Choppy Flash Video

userlander · 2008-11-03 13:35:39

Is anyone else having video lag problems with flash? There's a hitch in the video every few seconds. I'm seeing it on youtube especially, ever since the flash player was upgraded.

#---> I downgraded to a version 9 flashplugin, and I have still have the problem. I think it's a bug in X somewhere. Yesterday my screen saver and monitor power save didn't come on. That sometimes happens if I have been playing video, but then if I kill and start X again it works. But yesterday I had to reboot to get it to work again. I'm thinking this could be hard to track down. Maybe it's also the xf86-ati drivers.

Last edited by userlander (2008-11-03 13:52:32)

userlander · 2008-11-04 16:02:20

No one else? I have choppy flash video on both my laptop and my home machine, I can't believe no one else would have problems. Please, watch some videos on youtube and see if you have any lags. I don't think it's network related because the buffer is way ahead of the video. It also doesn't do it on mythtv streamed over the network, only flash videos.

mrunion · 2008-11-04 18:57:22

I don't seem to have any problems. I'm using i686/Flash 10 on my laptop and x86_64/Flash 10 on my desktop at home.

userlander · 2008-11-04 20:49:11

Something's definitely wrong here. The youtube videos I made and uploaded myself are skipping now, and when I tested the original avis in xine, X completely locked up. Not just those videos, but other ones, too. Had to log in from laptop and reboot.

dav7 · 2008-11-05 09:52:02

Are you using intel video?

If you are, try your hardest to get direct rendering. It's 99.9% impossible to get working (at least it was for me, I ran for 6 months without it because I simply didn't care) but it may help.

Conversely, if you ARE using direct rendering, try turning it OFF.

-dav7

greblus · 2008-11-05 20:19:58

Same here (I guess). When I watch something on Youtube, the video stops but the audio is playing, if I move the screen up/down the video is back for a while and in about 10-20 seconds it freezes again.

Initially I thought that it's related to the fact that I've new xorg from testing installed... and no xorg.conf at all on my Thinkpad R61i
(Intel Mobile GM965/GL960 integrated graphics card).

I do not observe any other problems and I don't use Youtube that much recently, so I don't care and haven't checked yet if downgrading xorg will solve the problem.

userlander · 2008-11-06 16:36:28

dav7 wrote:

Are you using intel video?
If you are, try your hardest to get direct rendering. It's 99.9% impossible to get working (at least it was for me, I ran for 6 months without it because I simply didn't care) but it may help.
Conversely, if you ARE using direct rendering, try turning it OFF.
-dav7

I'm using ati, with amd on my desktop and intel on the laptop. DRI is enabled. Turning it off didn't work.

I downgraded xorg-server, xf86-video-ati, xorg-utils, and xorg-xinit, along with downgraded flashplugin, as well as trying downgraded flashplugin on its own, but nothing fixed it. I thought it might be something in XFCE, but it also lags in fluxbox. And it's happening in both firefox and epiphany.

Are there any other packages to consider?

Here's my xorg.conf. does anyone see anything obviously wrong:

 # cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Xorg Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "PS/2 Mouse" "CorePointer"

    Option        "AIGLX"        "true"

EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "AllowMouseOpenFail"  "True"
    Option "IgnoreABI"     "True"
    
EndSection

Section "Files"
    RgbPath      "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
        
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"

    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"
#    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/collections"
#    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/encodings"
#    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/singles"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/speedo"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/util"
    FontPath     "/opt/openoffice/share/fonts/truetype"

    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/artwiz-fonts"


EndSection

Section "Module"
#        Load  "ddc"  # ddc probing of monitor
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "glx"
        Load  "bitmap" # bitmap-fonts
    Load  "type1"
    Load  "freetype"
#    Load  "record"
    #   Load  "synaptics"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "keyboard"
        Option      "CoreKeyboard"
    Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option "XkbLayout" "us"
    Option "XkbVariant" ""
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Serial Mouse"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option      "Protocol" "Microsoft"
    Option      "Device" "/dev/ttyS0"
    Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
    Option      "Emulate3Timeout" "70"
    Option        "SendCoreEvents"  "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "PS/2 Mouse"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option      "Protocol" "auto"
    Option      "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
    Option      "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
    Option      "Emulate3Timeout" "70"
    Option        "SendCoreEvents"  "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "USB Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "SendCoreEvents"    "true"
        Option          "Protocol"              "IMPS/2"
        Option          "ZAxisMapping"         "4 5"
        Option          "Buttons"               "5"
EndSection

# Auto-generated by Archie mkxcfg

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier "Monitor0"
    Option "DPMS" "true"

    VendorName   "Samsung"
    ModelName    "Samsung SyncMaster 215TW"

    HorizSync    30 - 81
    VertRefresh  56 - 75 

EndSection

# Auto-generated by Archie mkxcfg

Section "Device"

    Identifier    "Card0"
    Driver        "radeon"
    BusID        "PCI:1:0:0"
#    BusID        "PCI:1:0:1"
    
    Option        "AGPMode"        "8"
    Option        "AGPFastWrite"        "true"
    Option        "EnablePageFlip"    "true"
    Option        "backingstore"        "true"
    
    Option        "RandRRotation"        "on"
    Option        "XANoOffscreenPixmaps"    "true"
    Option        "DRI"            "true"

EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultColorDepth 24
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth     24
        Modes "1680x1050"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth     16
        Modes "1680x1050" 
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
#    Option    "Composite"    "Enable"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Mode 0666
EndSection

Last edited by userlander (2008-11-06 16:50:41)

Intrepid · 2008-11-10 03:10:08

don't use AIGLX. Try using a standard X-server i.e. xorg-server and try it. If that doesn't work, it's all about settings. I'm an Nvidia guy so I can't help much. If you're using proprietary drivers, use open source, vice versa. Try enabling compositing and see if that works. Try adding to your Extensions section:

Section "Extensions"
    Option         "RENDER" "Enable"
    Option         "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Check your CPU usage when using flash video. I can't think of many other things to do as of now.

Last edited by Intrepid (2008-11-10 03:11:23)

userlander · 2008-11-10 17:01:29

Intrepid wrote:

don't use AIGLX. Try using a standard X-server i.e. xorg-server and try it. If that doesn't work, it's all about settings. I'm an Nvidia guy so I can't help much. If you're using proprietary drivers, use open source, vice versa. Try enabling compositing and see if that works. Try adding to your Extensions section:
Section "Extensions"
    Option         "RENDER" "Enable"
    Option         "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
Check your CPU usage when using flash video. I can't think of many other things to do as of now.

Thanks for the help. CPU usage is kind of high (65-70%), but it always has been like that when watching flash.

AIGLX is off, enabling composite and render didn't seem to help. Log errors don't seem all that helpful to me, unless that DRI error means something. It seems to have "adjusted" for it, though?

 $ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log |grep WW
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)
(WW) RADEON: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:0:1) found
(WW) RADEON(0): No crtc mode list for crtc 1,continuing with desired mode
(WW) RADEON(0): DRI init changed memory map, adjusting ...
(WW) RADEON(0):   MC_FB_LOCATION  was: 0xd7ffd000 is: 0xd7ffd000
(WW) RADEON(0):   MC_AGP_LOCATION was: 0xffffffc0 is: 0xf07ff000

$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log |grep EE
Current Operating System: Linux homer 2.6.27-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Nov 8 10:11:43 UTC 2008 i686
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER

I'm starting to think it might be a kernel CPU bug. I was merging some avi video, and usually it's very smooth, but now it kind of stops and starts, hitching just like the flash video. And this is with avimerge on the command line, not meaning any GUI thing. I downgraded to an earlier 2.6.x kernel, but that didn't help. So maybe not! I'm just completely stumped at this point. It was working fine, then suddenly I just started noticing it doing this.

Last edited by userlander (2008-11-10 17:02:08)

sinister99 · 2008-11-12 15:25:14

I've been having this problem too with flash 9 and now 10 using fglrx. Haven't ever used AIGLX

userlander · 2008-12-06 20:26:42

I just installed PCLinuxOS on a spare partition, and video works there flawlessly -- NO LAGS.

So it is not a hardware problem.

Before I configured X after the recent xorg update, I tried some video when there was still no config file, and still a lag.

So what is wrong with the Arch ati/xorg/or flash packages? Apparently there is a bug somewhere. We need to get this fixed, it is really poor performance to have videos all over the net lagging like this!

userlander · 2008-12-09 21:18:03

Still no progress on this. I matched the xorg.conf file as exactly as possible to the PCLinux config file, but it didn't help.

Things I've noticed so far are:

1) turning AIGLX on or off makes no difference at all
2) commenting out [Option "XAANoOFFscreenPixmaps" "true"] causes really bad performance
3) enabling AGPFastWrite causes the computer to lock up when starting X
4) enabling AGPMode "4" seems to worsen performance
5) turning off hardware acceleration in flash worsens performance

DRI is enabled, glxgears gives 1300+ fps, which I think is okay for open source, and I can't find anything in the logs except a couple of warnings that also show up in PCLOS.

The problem started before the recent X upgrade, and back when arch was also still using flash 9, so I think the only thing left is that it must be some arch kernel bug. dmesg gives the only errors I can find that might be related, something to do with mtrr and memory problems in X -- so maybe it is an X problem carried over from the earlier version?

[drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[drm] Initialized radeon 1.29.0 20080528 on minor 0
agpgart-amd64 0000:00:00.0: AGP 3.0 bridge
agpgart-amd64 0000:00:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 4x mode
pci 0000:01:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 4x mode
[drm] Setting GART location based on new memory map
[drm] Loading R300 Microcode
[drm] Num pipes: 1
[drm] writeback test succeeded in 1 usecs
X:6349 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6349 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6369 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
X:6349 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6375 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS on sda5, internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
[drm] Num pipes: 1
X:6349 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
mtrr: no MTRR for d0000000,8000000 found
agpgart-amd64 0000:00:00.0: AGP 3.0 bridge
agpgart-amd64 0000:00:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 8x mode
pci 0000:01:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 8x mode
[drm] Setting GART location based on new memory map
[drm] Loading R300 Microcode
[drm] Num pipes: 1
[drm] writeback test succeeded in 1 usecs
X:6467 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6467 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6471 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
X:6467 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6477 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
NET: Registered protocol family 10
lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
eth0: no IPv6 routers present
[drm] Num pipes: 1
X:6467 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
mtrr: no MTRR for d0000000,8000000 found
agpgart-amd64 0000:00:00.0: AGP 3.0 bridge
agpgart-amd64 0000:00:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 8x mode
pci 0000:01:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 8x mode
[drm] Setting GART location based on new memory map
[drm] Loading R300 Microcode
[drm] Num pipes: 1
[drm] writeback test succeeded in 1 usecs
X:6630 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6630 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6635 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
X:6630 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6641 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
[drm] Num pipes: 1
X:6630 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
mtrr: no MTRR for d0000000,8000000 found
agpgart-amd64 0000:00:00.0: AGP 3.0 bridge
agpgart-amd64 0000:00:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 8x mode
pci 0000:01:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 8x mode
[drm] Setting GART location based on new memory map
[drm] Loading R300 Microcode
[drm] Num pipes: 1
[drm] writeback test succeeded in 1 usecs
X:6745 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6745 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6749 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000
X:6745 conflicting memory types d0000000-d8000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
reserve_memtype failed 0xd0000000-0xd8000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
X:6755 freeing invalid memtype d0000000-d8000000

I'll dump a bug report on the devs, maybe they can figure out something. I'm at a dead end of what I can think of to check.

NecroRomancist · 2008-12-13 22:24:52

Try to disable pat by adding nopat in grub..it solved it for me

fijam · 2009-02-12 17:10:30

Sorry for resurrecting this thread but it appears that the theme of choppy youtube videos is a recurring one on the bbs and this thread seems to be the most complete.

I am struck with a very similar bug. Similarities: video is choppy, lots of lost frames and some tearing, the processor speedstepps to 2.26GHz, X uses 70-80% of the cpu cycles while firefox takes 20-30%. Differences: intel i915gm 2.4.3 (direct rendering & exa), Pentium-M processor

I finally found the culprit. Disabling "display compositing" in Xfce (either 4.4 or 4.6) drops processor to 800MHz and allows for smooth playback (firefox 50%, X 20%). But disabling the compositor is not really a viable alternative for me.

So, who is to be blamed? Adobe's closed player, X.org or perhaps Xfce (i.e where should I file a bug report)?

mrunion · 2009-02-12 21:42:45

Though I don't have one, I would suspect the Intel 915 card you have. Are you able to try it with an ATI or nVidia card? I seem to recall that Intel vid cards are not as adept at rendering stuff using the compositing. I can DEFINITELY be wrong.

What I think I'm saying is -- I don't think it's a bug, just the "power" of the card/compositing/system is being pushed too much to handle the video. you may have no other option than to disable compositing to watch video.

Also, have you tried another WM/DE?

Last edited by mrunion (2009-02-12 21:42:59)

Wintervenom · 2009-02-12 21:53:38

Perhaps you could install Greasemonkey and use Free YouTube, which will use totem-plugin or mplayer-plugin instead of Flash on a number of video sharing services, giving you full acceleration and smooth playback. (If you're using Opera, you can use it as a UserJS script, but it needs a tiny bit of editing to work.)

Last edited by Wintervenom (2009-02-12 21:55:59)

userlander · 2009-02-12 22:34:01

fijam wrote:

Sorry for resurrecting this thread but it appears that the theme of choppy youtube videos is a recurring one on the bbs and this thread seems to be the most complete.
I am struck with a very similar bug. Similarities: video is choppy, lots of lost frames and some tearing, the processor speedstepps to 2.26GHz, X uses 70-80% of the cpu cycles while firefox takes 20-30%. Differences: intel i915gm 2.4.3 (direct rendering & exa), Pentium-M processor
I finally found the culprit. Disabling "display compositing" in Xfce (either 4.4 or 4.6) drops processor to 800MHz and allows for smooth playback (firefox 50%, X 20%). But disabling the compositor is not really a viable alternative for me.
So, who is to be blamed? Adobe's closed player, X.org or perhaps Xfce (i.e where should I file a bug report)?

I don't think it has anything to do with the display compositer, because it happened for me even in fluxbox, and I don't even have compositing enabled in xfce anyway. Using compositing might use up resources that make the problem worse, but I don't think it's caused by it.

I've since switched to an nvidia card, and the problem is completely gone on my desktop. I don't really watch flash on my laptop so it's not as much of an issue, but it's still bad with the radeon. But I'm sorry to say I really don't have a clue about what's causing it. It happens on such a wide range of different hardware (AMD cpu + ati card for me, pentium-m + ati on my laptop, pentium-m + intel graphics for you) that I can only guess that it is something in the crappy flash code that is not playing nice with something specific in arch, maybe the kernel, or maybe some of the video drivers. It's really hard to say, I'm just glad it's gone on my desktop. It was completely annoying. As a workaround, the greasemonkey script WIntervenom mentioned might work as an alternative.

fijam · 2009-02-12 23:02:24

What I think I'm saying is -- I don't think it's a bug, just the "power" of the card/compositing/system is being pushed too much to handle the video. you may have no other option than to disable compositing to watch video.

I recall it had worked before xorg-server 1.5. Perhaps some design choices in 1.5 put more stress on the GPU, I don't know. Or it is just a bug somewhere. Hopefully it will coincidentally disappear with the new GEM stack.

Perhaps you could install Greasemonkey and use Free YouTube, which will use totem-plugin or mplayer-plugin instead of Flash on a number of video sharing services, giving you full acceleration and smooth playback.

That's a good suggestion, I'll give it a try.

I don't think it has anything to do with the display compositer, because it happened for me even in fluxbox, and I don't even have compositing enabled in xfce anyway.

It seems that the root of your problem lies elsewhere. For me it was as simple as that - disabled compositing - smooth playback. Still, I am not quite sure which component is to blame.

dowoshek · 2009-03-15 12:15:11

Same problem in here. I have Nvidia GF2 MX400 (96xx drivers), tried firefox, opera, epiphany using gnome or fluxbox - still the same... lost many frames, so watching is a lot less smooth than i have in Ubuntu for example. Anyone can suggest any solution?

----------

One day of searching and i got the bug
The problem was... color depth!(??) Yes, that's not a mistyping I used 16bpp and changed to 32bpp and now flash videos play smoothly with no problems. So , guys, if your flash is also choppy remember to first check your color depth before system reinstall ;P

Last edited by dowoshek (2009-03-16 10:35:27)

yingwuzhao · 2009-04-02 01:31:35

any solution??

Damnshock · 2009-04-02 10:28:17

I add myself to the list of users with choppy flash videos :S It's *really* anoying

Any suggestion will be welcome!

himynameiskevin · 2009-04-06 16:21:00

choppy flash video here, too. i installed windows firefox & flash through wine and flash video seems to have no trouble on there..

userlander · 2009-04-06 17:06:02

Still choppy on my laptop (Pentium-M, ati).

Changing color depth in xorg.conf made no difference. Where did you change that, dowoshek? xorg.conf? or somewhere in the desktop you use?

Intrepid · 2009-04-10 03:53:30

To me, it seems like video has become choppy especially fullscreen with flash 10. Playing video fullscreen and moving the mouse seems to stop all playback. This is duplicated on x86_64 arch nvidia as well as Ubuntu 32 bit intel.

dowoshek · 2009-04-10 08:07:28

userlander wrote:

Still choppy on my laptop (Pentium-M, ati).
Changing color depth in xorg.conf made no difference. Where did you change that, dowoshek? xorg.conf? or somewhere in the desktop you use?

I run nvidia-settings.
BTW, i switched to Debian already because of the nvidia driver, mainly because of... choppy 3D acceleration in games

Arch Linux

#1 2008-11-03 13:35:39

Choppy Flash Video

#2 2008-11-04 16:02:20

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#3 2008-11-04 18:57:22

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#4 2008-11-04 20:49:11

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#5 2008-11-05 09:52:02

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#6 2008-11-05 20:19:58

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#7 2008-11-06 16:36:28

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#8 2008-11-10 03:10:08

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#9 2008-11-10 17:01:29

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#10 2008-11-12 15:25:14

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#11 2008-12-06 20:26:42

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#12 2008-12-09 21:18:03

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#13 2008-12-13 22:24:52

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#14 2009-02-12 17:10:30

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#15 2009-02-12 21:42:45

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#16 2009-02-12 21:53:38

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#17 2009-02-12 22:34:01

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#18 2009-02-12 23:02:24

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#19 2009-03-15 12:15:11

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#20 2009-04-02 01:31:35

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#21 2009-04-02 10:28:17

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#22 2009-04-06 16:21:00

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#23 2009-04-06 17:06:02

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#24 2009-04-10 03:53:30

Re: Choppy Flash Video

#25 2009-04-10 08:07:28

Re: Choppy Flash Video

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