Kodi Community Forum

Hello

I'm trying to set up XBMC on Kubuntu Maverick RC using the PPA repos for SVN builds.

The build I've installed is 33778.

My kernel is Linux lnxsrv 2.6.35-22-generic #33-Ubuntu SMP Sun Sep 19 20:32:27 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I'm on a Pentium Duo, I believe an E2200...

My graphics is nVidia Geforce 6600 AGP, using the open source nv driver.

The problem is that when I launch XBMC, the interface crawls along at what seems to be about 2 fps, including mouse movements. I haven't had the patience to actually try to play something in it, given that I'm completely new to it and still don't know how, and using the interface with all the lagging of the mouse makes me hold my breath and feel queasy (not sure why, LOL).

I've noticed, though, that if I use SMPlayer and don't set xv or xv40 as output renderer, but use opengl instead, something similar happens to the video playback there, crawling down to just a little more than 1 fps. I may be way wrong here, but that just makes me think that maybe it has to do with the renderer, but I have no clue about where to change it, as the only options I get inside XBMC is two different kinds of shaders, software, and the default...

I tried the other video options mentioned, which didn't help, and I haven't changed anything else in the program, skin is what's default and so on. I just did an rm -rf ~/.xbmc, started it up again and pastebinned the resulting log here:

http://pastebin.com/LjQDYeQt

I hope this isn't some issue with using the nv driver rather than the proprietary one, because every time I've used the closed source drivers, I've had to say bye-bye to vsync and hello to tearing galore, all the time, everywhere. No amount of compiz vsyncing, compiz disabling alltogether, nvidia-settings "sync to this and that", or application-level syncing has been able to fix that. With the open source drivers, I've always had and retained sync globally from day one. So I really don't wanna go there

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Daniel

Woop. Just wanna say that my girlfriend's picking me up in a sec to go for a walk and get some coffee and maybe a burger, so if - fingers crossed - someone posts a response and I don't answer, it's not that I've left town, I'm just stuffing my face with caffeine and French fries

Hopefully we'll be able to watch Toy Story later tonight on XBMC

Oh, and I forgot to mention that stopping kdm and running XBMC as standalone from the console is no different.

Cheers.

There's the problem, you have no hardware acceleration.
Use the binary nvidia driver instead.

Hmm... I was afraid of that.

But do I really need this? I have direct rendering with nv, and I have accelerated video in X. I can play 1080p video smoothly in any player. If I go with restricted drivers I lose vsync, and I can no longer turn displays on and off without restarting X, which is unacceptable, as I have other applications running that I just can't close when I need to turn on a display.

Can XBMC only play video through OpenGL, or is it just the display, or...?

Thanks for replying, by the way

That should've been:

"Can XBMC only play video through OpenGL, or is it just the interface, or...?"

Would be nice, if it's just the interface, if one could switch to strictly software rendering there.

XBMC needs opengl, no way of getting around that.

Fair nuff.

Thanks anyway

I'll be damned... I installed the proprietary drivers anyway, thinking I might try one more stab at getting proper video playback, and out-of-the-box, I still have perfect sync! This is the first time in about 8 or 9 installs that I've kept vsync after installing nvidia proprietary drivers

On a side-note, christ, XBMC is a performer - once OpenGL'ed, it's just like a f**king race car. I've had issues getting 1080p to play back smoothly without adding a whole HTPC app on top of everything (miniscule processor + old gfx), but OOB, XBMC just gliiiiides. Super-smooth interface, super-smooth video playback.

Nice