[MPlayer-users] DVD final analysis

[Brian]

Hi

>>   I've got a Via C3 system too, running at 733 Mhz, a ECS P6VEM2
>> motherboard to be exact.  I also see slow playback with mplayer, I drop
>> frames playing 320x240 DIVX video out with both dga and xv output.  I don't
>> think it's mplayer though, I also drop frames when recording video from
>> ffmpeg or vcr.  Maybe the compiler just doesn't optimize right for the C3,
>> or maybe it's underpowered.  A lot of reviews report that the C3 is very
>> slow at floating point.

yes, I have 750Mhz C3 set up as a test rig on MS7308E board, gives
similar results to 800Mhz EPIA, ~13fps DVD. There is no doubt C3 is
under powered, there are no compiler optimizations for C3, it is a very
simple architecture, designed for low power dissipation. C3 has slow
Floating Point because it runs at 1/2 processor speed.

but thats not the point, it can play DVD using powerDVD, mplayer can't.
WHY! powerDVD guys are pushing the processor harder and getting the
results, I can program the chipset to transfer frames to videobuffer and
display in the blanking period,  thats easy, decoding the mpeg2, thats
hard:-)

I'll look at this later, I reckon some timing points using TSC might
help locate bottlenecks.

Brian