[SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

nemamradfazole · 2011-12-25 21:22:55

I'd like to ask what packages and configuration you use to achieve the best performance for NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, mainly for watching movies. I've come to this observation:

Global parameters
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (AGP 4x, 128 MB)
1680x1050, 60 Hz
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, 1 GB RAM
SMPlayer 0.6.9 (SVN r3447)
Used video: 1280 x 720, 23.976 FPS, fullscreen

Windows XP (SP2):
Driver: 16. 5. 2008 (version 6.14.11.7519)
MPlayer SVN r30369
Output method: directx(fast)
Video: fluent

Ubuntu 11.04:
Driver: nvidia-173 (probably, Ubuntu is so confusing)
MPlayer 1.0rc4-4.5.2
Output method: xv
Video: fluent but often with a diagonal break

Arch Linux:
Driver: nouveau
MPlayer SVN r34426
Output method: xv
Video: goes to few FPS after a minute

Last edited by nemamradfazole (2011-12-26 00:02:23)

karol · 2011-12-25 21:31:36

I don't have any issues with 720p on a 1.6 GHz Sempron + Nvidia fx 5500 + mplayer2 w/ xv output.
My card has 256 MB though.

nemamradfazole · 2011-12-25 21:49:56

Thanks for a fast reply. I have updated all my packages few days ago after about a half a year. Maybe these problems have appeared after the update, now that nvidia-173xx is no longer available and I had to move to nouveau. Which driver do you use?

karol · 2011-12-25 21:58:14

Now I'm using nouveau which is good enough for watching movies <spanks himself for forgetting to write it in his previous post>
nvidia-173xx was much better (3d, faster scrolling around in Google maps etc.) but for movies nouveau is fine.

Have you tried other video output methods?

nemamradfazole · 2011-12-25 22:43:29

Now that I've tried every method offered, xv comes as the best (even variations of gl and gl2 are worse). Actually, it's the only method watchable for me for 720p on fullscreen. But, after a minute or so, it stops being watchable as well. Symptoms are similar to CPU overuse, it looks like some buffer gone full and is only slowly rebuffering.

I am curious, can you watch 1080p as well?

karol · 2011-12-25 22:59:35

I'm not an A/v guy, but I think you can encode stuff in different ways and that might make a difference, so just because I haven't had any problems with 720p doesn't mean you're doing something wrong, maybe you're viewing higher-quality material.
I don't get choppy video even when I'm maxing-out the cpu.

mplayer --framedrop -vfm ffmpeg -lavdopts lowres=1:fast:skiploopfilter=all

is the magic incantation I use to view some 720p stuff on my other PC which has just and old, unsupported integrated Intel card. I get "almost-fluent but often with a diagonal break" video.
Yes, this not 30fps 720p anymore, so I'm cheating ;P

nemamradfazole wrote:

I am curious, can you watch 1080p as well?

Not really.

nemamradfazole · 2011-12-25 23:43:14

Oh, actually I think you're quite acquainted with the A/V stuff. I was testing with MP4s downloaded from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtBbinpK5XI.

I tried viewing the 720p video with just MPlayer and it suddenly went fluent, even without that command line magic. Then I tried putting those parameters inside SMPlayer and even that way it didn't work. So it seems it's not a nouveau/nvidia-173xx problem, but a SMPlayer/MPlayer problem. It's interesting SMPlayer is making things so clumpy, maybe because of Qt?

Anyway, thanks for clarifying my mind. I think this thread can be marked as solved.

karol · 2011-12-25 23:57:56

I've just tried SMplayer - the video did get choppy.

nemamradfazole wrote:

Anyway, thanks for clarifying my mind. I think this thread can be marked as solved.

You have to do it yourself :-)
Read the forum rules https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=130309 to find out how.

mangus · 2011-12-26 09:51:51

just saying..I used to stream HD movies from my NAS trough NFS and while with vlc is ok , with smplayer the stream is often choppy and laggy. That's bad because smplayer/mplayer is far superior in functions against vlc

MadCat_X · 2011-12-26 18:21:38

nemamradfazole wrote:

So it seems it's not a nouveau/nvidia-173xx problem, but a SMPlayer/MPlayer problem. It's interesting SMPlayer is making things so clumpy, maybe because of Qt?

Does the same thing happen with other MPlayer frontends that embed its window in some sort of GUI like Gnome-mplayer or KMPlayer? I don't see any difference between SMPlayer, KMplayer or just plain MPlayer on my 9800M GTS.

karol · 2011-12-26 18:24:24

I don't see any difference when playing low-res stuff.
MadCat_X, keep in mind that your card is much better than OP's.

Gusar · 2011-12-26 18:33:11

karol wrote:

I don't see any difference when playing low-res stuff.
MadCat_X, keep in mind that your card is much better than OP's.

It doesn't matter one bit which graphic card one has. They all have way more power and ram than is needed for textured video. If there's an issue with a frontend, the cause of it is clearly in the way that frontend configures and embeds the player.

dodo3773 · 2011-12-26 18:58:33

What desktop environment / window manager are you using? I had a lot of problems with videos / games when using a compositing window manager.

nemamradfazole · 2011-12-31 16:17:28

So I tried Gnome MPlayer and it worked fluently, leaving only SMPlayer problematic. (And I use Xfce4, so the window manager is compositing Xfwm4.)

mangus · 2011-12-31 18:17:14

Looking more carefully at the 'problem' , disabling composite makes smplayer work good. So in some cases seems smplayer doesn't work nicely with composite active.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-12-25 21:22:55

[SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#2 2011-12-25 21:31:36

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#3 2011-12-25 21:49:56

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#4 2011-12-25 21:58:14

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#5 2011-12-25 22:43:29

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#6 2011-12-25 22:59:35

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#7 2011-12-25 23:43:14

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#8 2011-12-25 23:57:56

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#9 2011-12-26 09:51:51

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#10 2011-12-26 18:21:38

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#11 2011-12-26 18:24:24

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#12 2011-12-26 18:33:11

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#13 2011-12-26 18:58:33

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#14 2011-12-31 16:17:28

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

#15 2011-12-31 18:17:14

Re: [SOLVED] Older NVIDIAs - (quite poor) performance when watching movies

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