMC UI must still be running and updating in the background while the movie is playing, and is consuming too much GPU bandwidth. Of course mplayer and mythtv don't have these fancy UI's that are constantly updating in the background like XBMC does, which would explain the difference.

Let me know if my thinking is way off base here. Hope this helps!

-- Kevin


- jmarshall - 2009-05-13

The XBMC UI only renders during video playback if you can see it.


- motd2k - 2009-05-13

Also note that comparisions with mplayer only go so far. Mplayer has a much simpler path to displaying images on the screen. In XBMC there is a (required) extra level of abstraction with us having to render the video onto OpenGL textures, which XBMC then renders onto the screen - it's alot more complicated.

Quote:if I run glxgears fullscreen

ie if you full an OpenGL application fullscreen with mplayer running you get the issue... see the correlation here to what I say above?


- MrIcka - 2009-05-13

I have a strange problem.

Running Ubuntu 9.04 and XBMC 9.04 (Final or SVN) VDPAU runs smooth and everyting is perfect.

But when I switch to the new XBMC session, 1080p playback is choppy... the same thing happens when running XBMC Live.

Something that is good is loading when gdm loads... =) but what?!?

Any one else having this problem?

My System:
8300 IGP
2 MB Dualchannel 800MHz
2 Athlon 3200+ running @ 2GHz

---------------- EDIT ----------------------
It's that strange starting fullscreen thing again i noticed... was there a script that run the \ key at startup?


- lcapriotti - 2009-05-13

There is a known issue with 8x00 IGPs when running in fullscreen.

Investigations are needed, information about the results will be provided in due course.


- kross - 2009-05-13

motd2k Wrote:Also note that comparisions with mplayer only go so far. Mplayer has a much simpler path to displaying images on the screen. In XBMC there is a (required) extra level of abstraction with us having to render the video onto OpenGL textures, which XBMC then renders onto the screen - it's alot more complicated.



ie if you full an OpenGL application fullscreen with mplayer running you get the issue... see the correlation here to what I say above?

I'm not trying to argue, or compare XBMC with mplayer, etc. I'm just trying to help nail down the cause of the 8200 glitches in XBMC with VDPAU. You say the video is being rendered to an OpenGL texture. Even with VDPAU? I guess that would explain it, then.

I have a question, though. Since I seem to have found a workaround (setting cpufreq to performance mode), is there a way to run a command before a movie starts, and another one at the end, so I can change the CPU frequency? Kind of like xrandr changing refresh rate before and after.

Thanks for your help!

-- Kevin


- MrIcka - 2009-05-14

l.capriotti Wrote:There is a known issue with 8x00 IGPs when running in fullscreen.

Investigations are needed, information about the results will be provided in due course.

Thanks for the reply!

I have seen a script that sends a \ when xbmc starts, but I can't find it now... anyone knows where to find it?


- bobb0 - 2009-05-14

kross Wrote:I have a question, though. Since I seem to have found a workaround (setting cpufreq to performance mode), is there a way to run a command before a movie starts, and another one at the end, so I can change the CPU frequency? Kind of like xrandr changing refresh rate before and after.

I just disabled cpufreq/powernowd so that it always runs full speed.


- s7mx1 - 2009-05-14

MrIcka Wrote:Thanks for the reply!

I have seen a script that sends a \ when xbmc starts, but I can't find it now... anyone knows where to find it?

Have a look at my xbmc startup script

http://code.google.com/p/xbox-remote/source/browse/trunk/scripts/start-xbmc.py

Get the scripts from
Code:
svn export https://xbox-remote.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/scripts xbmc-scripts

After you got the codes then change to xbmc-scripts folder and you can run it with

Code:
python start-xbmc.py -h

to check what options are available.

If you just want it go full screen from the initial windows mode you can try
Code:
python start-xbmc.py -f

* add "-s" to tell the script to start xbmc in spawn mode, i.e. if xbmc crashed or being stopped another instance will start up shortly.

* add "-q" to set the CPU frequency never goes below 1.8G HZ when xbmc is running.
The helper script "xbmc-amd-set-frequency.py" needs root privilege. You can add this with visudo. Sample syntax will be printed out in the terminal but you need to replace the path to the "xbmc-amd-set-frequency.py" script

* add "-l" if you have another XBMC installed under /usr/local/ and you want to start that XBMC.


- ERamseth - 2009-05-14

bobb0 Wrote:I just disabled cpufreq/powernowd so that it always runs full speed.

Interesting... I will have to give this a shot.

If this fixes the jerkiness of playback, does that mean the problem, as you mentioned, is tied to the fact that some memory controller speed of some sort is somehow affected by the CPU speed?


- simon22 - 2009-05-14

Hi,

I am having a problem using VDPAU with the BBC iPlayer plugin - http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-iplayerv2/

The iplayer streams are in h264 and upuntil a couple of days ago VDPAU would render them without problem. However on svn 20266 when I go to play a stream xbmc crashes returing 'xbmc.bin: VDPAU.cpp:892: int CVDPAU::ConfigVDPAU(AVCodecContext*, int): Assertion 'totalAvalaibleOutputSurfaces > 0' failed.' I dont get any problem playing any of my other h264 videos.

Can anyone help on this?

debug log - http://pastebin.com/m29b05fcf