Any command line tweaks for Xgl?

[dhewton]

This is what I use in my gdm.conf for my Dell Inspiron 8200 notebook with Nvidia video card.

The reason I ask is I ran accross some who uses Ubuntu who has a completely different command line that what I have in my gentoo box. And the person uses nvidia video card.

command=/usr/bin/Xgl :1 -ac -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv

Thanks

Dan
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DannyBoy

[mutlu_inek]

Not too different. I do this:

...=/usr/bin/Xgl -br -kb -ac -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv:fbo

With the :fbo it _feels_ faster.
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[dhewton]

what do the -br -kb :fbo switches do?

Dan
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DannyBoy

[mutlu_inek]

fbo (frame buffer objects) is a newer glx extension than pixel buffers. You can use this for xvideo acceleration. It is in early development stages, though. You could also user pbuffer for xvideo acceleration (... -accel xv:pbuffer). Or, as you do, not use any of them. Try it out. I think this might only apply to nvidia cards. I am not sure.

I have taken -br -kb from the Gentoo wiki. I don't know what they do.
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[dhewton]

Please forgive what may expose my ignorance:

If I do xv:pbuffer, will this increase the performance of xv in mplayer, xine, totem etc.. It is real choppy when I use xv as a video driver.

Or is what you are talking about a completely different thing all together?

Dan
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DannyBoy

[dhewton]

Thanks so much for you help:

When I downgraded my nvidia drivers and use:

command=/usr/bin/Xgl :1 -br -kb -ac -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv:pbuffer

I can now watch through mplayer and xine using xv with no choppiness. xv:fbo didn't fly. If I took -br -kb out, it also didn't fly.

So, the above mentioned command line is the winning recipe.

Thanks so much for your help.

Dan
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DannyBoy

[mutlu_inek]

Your posting made me double check my settings. I had upgraded the drivers, mesa, xorg-server, etc. in the meantime. So my current experience is this. The following three settings are not acceptable. Either the Xgl features are slow or the movie does not display correctly:

ServerCmd=/usr/bin/Xgl -br -kb -ac -accel glx:fbo -accel xv
ServerCmd=/usr/bin/Xgl -br -kb -ac -accel glx:fbo -accel xv:fbo
ServerCmd=/usr/bin/Xgl -br -kb -ac -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv:fbo [this is what I had used until now and had been the best before]

These three settings produce similar effects. All of them produce snappy Xgl effects and acceptable but not perfect video playback quality. The first has the big downside that while movies are played, the movie player guis (kmplayer extremely bad, kaffeine sometimes partially black) change color or disappear partially.

ServerCmd=/usr/bin/Xgl -br -kb -ac -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv
ServerCmd=/usr/bin/Xgl -br -kb -ac -accel glx:fbo -accel xv:pbuffer
ServerCmd=/usr/bin/Xgl -br -kb -ac -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv:pbuffer

For me, as for you, the last line produces the best overall quality. But video playback (using xv) is still by no means perfect.

By the way: mplayer executed with -vo gl and -vo gl2 from the command line is way slower than the sound when using full screen. It seems the Xgl server has to go a long way.

Thanks for making me test all this again. It is much better now.

------------------

Video Card: Nvidia GeForce FX 5200
Nvidia Drivers: nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx 1.0.8756

What do you use now (you downgraded)?
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[pijalu]

[mutlu_inek]

[dhewton]

I just noticed some features not working. I think it is because of the -kb. I can't zoom, or scale by mousing to the top right corner anymore.


Hmm

Will try and let you know.

dan
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DannyBoy

[bushwakko]

any updates on this? what is the recommended settings for getting smooth video playback, I'm running xv:fbo atm and it doesn't fare well :/ using the gl or gl2 driver with mplayer seems to work "some times" (sometimes it is smooth in some movies, and other times it's slow for everything :/
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[redbeardmcg]

I am also curious about this. I have XGL running great, almost perfect except for a few glitches, but all video except for in small windowed mode is slooooooooooow and choppy using xv gl gl2, etc...

[Mindphaser]

[sinizzl]

the usability of -vo gl / gl2 depends on your cpu's sse2 capability (monitor resolution's a big deal too). i found an AthlonXP 2000+ to be way slower than a p4-based celeron clocked at 1.8 ghz (this cpu really sucks, it's in some cases slower than a 1GHz PentiumIII).
the celeron plays videos under xgl with gl / gl2 at 1280x1024 just fine while the athlonxp has some struggles (it works too as long as no other apps are running)

i tested mplayer -vo gl(2) under XGL on a variety of machines so far, all of 'em had a geforce3 & enuff ram; i came to find

pentium4 -> works great at 1280x1024, even if other apps are running
p4 based celeron -> works great too, though not so great as on the pentium
pentium3, 1GHz (no sse2, sse1 only) -> barely works at 1280x1024 with no other apps running, works decent enough under 1024x768
AthlonXP 2000+ (no sse2 but sse1 as well) -> quite the same, though resolution can be cranked up a little (i.e. to 1280x1024)
Athlon thunderbird (no sse at all) -> completely useless even in 640x480

i once read -xv needs pixel shader support (geforceFX and upwards) in order to function choppylessly under xgl. can't say anything bout that since i'm stuck with a gf3.
at the moment i'd say the system spec's for xgl feat. working videos are:

a video card that supports OpenGL fragment shaders (geforceFX and upwards)

OR

any video card and an sse2 capable (i.e. pentium4, athlon64 and upwards) cpu. pentium3s & athlonxps should work too with some limitations though....

smack me in the face if i'm wrong....


P.S. any xine based video players (compiled xine-lib with -xv & +opengl flag) have weird issues. gmplayer crashes too, command line mplayer works flawlessly
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