I am having difficulty getting video to play smoothly on a 9.0 box which is actually my brides dual boot Win2K/SuSE 9.0 system. DVDs play crisply and smoothly on the windows side but are very jerky on the SuSE side, as if there is file buffering taking place like load, run, load next, run next, and so forth. I doubt that it is hardware related as the problem is absent, as I mentioned, on the windows side. Box is a P-4 1.8 GHz Intel chip, ATI Radeon 7500 RAGE 128 ULTRA card with 64MB RAM, and Princeton Graphics VL173 flat panel display driven at 1280 x 1024 16 bit, 3D acceleration disabled, ( 60 Hz) [31-80KHz // 56 -75Hz]. SuSE shows the monitor as a VESA (no Princeton VL173 options available) and identifies it as ATI RV200QW (Radeon). I'm wondering if the RV200QW selection is the problem? Any advice on getting this thing working properly greatly appreciated. xine doesn't want to play so I'm using gMplayer. dave -- David C. Johanson Linux Counter # 116410 Powered by SuSE Linux 7.3 People who behold a phenomenon will often extend their thinking beyond it; people who merely hear about the phenomenon will not be moved to think at all. -- Goethe
David Johanson wrote:
I am having difficulty getting video to play smoothly on a 9.0 box which is actually my brides dual boot Win2K/SuSE 9.0 system. DVDs play crisply and smoothly on the windows side but are very jerky on the SuSE side, as if there is file buffering taking place like load, run, load next, run next, and so forth. I doubt that it is hardware related as the problem is absent, as I mentioned, on the windows side. [snip]
It sounds as if you may not have DMA enabled on your drives - check in YaST (I think this setting is in YaST for 9.0 but can't remember). Stuttering is a classic symptom of this though there may be other reasons. You can also check on your drives by going (as root) hdparm -i /dev/xxx - where xxx is your drive number, hdc, dvd, whatever - and inspecting the output. Have you tried the packman site for full, not limited, versions of xine et al, packaged up for SuSE? Useful place - http://packman.links2linux.org/ :) Fish
Mark Crean wrote:
David Johanson wrote:
I am having difficulty getting video to play smoothly on a 9.0 box which is actually my brides dual boot Win2K/SuSE 9.0 system. DVDs play crisply and smoothly on the windows side but are very jerky on the SuSE side, as if there is file buffering taking place like load, run, load next, run next, and so forth. I doubt that it is hardware related as the problem is absent, as I mentioned, on the windows side. [snip]
It sounds as if you may not have DMA enabled on your drives - check in YaST (I think this setting is in YaST for 9.0 but can't remember). Stuttering is a classic symptom of this though there may be other reasons. You can also check on your drives by going (as root) hdparm -i /dev/xxx - where xxx is your drive number, hdc, dvd, whatever - and inspecting the output. Have you tried the packman site for full, not limited, versions of xine et al, packaged up for SuSE? Useful place - http://packman.links2linux.org/
:)
Fish
Thanks for the suggestion. I jumped into YaST and looked at DMA and noted that the dvd drive had DMA turned off so I elected to go with "UltraDMA/33". Well, that solved the jerky problem, but now I was without sound. It would run VERY smooth for a few minutes, 3-4, soundless, then crash with the error message "too many audio packets in the buffer" which seems odd since there was no sound provided. And yes, the sound does work, it was fine when things were jerky, but now there is no sound with the video. After several attempt at trying to see what setting might not be set correctly, mplayer stopped working giving the error message "error opening the selected video_out (-vo) device. Returning the dvd drive setting to "no DMA" didn't help any. Now I'm totally stumped. Any further advice greatly appreciated. dave -- David C. Johanson Linux Counter # 116410 Powered by SuSE Linux 7.3 People who behold a phenomenon will often extend their thinking beyond it; people who merely hear about the phenomenon will not be moved to think at all. -- Goethe
David Johanson wrote:
Thanks for the suggestion. I jumped into YaST and looked at DMA and noted that the dvd drive had DMA turned off so I elected to go with "UltraDMA/33". Well, that solved the jerky problem, but now I was without sound. It would run VERY smooth for a few minutes, 3-4, soundless, then crash with the error message "too many audio packets in the buffer" which seems odd since there was no sound provided. And yes, the sound does work, it was fine when things were jerky, but now there is no sound with the video. After several attempt at trying to see what setting might not be set correctly, mplayer stopped working giving the error message "error opening the selected video_out (-vo) device. Returning the dvd drive setting to "no DMA" didn't help any. Now I'm totally stumped.
You definitely want DMA on, regardless. This will help all your applications and not just mplayer. I can't help with the sound other than to suggest a) checking your sound configuration, and b) logging out and logging in again to see if this makes a difference. I do vaguely remember from when I used it that mplayer threw up this stuff about sound though I can't remember why. Unless someone else posts with the answer, my own suggestion is that you go to this link - http://packman.links2linux.org/index.php4?action=cat&cat=16 - and download the stuff for xine. You'll need xine-lib, xine-skins, xine-ui and kaffeine at the least. You will probably have to force-install them with rpm, but they should work (at least, they always have done here). There was a time when mplayer was superior to xine, but then they drew equal and then xine drew ahead by a large margin, imho. :) Fish
** Reply to message from Mark Crean <mcrean@snowpetrel.net> on Sun, 13 Feb 2005 10:30:57 +0000
David Johanson wrote:
Thanks for the suggestion. I jumped into YaST and looked at DMA and noted that the dvd drive had DMA turned off so I elected to go with "UltraDMA/33".
(snipping)
You definitely want DMA on, regardless. This will help all your applications and not just mplayer.
Fish, or anyone with knowledge: My settings in the IDE DMA setup screen are as follows. Are these correct? Any changes needed? Current DMA mode Device name Type Device Required DMA mode UltraDMA/100 WD400EB-00CPF0 Disk /dev/hda No change UltraDMA/33 DVDRW LDW-811S CD-Rom /dev/hdc UltraDMA/33 Thx, Gurus! ;o) Gil
Gil Weber wrote:
My settings in the IDE DMA setup screen are as follows. Are these correct? Any changes needed?
Current DMA mode Device name Type Device Required DMA mode UltraDMA/100 WD400EB-00CPF0 Disk /dev/hda No change UltraDMA/33 DVDRW LDW-811S CD-Rom /dev/hdc UltraDMA/33
Probably no need to change anything. UDMA is turned on for both hda and hdc. Both are probably running as fast as they can. -- JDL
** Reply to message from John Lamb <J.D.Lamb@btinternet.com> on Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:56:15 +0000
Gil Weber wrote:
My settings in the IDE DMA setup screen are as follows. Are these correct? Any changes needed?
Current DMA mode Device name Type Device Required DMA mode UltraDMA/100 WD400EB-00CPF0 Disk /dev/hda No change UltraDMA/33 DVDRW LDW-811S CD-Rom /dev/hdc UltraDMA/33
Probably no need to change anything. UDMA is turned on for both hda and hdc. Both are probably running as fast as they can.
-- JDL
Thanks, John! ;o)
Mark Crean wrote:
David Johanson wrote:
Thanks for the suggestion. I jumped into YaST and looked at DMA and noted that the dvd drive had DMA turned off so I elected to go with "UltraDMA/33". Well, that solved the jerky problem, but now I was without sound. It would run VERY smooth for a few minutes, 3-4, soundless, then crash with the error message "too many audio packets in the buffer" which seems odd since there was no sound provided. And yes, the sound does work, it was fine when things were jerky, but now there is no sound with the video. After several attempt at trying to see what setting might not be set correctly, mplayer stopped working giving the error message "error opening the selected video_out (-vo) device. Returning the dvd drive setting to "no DMA" didn't help any. Now I'm totally stumped.
You definitely want DMA on, regardless. This will help all your applications and not just mplayer.
I can't help with the sound other than to suggest a) checking your sound configuration, and b) logging out and logging in again to see if this makes a difference. I do vaguely remember from when I used it that mplayer threw up this stuff about sound though I can't remember why.
Unless someone else posts with the answer, my own suggestion is that you go to this link - http://packman.links2linux.org/index.php4?action=cat&cat=16 - and download the stuff for xine. You'll need xine-lib, xine-skins, xine-ui and kaffeine at the least. You will probably have to force-install them with rpm, but they should work (at least, they always have done here). There was a time when mplayer was superior to xine, but then they drew equal and then xine drew ahead by a large margin, imho.
:)
Fish
Changed the drive back to ultraDMA/33 but it made no difference. Got the files and loaded them but still no go; found a Brazilian link today with just about everything xine and dcss related one could ask for and grabbed it all. I have a 4 day weekend just around the corner, so wish me luck. I'll let you know if I make any progress, and if so, how, to the degree that I can figure it out. dave -- David C. Johanson Linux Counter # 116410 Powered by SuSE Linux 7.3 People who behold a phenomenon will often extend their thinking beyond it; people who merely hear about the phenomenon will not be moved to think at all. -- Goethe
Mark Crean wrote:
David Johanson wrote:
<snip>
I can't help with the sound other than to suggest a) checking your sound configuration, and b) logging out and logging in again to see if this makes a difference. I do vaguely remember from when I used it that mplayer threw up this stuff about sound though I can't remember why.
Unless someone else posts with the answer, my own suggestion is that you go to this link - http://packman.links2linux.org/index.php4?action=cat&cat=16 - and download the stuff for xine. You'll need xine-lib, xine-skins, xine-ui and kaffeine at the least. You will probably have to force-install them with rpm, but they should work (at least, they always have done here). There was a time when mplayer was superior to xine, but then they drew equal and then xine drew ahead by a large margin, imho.
:)
Fish
Well, removed all the stuff that I had installed and started over with what you suggested. Installed, in order, libxine1-1.0cvs-050101.i686.rpm - no dependencies libxine1-devel-1.0cvs-050101.i586.rpm - no dependencies xine-ui-0.99.3cvs-050124.i586.rpm - no dependencies xine-mozilla-plugin-0.2-050124.i586.rpm - no dependencies libdvdcss-1.2.8-2.network.i386.rpm - no dependencies libdvdcss-devel.network.i386.rpm - no dependencies expat-libs-1.95.8.2tr.i586.rpm - no dependencies w32codec-0.52-1.i386.rpm - no dependencies then tried kaffeine and got about 30 dependencies so I took the advice of YaST and didn't install it. After so doing tried to run xine and got two simultaneous results, it was cross-linked with konquerer and gave an additional error saying it could not find a filter it needed. ENOUGH! Now, not only does xine, mplayer, and gMplayer not work, neither does the simple playing of audio CDs. I've been using SuSE since ver 7.1 and have purchased the pro boxed set for every release. Until the 9.x series I have been very satisfied and a BIG fan, but since the involvement with Novell the product, in my estimation, has rapidly been going downhill. 9.0 was pretty good in that most, if not dvd stuff, worked out of the box. Then came 9.1 with usb all but totally broken and dvd playing not much improved, followed by 9.2 with some slight improvement with usb,-- it now only takes 25-30 seconds to open /media,-- and dvd playing still not functional out of the box. In my opinion there is NO excuse for this level of performance when other distro, MEPIS for just one example, is providing all the functionality I'm lacking, out of the box. I've spent far too much time trying to get this big name distro working. Me thinks it's time to say goodbye to SuSE and move to a distro that just simply works, with everything, right out of the box. dave -- David C. Johanson Linux Counter # 116410 Powered by SuSE Linux 7.3 People who behold a phenomenon will often extend their thinking beyond it; people who merely hear about the phenomenon will not be moved to think at all. -- Goethe
* David Johanson <dcjohan@patriot.net> [02-20-05 11:59]: ...
In my opinion there is NO excuse for this level of performance when other distro, MEPIS for just one example, is providing all the functionality I'm lacking, out of the box.
I've spent far too much time trying to get this big name distro working. Me thinks it's time to say goodbye to SuSE and move to a distro that just simply works, with everything, right out of the box.
goodby. Hope you will be happier with MEPIS, at least you will not be whining here about SuSE. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery
participants (5)
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David Johanson -
Gil Weber -
John Lamb -
Mark Crean -
Patrick Shanahan