2009-01-21, 16:26
2009-01-21, 17:31
I think it some kind of a video driveror setting problem. What resolution are you using ?
It is possible that the video card can not output the needed framerate to the screen that's why CPU usage is low. That was the case with my nvidia integrated board. I had to put two ram modules and have them in dual channel setup to make the integrated video work properly.
It is possible that the video card can not output the needed framerate to the screen that's why CPU usage is low. That was the case with my nvidia integrated board. I had to put two ram modules and have them in dual channel setup to make the integrated video work properly.
2009-01-21, 17:48
Is this am AMD CPU? I found cool and quiet to be buggy. Try disabling CPU throttling.
2009-01-21, 18:27
Hey, thanks for your replies! 
alanwww1
The video goes to a 1920*1080 TV over hdmi; I've checked the system (780g + 4850e + 4 gig ram) under winxp and it had no problem playing fullhd video.
mr_raider
I'll try disabling CnQ in BIOS (that's what you mean, right?) to see if anything changes.
alanwww1
The video goes to a 1920*1080 TV over hdmi; I've checked the system (780g + 4850e + 4 gig ram) under winxp and it had no problem playing fullhd video.
mr_raider
I'll try disabling CnQ in BIOS (that's what you mean, right?) to see if anything changes.
2009-01-21, 18:58
Probably memory bus saturation due to the onboard gfx. You can try lowering the resolution or adding a dedicated gfx card to confirm.
EDIT: Also search the forums for info on the state of ATI drivers. IIRC there were some especially bad ones lately.
EDIT: Also search the forums for info on the state of ATI drivers. IIRC there were some especially bad ones lately.
2009-01-21, 19:05
althekiller
Thanks.
Just to confirm that I get it right: video content resolution/codec/bitrate etc. doesn't matter in my case and is not a limiting factor as long as CPU utilization doesn't reach 100%. Right?
EDIT: Right, switching to 720p mode (kinda) solved the problem. Going back to phoronix. Thanks for you help.
Thanks.
Just to confirm that I get it right: video content resolution/codec/bitrate etc. doesn't matter in my case and is not a limiting factor as long as CPU utilization doesn't reach 100%. Right?
EDIT: Right, switching to 720p mode (kinda) solved the problem. Going back to phoronix. Thanks for you help.
2009-01-21, 19:23
I'm using 4850e and on board geforce 8200, and 2 gbs of memory and I have no dropped frames on SD content like you, when I disable CPU throttling. Of course I'm using Ubuntu 8.10, not Gentoo. I know very little about Gentoo.
Out of curiosity, have you tried using another media player under linux like VLC or mplayer?
Out of curiosity, have you tried using another media player under linux like VLC or mplayer?
2009-01-21, 19:34
mr_raider
With screen resolution cut down to 720p (right in XBMC settings) I have no dropped frames on SD as well. Seems like I've hit another ATI/fglrs wall.
What's your experience with 8200? Screen resolution? If it's 1920*1080, are you able to play fullhd content w/o frame drops? At what CPU utilization?
I'll try mplayer over the weekend, probably along with CoreAVC.
P.S. There's nothing special about Gentoo compared to Ubuntu except that it's more customizable => *might* be a bit more efficient.
With screen resolution cut down to 720p (right in XBMC settings) I have no dropped frames on SD as well. Seems like I've hit another ATI/fglrs wall.
What's your experience with 8200? Screen resolution? If it's 1920*1080, are you able to play fullhd content w/o frame drops? At what CPU utilization?
I'll try mplayer over the weekend, probably along with CoreAVC.
P.S. There's nothing special about Gentoo compared to Ubuntu except that it's more customizable => *might* be a bit more efficient.
2009-01-21, 19:50
How do I pull up that display? I can't seem to find the key that does it. Thanks
2009-01-21, 20:22
gsmd Wrote:mr_raider
With screen resolution cut down to 720p (right in XBMC settings) I have no dropped frames on SD as well. Seems like I've hit another ATI/fglrs wall.
What's your experience with 8200? Screen resolution? If it's 1920*1080, are you able to play fullhd content w/o frame drops? At what CPU utilization?
I'll try mplayer over the weekend, probably along with CoreAVC.
P.S. There's nothing special about Gentoo compared to Ubuntu except that it's more customizable => *might* be a bit more efficient.
I have no HD content, all my content is SD 720x480 (NTSC TV captures and DVDs). I output to my receiver via HDMI. In nvidia control panel, I set resolution to 1920x1080@60Hz. In XBMC I set resolution to auto. I set vsync to "let driver decide" (it's on in nvidia control panel). I disable software upscaling for videos, but use bilinear in the on-screen video menu.
CPU usage is 50% when throttled at 40% (1.0Ghz) and I get occasional dropped frames. If it's set to 100% CPU speed, I get 6-10% on each core and no dropped frames.
It might be an fglrx problem. Try the open source drivers, which some people say have better performance in 2d.
Of course Ubuntu is Debian based and uses Gnome which may add some variables that are different from your setup.
As a side note, under win xp I can play anything and everything with no issues using just media player. If my Linux install borks, I'm gonna try WIndows 7 beta, an give the new media center a try.
2009-01-21, 20:27
drivesoslow Wrote:How do I pull up that display? I can't seem to find the key that does it. Thanks
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2009-01-21, 20:47
mr_raider
Yeah, my experience with SD content is pretty much the same. Would you care to download The Big Buck Bunny 1920*1080 & 1280*720 h.264 videos to check out how your system handles them?
I tend to stick to fglrx as a)I had some issues with radeonhd I can't recall now & b)fglrx is *supposed* to gain UVD2 support at some point and that drastically cuts down CPU usage (at least under WinXP). Probably I really should give radeonhd another try.
As a side note of mine, if I didn't need a linux box at home (routing, hosting, build server, etc. + xbmc), I'd be gone to windows for media center purposes long time ago. For how long do they say that Linux is ready for desktop? Since 2003?
Yeah, my experience with SD content is pretty much the same. Would you care to download The Big Buck Bunny 1920*1080 & 1280*720 h.264 videos to check out how your system handles them?
I tend to stick to fglrx as a)I had some issues with radeonhd I can't recall now & b)fglrx is *supposed* to gain UVD2 support at some point and that drastically cuts down CPU usage (at least under WinXP). Probably I really should give radeonhd another try.
As a side note of mine, if I didn't need a linux box at home (routing, hosting, build server, etc. + xbmc), I'd be gone to windows for media center purposes long time ago. For how long do they say that Linux is ready for desktop? Since 2003?
2009-01-21, 21:18
gsmd Wrote:mr_raider
With screen resolution cut down to 720p (right in XBMC settings) I have no dropped frames on SD as well. Seems like I've hit another ATI/fglrs wall.
What's your experience with 8200? Screen resolution? If it's 1920*1080, are you able to play fullhd content w/o frame drops? At what CPU utilization?
I'll try mplayer over the weekend, probably along with CoreAVC.
P.S. There's nothing special about Gentoo compared to Ubuntu except that it's more customizable => *might* be a bit more efficient.
It is no sense checking a new codec.
As the Dev told it is a problem of the integrated video, as it is using the motherboards ddr ram istead of video ram. A 1080p resolutions is a damn big amount of data needs to be transfered and the ddr ram is not fast enough for that (at least nowhere near the dedicated gddr rams on video cards). I repeat my solution was to use the ddr rams in dual-channel setup. If you don't know how to do it i can help you out.
2009-01-21, 21:42
alanwww1
Well, the system has 1gb *4 RAM config so there's no other choice but to run in dual-mode config. The last time I've installed WinXP on this box it had 1gb * 2 memory config and I don't remember having any troubles playing 1920*1080 videos at high bit rate (UVD2 assisted). Except for the memory, nothing else has changed since then. So obviously there shouldn't be any trouble displaying 1920*1080 image under Linux on this box (unless CPU utilization tops 100% which doesn't happen).
I've asked this on phoronix.com.
Well, the system has 1gb *4 RAM config so there's no other choice but to run in dual-mode config.
The last time I've installed WinXP on this box it had 1gb * 2 memory config and I don't remember having any troubles playing 1920*1080 videos at high bit rate (UVD2 assisted). Except for the memory, nothing else has changed since then. So obviously there shouldn't be any trouble displaying 1920*1080 image under Linux on this box (unless CPU utilization tops 100% which doesn't happen).I've asked this on phoronix.com.
