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Satoshi
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Location: Brazil
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 Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 9:04 am Post subject: Should this setup be able to play 1080p? |
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Hey, guys
So, my computer really can't handle 1080p very well. The video just kinda freezes a lot (the audio keeps going). I've tried it on awesome and KDE. It does work on awesome with bare mplayer (but not on gnome-mplayer or smplayer), as long as I'm not compiling anything or stuff like that.
And also, some people have told me there's something wrong here, and that I my hardware should be able to play it without all that effort.
I'm on KDE 4.5, without the fancy kwin effects, and this is the important bits of my hardware:
Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33GHz
3 gigs of RAM (333Hz)
Geforce 7300 GS
Is there really something wrong here or is it really too much for my system to take? Also, I'm thinking of replacing it with a mini-itx or micro-atx. Would an i5 be able to handle the constant compilation and 1080p videos? Should I also get a good GPU or the gpu doesn't matter here? |
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Gusar
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Location: Slovenia
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 10:49 am Post subject: |
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Have you tried mplayer-mt? You have a dual-core proc, mplayer-mt will make use of that.
As for graphic cards...
Nvidia cards have excellent hardware decoding support of mpeg2, mpeg4 asp (xvid/divx), vc-1 and h264, which works out-of-the-box with mplayer and several other players. On a Core i5 you'll get hardware decoding of h264, but you'll need to patch mplayer for it, or maybe there's a mplayer-vaapi ebuild somewhere.
Last edited by Gusar on Mon Dec 27, 2010 9:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Satoshi
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 11:26 am Post subject: |
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How do I use mplayer-mt? I read the topic about ffmpeg-mt but it's terribly cryptic if one doesn't already now what they are talking about. And there are some mentions about one mplayer-uau which seems to do the same thing, and I'm kinda lost.
EDIT: I **THINK** I got it, but I'm not sure. Compiling mplayer with the ffmpeg-mt option now.
EDIT: It seems to have worked, since now I see more than one mplayer process. But yet, nothing close to fluid playback on smplayer. Bare mplayer did, however, play it very neatly.
Also, why is it that the KWin effects make mplayer all choppy? It goes back to normal in fullscreen, though. |
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pingufunkybeat
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Joined: 01 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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MPlayer will not multi-thread by default, you need to pass the following parameter to it: -lavdopts threads=2
You will also need to tell smplayer to use threading by default. From the ffmpeg-mt thread:
| Quote: | | If you use SMPlayer instead of "raw" mplayer, you only need to set the appropriate option in its configuration dialog ("Performance" section, "Threads for decoding" field.) |
The choppiness with KWin is related to compositing. It is dependent on your graphics card and drivers, as there is extra blitting involved, which can tax your bandwidth with high-bitrate video. If you switch to fullscreen, KWin disables compositing, that's why it's not choppy.
If you want to watch HD videos while compiling, make sure to set PORTAGE_NICENESS to something like 10. Emerge will kill any processor, and you need to tell it to let other processes have priority. |
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Jaglover
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Location: Saint Amant, Acadiana
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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| VDPAU is the key here, make sure your player uses VDPAU output. Weak Intel Atom can play HD having only 10% load if in par with ION. You want to do decoding in hardware. |
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pingufunkybeat
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Gusar
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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Nope, it won't. He has a 7300, but VDPAU is for Geforce 8 and up. |
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XQYZ
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Location: Europe
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Gusar wrote: |
Nope, it won't. He has a 7300, but VDPAU is for Geforce 8 and up. |
I'd say that's kind of the problem. The card is pretty old and an entry level model to begin with. I guess with something like a 9600GT or so he'd be much better off. |
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BitJam
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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I've been using VDPAU with a Geforce 8400. It worked great with dvds but wasn't perfect playing blurays. I upgraded to a GeForce 210 ($20 after rebate) and it seems to work perfectly now. YMMVG. If you are going to buy a card for VDPAU playback then I suggest you get
a card that supports the full feature set "C". |
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Satoshi
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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| But isn't it supposed to be up to the cpu to decode the videos? Shouldn't my core 2 duo handle it? |
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XQYZ
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Satoshi wrote: | | But isn't it supposed to be up to the cpu to decode the videos? Shouldn't my core 2 duo handle it? |
Not necessarily and apparently not?
The GPU does a far better job at it usually, that's why that's the recommended way. I'm not sure what you need for decoding it via CPU, but I guess it would really depend on the codec, bitrate etc. |
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Gusar
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Satoshi wrote: | | But isn't it supposed to be up to the cpu to decode the videos? Shouldn't my core 2 duo handle it? |
I actually have no idea what kind of power is needed to decode 1080p h264 video on the CPU. Though I think your CPU should be able to handle it, but probably only with both cores, so get mplayer-mt running. What's also important is the choice of video output, Xv is the best choice here, so make sure your player is configured to use that.
| XQYZ wrote: | | The GPU does a far better job at it usually, that's why that's the recommended way. |
To nitpick... The GPU is a lousy decoder actually. It's a dedicated ASIC on the graphic card, separate from the GPU, that does the decoding. Hmm, I should edit my previous post to reflect that. |
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BitJam
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| Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Satoshi wrote: | | But isn't it supposed to be up to the cpu to decode the videos? Shouldn't my core 2 duo handle it? |
| Quote: | Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33GHz
3 gigs of RAM (333Hz)
Geforce 7300 GS |
I've got a dual core Athlon @2.7GHz with 4 Gig of RAM and it can't keep up. IMO, if you want to watch high definition videos such as blurays then you need to get a decent graphics card that can handle the decoding for you. It's possible a six or more core CPU could handle it okay but buying a graphics card for $20 is a much cheaper (and probably better) solution.
The problem is that even if the CPU can keep up 99% of the time, the 1% of the time it misses makes the entire video look crappy. Then you can get into a situation where you want to turn as much stuff off as possible to try to get your videos looking slightly better. Also, from a system design perspective, decoding on the graphics card makes much more sense because the compressed video is being sent to the graphics card and is uncompressed on the card itself. Otherwise, your system is humping around uncompress high def video (in real time) which can be challenging even with a blazingly fast CPU.
PS The people who told you your system should be able to handle 1080p "without a lot of effort" were wrong. This is why VDPAU was developed and why people who want to play 1080p are flocking to it. I've got some blurays I can play without using VDPAU but most blurays look from bad to unwatchable without VDPAU. |
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Jaglover
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Location: Saint Amant, Acadiana
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Satoshi
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:30 am Post subject: |
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| Jaglover wrote: | | What BitJam said. And, methinks 7300 GS can do VDPAU (feature set A maybe?). MythTV is another story, but I don't think OP said he is using MythTV. |
No, it can't. I tried it empirically and the docs say it can't. And yeah, no MythTV here. So I think my best bet is a better gpu, then? |
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Gusar
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 1:39 am Post subject: |
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| Satoshi wrote: | | So I think my best bet is a better gpu, then? |
I still think the CPU might be able to do it, but yeah, a VDPAU capable Nvidia card is the best option. If you don't care about OpenGL performance at all, the G210 will do and is very cheap. Otherwise go with a GT430 or GTS450 or even better, as budget your permits. |
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BitJam
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 1:56 am Post subject: |
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Here is the card I got. The after-rebate price has increased by $15. You might be able to get a slightly better deal in January. The most recent nvidia drivers, 260.19.29 allow you to monitor the GPU usage with which will tell you if your card is able to keep up (when using VDPAU).
But there are other issues in addition to horsepower that can degrade video performance. For example, interlaced VC-1 is unplayable in 64-bit systems and is still very lousy in 32-bit systems (using win32codecs). The solution I found was to transcode the videos in a 32-bit chroot to a format that could be played in 64-bit land.
It's also possible that an 8400 or 94/9500 card would suffice for your needs. I haven't done rigorous tests to confirm my suspicion that the 8400 card was sometimes too slow. Still, I'd suggest that you get a card that implements the full VDPAU "C" feature set. The price differential should be small and even smaller in January. |
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pingufunkybeat
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Joined: 01 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 2:50 pm Post subject: |
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| BitJam wrote: | | I've got a dual core Athlon @2.7GHz with 4 Gig of RAM and it can't keep up. IMO, if you want to watch high definition videos such as blurays then you need to get a decent graphics card that can handle the decoding for you. It's possible a six or more core CPU could handle it okay but buying a graphics card for $20 is a much cheaper (and probably better) solution. |
Unfortunately, other than Intel, no open source driver supports dedicated GPU decoding, and will probably never support it.
So for many of us, this is a very theoretical discussion, and using the CPU is the inelegant, but functioning alternative which allows us to use the (superior in many aspects) open source drivers.
| Quote: | | PS The people who told you your system should be able to handle 1080p "without a lot of effort" were wrong. This is why VDPAU was developed and why people who want to play 1080p are flocking to it. I've got some blurays I can play without using VDPAU but most blurays look from bad to unwatchable without VDPAU. |
Don't know about "lot of effort", but a CoreDuo should be more powerful than your Athlon, and two cores are enough for any 1080p out there, AFAIK. My PhenomII can do 95% of all 1080p stuff I throw at it with a single core.
It's not nearly as efficient as letting dedicated hardware do it, but it works without binary blobs.
| Satoshi wrote: | | Jaglover wrote: | | What BitJam said. And, methinks 7300 GS can do VDPAU (feature set A maybe?). MythTV is another story, but I don't think OP said he is using MythTV. |
No, it can't. I tried it empirically and the docs say it can't. And yeah, no MythTV here. So I think my best bet is a better gpu, then? |
If you are running the nvidia binary driver, then a cheap VDPAU-capable card is probably your best bet, yes. Your computer should be able to handle 1080p on the CPU, though, with a properly configured mplayer-mt. |
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Satoshi
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 10:10 am Post subject: |
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| I'm sold on just getting a better card. I liked the GeForce 210, but I wonder if there's any low profile/passive heat dissipation cards out there that you guys would recommend? I'm planning on building an Mini-ITX case in the future, and I'd like to buy a new card that would go along with it. |
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Gusar
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 11:55 am Post subject: |
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| Satoshi wrote: | | I'm sold on just getting a better card. I liked the GeForce 210, but I wonder if there's any low profile/passive heat dissipation cards out there that you guys would recommend? I'm planning on building an Mini-ITX case in the future, and I'd like to buy a new card that would go along with it. |
Sure there's passive low-profile cards. The one BitJam links to, for example. And there's a few more. But I don't know if any of them are single-slot, so make sure your case has enough space to accommodate the cooler. |
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Satoshi
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, however, the only place where the 210 is seen without the fan is on newegg. Local stores have pictures of a different card, like here.
So I don't really know anymore. I do realize that's G210, but I simply can't find a "pure" 210 anywhere. Would the G210 also be suitable? I'm under the impression the 210 isn't really common in the Brazillian market. |
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Gusar
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Satoshi
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Raptor85
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 11:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Have you tried gl fast rendering for mplayer-mt? My core2 is in the same range as yours and it was able to play 1080p just fine with my old gf6800 or radeon x1550. (have a gf9800 now using vdpau so I don't know exactly what all my settings were) |
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