Why choppy?

Story: Koobox/Linspire value PC: You get what you pay forTotal Replies: 6
Author Content
grouch

Mar 24, 2006
8:52 AM EDT 		I don't understand why that AMD 3000 system was choppy on DVD playback. I'm running a pretty mundane P4 2.4 w/512 MB, an old DVD player that fails to read CDs for some reason, a 64MB nVidia card, and Debian Sarge. Neither Xine nor mplayer drop frames while playing a DVD. I agree with the author that the Koobox should have been better configured.

BTW, I will never recommend Linspire while it persists in that idiotic root-by-default policy. It needs to urge users to create a non-root account and explain why.
jdixon

Mar 24, 2006
9:20 AM EDT 		> I don't understand why that AMD 3000 system was choppy on DVD playback.

Agreed. My Slackware box is an AMD 1.5 GHZ machine with 256 MB of memory (128 MB until last week), and Xine plays DVD's fine. If I had to make a guess, I'd blame the video card, though I guess it's possible that the DVD isn't set up for DMA.
number6x

Mar 24, 2006
9:56 AM EDT 		Guesses?

  • hdaparm not set.
  • 32-bit software not taking advantage of a 64-bit systsem.
  • sub-optimal hardware. (this is a cheap box, way below average)
  • sub-optimal dvd-decoding software. (third party commercial stuff as good as open source?)

    Heck the MPAA approved commercial dvd decoder software is probably using the default root-iness of Linspire to spy on evil Linux using hackers. That extra work is probably eating up cycles.

    OK, the last ones a joke. No corporation would resort to hacking, or rootkits to protect their precious Intellectual property, would they?

    :)

    This message has not been sponsored by Sony.
    • cjcox

    Mar 24, 2006
    10:17 AM EDT     		I was working an NF4 board the other day and the knemo tool just really polled the heck out of the ethernet interfaces (this doesn't happen on other platforms)... it caused a rhythmic pause every 20 seconds or so. Once I disabled knemo, everything was fine. So... sometimes the problem is caused by another app.
    jdixon

    Mar 24, 2006
    10:32 AM EDT     		> # 32-bit software not taking advantage of a 64-bit systsem.

    I assumed that Linspire being 32 bit was a given. I'm not even sure the Sempron 3000 in the multimedia machine is a 64 bit chip. However, that machine is a lot more powerful than the one I'm running, and mine doesn't have the problem, so I'm not sure what's going on.
    tuxtom

    Mar 24, 2006
    10:44 AM EDT     		I just corrected the choppiness in my MEPIS xine install. Things were fine until I got the ATI flglrx driver working. With the default X driver, my xine was playing mpg's, avi's and wmv's just fine (via kaffeine)...however I could not play tuxracer (a.k.a. ppracer) at all. After the flglrx driver was working with direct rendering, ppracer ROCKS, but my normal video playback was choppy, including DVDs, using xine. With ogle (a stand-alone DVD player for X), DVD playback was excellent.

    BTW: I have Radeon 9200e 128MB Video on an Athalon 2000+ box w/768Megs RAM.

    Solution (for my issue): Configure xine to use the opengl driver. In kaffeine this can be found by going to:

    Settings -> xine Engine Parameters -> Video

    You will see a lot of driver options for xine. Experiment or google around for your particular installation's details.

    In summary, it appears that my now working 3D X driver was not compatible with the default driver that xine was using.

    Hope this helps.
    number6x

    Mar 24, 2006
    10:45 AM EDT     		I believe sempron 3000 and 2800 are 64-bit. They are replaced by the current turon.

    If I remember these cpus are the ones that don't take advantage of the full 64-bit memory channel. Shouldn't be a problem on a desktop running 32-bit software.

    cjcox is probably correct. Something is probably stepping on the interupts. Setting hda can help if direct memory access is supported. Finding and killing all un-needed services is also a good idea.

    How many of the people this box is aimed at would know where to start.

    I think that koobox could do a little better by their customers. Maybe Linspire could help out by allowing the koobox people to pre-intsall some of the multimedia stuff, and tweak the system for optimal performace.

    The price point is right, and there's a world of opportunity with Vista shipping late.

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