Optimizing Intel Atom and VLC playback

[BenderBendingRodriguez]

Hello everyone, i have one small problem, i am actually using a Samsung N130 netbook which is just fine now i have two problems:
1) VLC playing a x264 file in matroska very choppy while dragon player plays it just fine (i don't know they may be using different packages for playing the file right?

2) Optimizing the cpu flags for Intel Atom, i was following couple of threads and set this:

CFLAGS="-march=core2 -m32 -msse3 --param l1-cache-line-size=64 --param l1-cache-size=32 --param l2-cache-size=512 -O2 -funswitch-loops -fpredictive-commoning -fgcse-after-reload -ftree-vectorize -fomit-frame-pointer -foptimize-register-move -mfpmath=sse -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
I don't exactly remember the thread but the person that set this gave very reasonable explanation and seems as it was a very experienced user, eariler i had quite similar settings (-O2 -march=core2 -mtune=generic -mssse=3 -mfpmatch=sse -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer as per gentoo's wiki for intel atom)


Now i would love to use the native -march=atom but it isn't in gcc until 4.5 and i don't want to fiddle with stability to gain 1 or 2% of performance

[Gusar]

Oh, wow. Ricer flags. It's been a while since I've seen those.

Anyway, the Atom is a hyperthreaded processor, so mplayer-mt, which is a regular mplayer built with ffmpeg-mt, is the way to go. There's an ebuild for mplayer-mt somewhere in this forum. I don't know if VLC can use ffmpeg-mt.

[mikegpitt]

I don't have a ton of experience with vlc, but does it make use of the GPU? If yes, your answer might be in enabling 3d acceleration for your video card, instead of fiddling with gcc compiler settings.

[beandog]

The real question is, what's your videocard? Maybe it can do some hardware processing.

Might wanna look into this: http://www.splitted-desktop.com/~gbeauchesne/mplayer-vaapi/
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[Gusar]

The Samsung N130 is a standard netbook, Intel GMA 950 graphics. So no hardware video decoding. But the Atom can do 720p with a multithreaded decoder.

[rjmars97]

[NathanZachary]

My NC10 struggles with 720p video playback as well, but it isn't all that bad. Are you getting completely smooth playback?
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[rjmars97]

I do get smooth playback on my 720p videos. I only have a few and they are wmv files, but I'm not sure which codec is used within. If you know of any x264 encoded mkv sample videos I'd be more than happy to test them on my machine.

edit: I just looked up the specs of the NC10, and it looks like it has the Atom N270 processor. My media computer has the Atom 330 which is essentially a dual core version of the 270. That could be the reason the NC10 struggles with smooth playback but my computer does not. If it matters, I'm using an Intel D945GCLF2 motherboard.
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[NathanZachary]

Ah, yes, that is probably the reason. My processor cores are maxed out when I play a 720p video. I wondered if it was because I wasn't truly getting hardware rendering or not, but I think I am. Thanks for the information.
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“Truth, like infinity, is to be forever approached but never reached.” --Jean Ayres (1972)
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[BenderBendingRodriguez]

Well to be honest the funny thing is that VLC played a 720p just fine BUT after a complete reinstall any ffmpeg based playback got very jerky (at least high resolution video), if i use kaffeine (which is xine based i assume) then it plays just fine BUT the cpu usage is enormous (about 50%). For now i use Kaffeine but i don't like it at all too simple, no advanced settings etc.

[NathanZachary]

Wow, 50%? I would love to see that! When I play 720p videos on my NC10, I see both CPUs (a.k.a. hyperthreading) maxed out.
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“Truth, like infinity, is to be forever approached but never reached.” --Jean Ayres (1972)
---avatar cropped from =AimanStudio---

[BenderBendingRodriguez]

I have 50% CPU usage when i have cpufreq_conservative but while playing a 720p movie it clocks to maximum and stays at 50% usage. If i set powersave (constant 800MHz) then sometimes it is not enought and it slows down

For playing i am not using VLC since it is jerky as hell lately and i have completely no idea why. Kaffeine or dragonplayer is just fine

I am wondering, is there any hardware acceleration for i915?

[sam.reader]

VLC uses a lot of system process percentage to operate
I don't think it is the ideal player for an atop processor
Why don't you go for a CCCP and play your media files in the MPC
It will be idea as it doesn't require much memory