HD x264 video, terrible performance.

brodrost · 2008-03-12 21:42:20

Im a new Archlinux user, followed the newbie guide and most things work as they should, but I have one big problem.

Ubuntu and Debian allowed me to play x264 movies with high resolution and bitrate, but in Archlinux cpu usage goes up to 100%, audio goes out of sync and video is a bit choppy.

mplayer gives me this:

************************************************
**** Your system is too SLOW to play this! ****
************************************************
Possible reasons, problems, workarounds:
- Most common: broken/buggy _audio_ driver
- Try -ao sdl or use the OSS emulation of ALSA.
- Experiment with different values for -autosync, 30 is a good start.
- Slow video output
- Try a different -vo driver (-vo help for a list) or try -framedrop!
- Slow CPU
- Don't try to play a big DVD/DivX on a slow CPU! Try some of the lavdopts,
e.g. -vfm ffmpeg -lavdopts lowres=1:fast:skiploopfilter=all.
- Broken file
- Try various combinations of -nobps -ni -forceidx -mc 0.
- Slow media (NFS/SMB mounts, DVD, VCD etc)
- Try -cache 8192.
- Are you using -cache to play a non-interleaved AVI file?
- Try -nocache.
Read DOCS/HTML/en/video.html for tuning/speedup tips.
If none of this helps you, read DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html.

Ive tried -ao sdl, different -vo (wich gave even worse performance or no picture at all) and dont know what "OSS emulation of ALSA" is.

Ive detected no problems with audio otherwise. DVD and Xvid playback is fine.

Anyone got a clue? This is driving me mad. Im using nvidia drivers and they seem to be working.

Shaika-Dzari · 2008-03-12 21:57:39

Hello!

Could you post more information about your computer (CPU, ram, ...) and the video you want to play?
Could you give me too the result of this 2 command:

cat ~/.mplayer/config

 pacman -Qs mplayer

I use mplayer-svn 25744 to play HD x264 1280x720 mp4 on my PIV 1800 with 1go of ram.
Normally, it play fine.

Sometime, I must use a more complex command to use ffmpeg instead of internal mplayer engine...

@+

brodrost · 2008-03-12 22:11:32

My mplayer config is empty.

local/mplayer 1.0rc2-3
    A movie player for linux
local/mplayer-plugin 3.50-3
    mplayerplug-in is a browser plugin that uses mplayer to play videos from
    websites.

AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3500+, 1 gig ram, GeForce 7300 L.

Latest film:
Video Format....: h264 (x264 2pass)
Frame Rate......: 23.976 FPS
Bit rate........: 5420 kbit/s
Resolution......: 1280x720
Aspect Ratio....: 1.78:1
Audio Format....: DD 5.1 384 kbit/s @ 48KHz

I get the same performance with mplayer, vlc and xine.

In Debian I could play every 720p x264, as long as I didnt have alot of other stuff going on with the computer.

Shaika-Dzari · 2008-03-12 22:58:28

Hello!

Try to add those lines in your ~/.mplayer/config and launch your video in a shell with mplayer:

# Audio ouput
ao=alsa

# Video ouput
vo=xv

# Normalize sound
af=volnorm

# Double buffering
double="yes"

# Cache
cache=8192

@+

brodrost · 2008-03-13 00:03:45

No difference.

Any more ideas?

dyscoria · 2008-03-13 00:05:58

Maybe adding yourself to the 'video' group, logging out and logging back in will help. I'm still not entirely sure what is involved in the video group, but a possible idea.

gpasswd -a username video

Shaika-Dzari · 2008-03-13 00:58:45

dyscoria wrote:

Maybe adding yourself to the 'video' group, logging out and logging back in will help. I'm still not entirely sure what is involved in the video group, but a possible idea.
gpasswd -a username video

It's a good ideas...:)

Do you display "heavy cpu" subtitle with this video like HD anime fansub video?

This is a really long command but you can try this:

mplayer -vfm ffmpeg -lavdopts lowres=0:fast:skiploopfilter=all your_video.mp4

brodrost · 2008-03-13 09:33:49

I am in the video group.

Do you display "heavy cpu" subtitle with this video like HD anime fansub video?

Hmm, I have some trouble understanding that sentence, but I tried the commando with the same video as before and it was even worse.

Im appreciating you effort, any new fresh ideas? Im of to work now but when I get home I will switch to the nv video driver and give it a try.

Shaika-Dzari · 2008-03-13 15:13:47

brodrost wrote:

Do you display "heavy cpu" subtitle with this video like HD anime fansub video?
Hmm, I have some trouble understanding that sentence

Some video uses a lot of effect on subtitle ( fadding, transparence, etc...) and it take a lot of CPU for me.

brodrost wrote:

Im appreciating you effort, any new fresh ideas? Im of to work now but when I get home I will switch to the nv video driver and give it a try.

Wait, are you using nv or official nvidia drivers?
Official nvidia drivers offers more performance and I think this is a good ideas to use it.
Throw me your xorg.conf

brodrost · 2008-03-13 18:53:28

Ive been using the official drivers.

I took the easy way out, switched to another graphics card that I have, and now cpu is around 70% when playing full screen.

Perhaps the hd material (just got into the hd thingy) that I played before Arch had a lower bitrate and therefore my card managed it.

Thanks for the help tough, seems like both the distro and the community is great.

Shaika-Dzari · 2008-03-13 19:37:29

Ok, no problem.
Welcome to archlinux

Arch Linux

#1 2008-03-12 21:42:20

HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#2 2008-03-12 21:57:39

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#3 2008-03-12 22:11:32

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#4 2008-03-12 22:58:28

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#5 2008-03-13 00:03:45

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#6 2008-03-13 00:05:58

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#7 2008-03-13 00:58:45

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#8 2008-03-13 09:33:49

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#9 2008-03-13 15:13:47

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#10 2008-03-13 18:53:28

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

#11 2008-03-13 19:37:29

Re: HD x264 video, terrible performance.

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