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**dsrl** · 2012-07-30, 01:38

(2012-07-30, 00:18)Bunto Skiffler Wrote: thx for your reply. would you have by chance an NVIDIA videocard to try or $20 bucks to get an NVIDIA videocard from newegg? I'm sure (almost positive) that intel is holding you back. IMHO i3 cpu is higher than nominal power, everything else looks fine to me.

Thank you for the suggestion. For $20, that suggests a low end card like a 8400 or GT210. If I abandon the i3 graphics, I would expect something with a bit more power like a GT430 would be needed.

I don't think more graphics power is needed than what the i3 has but an nVidia card could lead to a fix because it would use a different driver -- and the Intel driver that comes with XBMCbuntu appears to be the cause of my problem.

Thoughts?

Bunto Skiffler · 2012-07-30, 04:10

d, I have a 8400 GS and I'm pretty satisfied. IMHO the most useful components are their purevideo magic (VDPAU) & 64-bit or better (It seems like the go-to for nv are these fermi cards). Check out wikipedia on that. Think a card with a light fan or no fan at all, don't need to get a bomber.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Fermi

ps. I haven't as of yet tried out HDMI on these discrete cards as of yet. So I don't know on that.

volkswagen bug

porsche

**dsrl** · 2012-07-30, 06:48

When I setup the HTPC I considered the i3 against a G620 Pentium and graphics card. The i3 may not have been the better choice for me because of the driver. There is no doubt the i3 has enough power.

A graphics card is worth a try. I'll let you know.

FernetMenta · 2012-07-30, 10:37

Every first setup on a particular platform might be painful. I see no reason why the i3 with Intel graphics should not work. Ignore vdpau on Intel, this is only for NVidia. CPU load should not be that high if vaapi works. Have you installed vaapi? You can verify by installing and running vainfo.

sk__ · 2012-07-30, 20:26

i have the 60 second hiccup problem since months too. i hope it's ok to post in this thread, i'm not sure if it's exactly the same problem.

audio and video is stopping/stuttering every 60 seconds.

Hardware:
- Computer: Shuttle XS35GTV2 (nVIDIA ION 2)
- AV Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR705
- Beamer: Epson EH-TW3200
audio+video via HDMI

Software:
- XBMCbuntu
- latest intel drivers from PPA, as suggested by FernetMenta

since the xorg/intel driver update xbmc-randr displays different refreshrates (only had 60hz, 50hz, 30hz,... before)

xbmc-xrandr output: http://pastebin.com/dxJkG6xu

Debug Log: http://pastebin.com/FBDZRRN1

i also tried different xbmc settings (adjust framerate on/off, etc.), didn't help.

using software instead of hardware accelaration does not work for me since the atom CPU is too slow for hd content.

what can i do?

**dsrl** · (This post was last modified: 2012-07-30, 20:42 by dsrl.)

(2012-07-30, 10:37)FernetMenta Wrote: Every first setup on a particular platform might be painful. I see no reason why the i3 with Intel graphics should not work. Ignore vdpau on Intel, this is only for NVidia. CPU load should not be that high if vaapi works. Have you installed vaapi? You can verify by installing and running vainfo.

I installed vaapi along with the i965 video drivers and ran the tests. Things are worse.

Here is the environment:

Render method: tried "Auto" and "Software"
vaapi hardware acceleration: ON
vdpau hardware acceleration: OFF
Adjust display refresh rate to match video: ON
Sync playback to display: ON
tried with and without xorg.conf file

I saw no difference with / without a xorg.conf file and no difference with a change in render method.

For DVD playback, there is an occasional hiccup, perhaps 5 to 10 minutes between occurrences.

Bluray playback no longer works. The screen goes black and the system no longer responds to keyboard, mouse or remote. The only thing that the system responds to is the power button.

EDIT: Audio sounds OK for bluray playback -- just no picture and no response to any input device.

FernetMenta · 2012-07-30, 20:54

@dsrl

Could you post a log after having played Sintel-Bluray.iso (which free for download) for a couple of minutes. I will play this video on my Intel system and compare the results. My Intel system is just a Celeron 1.2 GHz with HD graphics. I don't have it in use too often because the heat sink is defect.

@
sk__
You are facing a couple of different problems. The biggest problem is the XS35GT. NVidia drivers later than 190 won't let the GPU go full speed. NVidia PowerMizer never switches to max performance mode. I was in contact with Shuttle but they refused to investigate this issue. According to similar problems posted at NVidia forum this is most likely caused by faulty bios.

**dsrl** · (This post was last modified: 2012-07-30, 21:08 by dsrl.)

(2012-07-30, 20:54)FernetMenta Wrote: Could you post a log after having played Sintel-Bluray.iso (which free for download) for a couple of minutes.

I will. What version of the iso file should I use?

EDIT: This is the link I used to find one version of the file: http://www.general-files.com/download/so...3546fh32i0

Let me know if I should download a different version.

EDIT2: OK, got your reply as I was making the first edit.

FernetMenta · 2012-07-30, 21:07

http://download.blender.org/durian/movie...Bluray.iso

Bunto Skiffler · 2012-07-30, 21:17

My thoughts, (blush)
"I tried Eden under Windows 7 (64-bit) on the same HTPC. The problem does not exist. Playback is very smooth with no jumps or hiccups"
So this is a software problem. Linux works best for me on nvidia vc.

"The bad news is that the i3 CPU does not have enough power to render blurays using the software method."
They make stand-alone BD players with cut-rate hw that work quite nicely. An i3 would eat them for breakfast easily. So this is sw prob again.

sk__, if you could boot off a different OS, another LiveCD, or older Dharma LiveCD and still have the skip prob, that would rule out sw at least.

---3 levels TS---
1. Hardware hw
2. Firmware fw
3. Software sw

out!

**dsrl** · 2012-07-30, 23:31

(2012-07-30, 20:54)FernetMenta Wrote: Could you post a log after having played Sintel-Bluray.iso ...

Fernet,

I have two logs playing the ISO file with hardware acceleration turned ...
ON: http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=5886
OFF: http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=5885

I had to power down the system to end the first log. I hope what you need was written from the buffers.

FernetMenta · (This post was last modified: 2012-07-31, 10:59 by FernetMenta.)

Plays fine on my Zotac ID81 which is only a Celeron 1.2 GHz. CPU load stays between 5 and 7%.
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=5910

But my setup is Ubuntu Precise and XBMC dev version.

As a first step I would recommend that you upgrade your system to Ubuntu 12.04. Then you get a newer Intel graphics package for kernel 3.2.

EDIT: btw, Mesa driver 7.11 does not support Shader Model 3.0. Means it is not recommended spec. With Ubuntu 12.04 you wll get Mesa 8.x

**dsrl** · 2012-07-31, 11:58

(2012-07-31, 10:46)FernetMenta Wrote: As a first step I would recommend that you upgrade your system to Ubuntu 12.04. Then you get a newer Intel graphics package for kernel 3.2.

I have never upgraded Linux before. Can I just upgrade the XBMCbuntu system or should I do a clean install of Linux, drivers, etc. and then add XBMC?

FernetMenta · 2012-07-31, 13:41

I am not familiar with XBMCbuntu but I won't ever upgrade Ubuntu again. It takes at least as long as a clean installation and is likely to fail (at least it did fail several times on my systems in the past). I only do clean installations where I format the boot and the root partition of the disk and keep home. I prefer the 64bit version of Ubuntu. Installation is straight forward. What I do:

- In case I have no previous version installed I create a partition table: boot = 400MB, swap=2xRAM, root=15GB, home=remaining
- Install Ubuntu, select auto login
- After installation is finished and system has rebooted I log out of Unity and back in using Unity 2D (avoid using Unity or any other composition window manager)
- sudo apt-get purge pulsaudio* (if you have any good reasons for keeping PA do so)
- sodo apt-get purge libreoffice*
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get upgrade
- sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

- update/install xorg.conf
- update/install asound.conf

- you may need to install vaapi, vainfo and some other libs.
- ready to install XBMC

**dsrl** · (This post was last modified: 2012-07-31, 21:22 by dsrl.)

Thank you very much for your comments.

It has been many years since I did a Linux install. What I noticed about XBMCbuntu is that it installed very easily -- no missing driver problem like I had seen before -- so I expect a clean Ubuntu install will be much easier than what I remember.

You have been very kind to keep working with me so I do not want to trouble you with dumb questions but I have one. You said you prefer a 64-bit system. I did a very quick review of the Ubuntu site and they recommend 32-bit. Can you enlighten me a little on why you prefer 64-bit and speculate why Ubuntu recommends 32-bit?

EDIT: I did more poking around the Ubuntu site and found answers about the reason for their recommendation. I'll give 64-bit a try and fall back to 32-bit if necessary.