[Mplayer-users] RE: MPlayer and SDL (S3Virge theme)

[Nick Kurshev]

Hello!

>> I have a latest snapshot of mplayer (at 08 apr 2001).
>> My video hardware is not very power: PCI S3VirgeDX (2MB VRAM)
>> but CPU is Duron-750.
>> After multiple experiments I have found that
>> best solution for my computer is playing of DivX;)
>> files through SDL driver (-vo sdl), (I have SDL v1.2.0).
>> When I use -vo xv or -vo x11 frames are losing but for
>> -vo sdl - never and my videocard has same speed as
>> AGP ATI Rage IIC with -vo x11 (I had tested it on my computer too).
>> In addition: -vo x11 has no scaling opposite to sdl. I.e. x11 without
>> scaling (in window) is slower of sdl with scaling (full screen)
>For S3 it can be true. But for your ATI you should use Xv, it's much
>faster, because using hardware scaler and YUV converter.
>(Maybe you have to install the Xv driver from the GATOS project)

No! I have XFree86-4.0.3. Unfortunately, AGP ATI RageII is not my own
hardware, and currently it unavailable for me, but when I used it mplayer
said that "ati" driver does not support xvideo (through -vo xv option).
I'm not specialist in video architectures, but xvinfo for pci s3virge outputs:

X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
  Adaptor #0: "S3 ViRGE Backend Scaler"
    number of ports: 1
    port base: 43
    operations supported: PutImage 
    supported visuals:
      depth 24, visualID 0x22
      depth 24, visualID 0x23
    no port attributes defined
    maximum XvImage size: 1024 x 1024
    Number of image formats: 3
      id: 0x32595559 (YUY2)
        guid: 59555932-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
        bits per pixel: 16
        number of planes: 1
        type: YUV (packed)
      id: 0x32315659 (YV12)
        guid: 59563132-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
        bits per pixel: 12
        number of planes: 3
        type: YUV (planar)
      id: 0x30323449 (I420)
        guid: 49343230-0000-0010-8000-00aa00389b71
        bits per pixel: 12
        number of planes: 3
        type: YUV (planar)

I don't know what is "backend scaler" but it seems that virge able
to get an images in YUV formats and therefore has YUV convertor
on board. Am I wrong?

>> - sdl:        SDL >= v1.1.7 driver (slower than 'x11', but supports software scaling)
>>       (NOT supported by us! Don't submit SDL bugreports!)
>>
>> If you want you may change this at least for S3Virge!
>I still believe that sdl is slower, because it can't be faster. Maybe your
>SDL is compiled with DGA support or something, so it has faster video
>ram access than x11 driver has.
>
Yes! I've compiled SDL with DGA enabled. But option -vo dga and similar
of mlpayer are perfectly unusable on my hardware and cause freezing of
X-screen. There is only way to alive X11 in this case it's killing of mplayer.
Anyway - direct video ram access which is provide SDL should be faster
of any other driver related access because it does not contain unnecessary
memcpy operations. Therefore, -vo sdl not always is slower of -vo x11.
I don't know what hardware acceleration for MPEG4-DivX;) have matrox,
Savage, ATI radeon and other expensive video cards but for a lot of
other inexpensive cards -vo sdl probably should be best solution.
(But it's only suggestion to decrease time of researchs for other users).

>> But mlpayer with SDL's output driver has one flaw:
>> it don't stop playing by ESC, but changing your state
>> between FULLSCREEN and WINDOWED modes. May be it possible to fix?
>> (Or it problem of SDL?)
>SDL thing. Use 'q' to exit.

THANKS!

Best regards! Nick


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