[MPlayer-cygwin] Is it worth compiling mplayer for performanceimprovement?

[Stefan Gürtler]

>
> Can you confirm that there is a line "autosync=100" in your mplayer/config
> file?
> If not add it there.

I know this parameter but, as the movies never loose A-V sync,  I do not
have it in my config.

>
> > Just a question. If i compile mingw-mplayer for my computer, will there
be
> a
> > significant performance improvement?
>
> Are you using the latest binary package? Afair all of them were compiled
> with runtime

Yes, both mingw32-dev-CVS-030601.zip and mingw32-dev-CVS-030630.zip

> cpudetection. Recompiling without it gave me only very small performance
> gains.
> It is possible that this is different for pentium3.
> The problem for all faster machines is that the runtime cpudetection seems
> to be buggy on
> windows and doesn't detect SSE (maybe also 3dnow etc.). It would be cool
if
> someone with p3 or later could fix this because enabling those may give
> bigger performance gains.

True. MPlayer-output:

MPlayer dev-CVS-030601-10:15-3.2 (C) 2000-2003 Arpad Gereoffy (see DOCS)

CPU: Intel Pentium III Katmai/Pentium III Xeon Tanner (Family: 6, Stepping:
3)
Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes
CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled with Runtime CPU Detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!

and

MPlayer dev-CVS-030630-12:15-3.2 (C) 2000-2003 Árpád Gereöffy (see DOCS)

CPU: Intel Pentium III Katmai/Pentium III Xeon Tanner (Family: 6, Stepping:
3)
Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes
CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled with Runtime CPU Detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!

My Katmai-PIII does have SSE, but it is not used. So there is a bug.
But my knowledge is very limited, i can write only very basic programs,
using the very comfortable
M$ Visual Studio environment. So i doubt that i will be able to track down
the bug without a little bit of help.
>
> > I habe the M$ Visual Studio v.6 compiler, as far as i know there is a
> > special gcc-compiler for mingw and maybe i can get hold of a intel
> compiler.
> > Which compilers could be used? I heard that the intel compiler producer
> very
> > fast code. Did anybody succeed in using it for compiling mplayer (linux
or
> > win32)?
>
> Afair a few people compiled mplayer with the linux version of icc but I
> don't think all
> patches for this are already in cvs. The problem with other compilers than
> the
> mingw/cygwin gcc is that you won't be able to compile mplayer's asm
> optimised code.
> I am not sure if it is possible to mix icc compiled objects with the gcc
> objects on windows.
>
> Sascha

So it is woth a try to compile mplayer (without runtime-cpu-detection) for
my personal use, and then try to track down the bug in the
runtime-cpu-detection.
I already had a look on the homepage of mingw, but i think it will take
quite a lot of time till i have set up everything for compiling. Did you do
a small HOWTO on mplayer compiling under windows? On linux i do not have
problems compileing mplayer, but up to now i do not e.g. understand how to
build the mingw-gcc from the source provided on
http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml without already having a gcc for the
first stage of compilation. ( I compiled gcc on linux myself, therefore i
know that a new gcc has to be compiled by an already existing gcc in the
first stage, before the new compiler can then build itself in the second and
third stage).

Stefan