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BenderBendingRodriguez Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 19 Feb 2010 Posts: 101
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Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:29 pm Post subject: Optimizing Intel Atom and VLC playback |
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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 |
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Gusar Advocate
Joined: 09 Apr 2005 Posts: 2665 Location: Slovenia
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Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 8:22 am Post subject: |
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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. |
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mikegpitt Advocate
Joined: 22 May 2004 Posts: 3224
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Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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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. |
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beandog Bodhisattva
Joined: 04 May 2003 Posts: 2072 Location: /usa/utah
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Gusar Advocate
Joined: 09 Apr 2005 Posts: 2665 Location: Slovenia
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Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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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. |
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rjmars97 n00b
Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 51 Location: Idaho
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 5:25 am Post subject: Re: Optimizing Intel Atom and VLC playback |
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BenderBendingRodriguez wrote: |
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 |
If that's true, get rid of all the crazy CFLAGS. Just use -march=native and let gcc select the necessary flags. It works quite well with the Atom using gcc 4.3.4 (the newest stable version in portage).
This is what I have for my Atom 330 based media computer: Code: | CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe" | When doing my testing, selecting all kinds of flags as you show did not help much with performance and will only give you problems later on. This computer also has the Intel GMA950 chip and can easily handle video up to 720p (as mentioned) when I play them in XBMC. _________________ I opened Pandora's box, let the cat out of the bag and put the ball in their court.
-- Hon. J. Hacker (The Ministry of Administrative Affairs) |
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NathanZachary Moderator
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 2608
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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My NC10 struggles with 720p video playback as well, but it isn't all that bad. Are you getting completely smooth playback? _________________ “Truth, like infinity, is to be forever approached but never reached.” --Jean Ayres (1972)
---avatar cropped from =AimanStudio--- |
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rjmars97 n00b
Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 51 Location: Idaho
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Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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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. _________________ I opened Pandora's box, let the cat out of the bag and put the ball in their court.
-- Hon. J. Hacker (The Ministry of Administrative Affairs) |
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NathanZachary Moderator
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 2608
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Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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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. _________________ “Truth, like infinity, is to be forever approached but never reached.” --Jean Ayres (1972)
---avatar cropped from =AimanStudio--- |
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BenderBendingRodriguez Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 19 Feb 2010 Posts: 101
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 8:19 pm Post subject: VLC playback |
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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. |
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NathanZachary Moderator
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 2608
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Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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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. _________________ “Truth, like infinity, is to be forever approached but never reached.” --Jean Ayres (1972)
---avatar cropped from =AimanStudio--- |
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BenderBendingRodriguez Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 19 Feb 2010 Posts: 101
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Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 8:49 pm Post subject: 50% cpu |
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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? |
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sam.reader n00b
Joined: 04 Mar 2010 Posts: 20
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2010 8:43 am Post subject: |
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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 |
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