[MPlayer-users] old computer

[Stephen Mollett]

Hi,

On Monday 07 August 2006 17:52, Hulin Thibaud wrote:
> When I type "mplayer -v", I obtain, in the last line :
> vo: x11 uninit called but X11 not inited..
> I don't know if it's normal ?

I think it is; I get it too.

>> My old IBM ThinkPad 240 also has a NeoMagic 128XD...
>> Compiling MPlayer for [Celeron] with a recent GCC helps.
> Interesting ! I do essays with a film in 640x480 (an old Star Trek
> telefilm), on a compiled mplayer 0.99+1pre7try2+cvs20060117 with gcc
> 4.0.3. It's compiled with runtime CPU detection.
> That mean that my Intel Pentium MMX is correctly detected no ?

You'd do better to disable runtime CPU detection and compile MPlayer 
specifically for Pentium MMX; the performance boost is probably quite small 
but every little bit helps on old hardware.

My ThinkPad struggles with 640x480 MPEG4 at the best of times (although it's 
watchable most of the time), with a Celeron 300A (Mendocino, based on the 
Pentium II Deschutes core) so I expect your Pentium MMX 233 will have a 
pretty hard time - it's nowhere near as fast and the memory and I/O 
subsystems are probably not as quick either.

> I used a howto, what options ahve you used ? And have you compiled your
> kernel too ?

I can't remember exactly what compiler options I used last time I compiled it. 
I'll try building latest SVN with GCC 4.1.1. I don't think I put much, if 
anything, on the configure script's commandline.

I use my own kernel, compiled from stock sources for that specific machine. I 
can't remember how long it usually takes to build one on the laptop - I 
normally do it on my desktop system (Athlon XP 3200+) - otherwise you might 
be able to get some idea of its performance relative to your system. All my 
other packages (glibc, X.Org, KDE) are home-built too.

I'll have a look at the machine tomorrow (it's a bit late for me now) and play 
around with the latest versions. I've done a complete new build of my system 
recently (on my new laptop, an IBM X40) and it'll be interesting to see how 
it performs on my faithful old travelling companion of many years :-)

Regards,
Stephen