[MPlayer-users] recomended components for mplayer

[Attila Kinali]

On Wed, 25 Dec 2002 00:10:33 +0200
Banu Cosmin <sharpcoder at xnet.ro> wrote:

> 	I have a similar configuration, and i'd like to know what's the best system 
> configuration (not too cheap, not too expensive) to use with mplayer ( ... 
> and linux in general for multimedia), so we can get the best from your 
> player.
> 
> 	I believe there are many people who want to know which is the best at the 
> moment for home entertainment.

Ok,
Graphics card:
Fastest are Matrox G200 and later with -vo (x)mga 
(note that the G200 is slightly slower than the others due 
different picture format)
Then come all the cards which have a Xv driver, best is here to 
choose either a Matrox (again :) or an ATI.
nvidia is the worse choice you can make.

CPU: Anything faster than a PII 400 should do it up to high res
divx (limit i got with a PII 400 and a G550 is at 720x480, can
be lower for other cards). Be aware that K6-II/III altough they
have the same CPU power are not so well suited as most of those
mainboard have a very poor I/O performance
(K6-II 350 on a ASUS P5A, ALI V chipset: 15MB/s to the craphic card,
PII 400 on a ASUS(dont remember which one), Intel 440BX chipset: 70MB/s,
both time messured with the same G200)

Soundcard: Any modern soundcard that has proper kernel driver
(alsa drivers work too, but are known to make slightly more problems)
Most ppl i know use a emu10k card (SB live etc), 
so i think it's a save choice (but not the only one).

Hardisk: anything with fast drivers.
SCSI is better than IDE as the driver uses less CPU,
but it shouldnt matter that much as long as you use hdparm.

Note that i ordered the components by importance and
also that the faster your CPU and/or graphic card is, the lower
is the importance to have a fast soundcard or harddisk

			Attila Kinali

-- 
Emacs ist für mich kein Editor. Für mich ist das genau das gleiche, als wenn
ich nach einem Fahrrad (für die Sonntagbrötchen) frage und einen pangalaktischen
Raumkreuzer mit 10 km Gesamtlänge bekomme. Ich weiß nicht, was ich damit soll.
		-- Frank Klemm, de.comp.os.unix.discussion