Guide to Get the Best Performace from the GMA 500

[lucazade]

I did both, but apparently botched it.

Let's start with the script - what do I do with the txt file, I tried to copy paste to terminal but terminal closed immediately.

Please use walkthrough for dummies, as in "open terminal, cut paste this or that" etc..

open terminal and paste:

wget http://kanotix.com/files/fix/mplayer-vaapi-latest.txt && sudo bash ./mplayer-vaapi-latest.txt  && echo "export GMA500_WORKAROUND=yes" | tee -a ~/.bashrc

logoff session and login again or restart

[mikewhatever]

OK, how do I get the new one?

Sorry for the stupid questions, I'm out of my depth here..

That's odd. I only used the script yesterday, it took a while, but other then that worked as expected.

[H3g3m0n]

I had some problems getting vaapi working:

The mplayer from the repo complains about a missing libva-x11-0.31.0.6.so.1. I have libva-x11-0.31.1.1.so.1 installed.

I had to link libva-x11-0.31.1.1.so.1 to libva-x11-0.31.0.6.so.1 and also do the same for libva-glx and libva but it now seems to be working.
However adding -va vaapi sometimes causes lots of stuttery glitchy blocks in video playback (although it's mostly working, I think it might be a double buffering issue or something since they seem to be delayed video of every 2nd frame). Other times -va works fine and allows for 720p videos to be played smoothly, although it has some trouble on videos with lots of stuff happening.

VLC from repo was complaining that it doesn't have decoder for mp4v (The accelerator box in VLC is checked). This doesn't happen on normal VLC (just shows black). It now works ok (maybe it was the libva linking? or perhapse because I uninstalled and reinstalled everything)

Totem also started complaining that it didn't have a xvid decoder. I have the ubuntu-restrited-extras package installed, totem doesn't ask without the nvidiarepo installed, but it of course just shows black. This also start working now (not the video playback thats still black, but it's just not asking about codecs).

The mplayer-vaapi.txt script works, but some of the videos are just garbled. I haven't gotten around to trying the settings other than -vo and -va yet, or the GMA500_WORKAROUND env flag. I didn't try without the -va

EDIT: vlc only seems to work with x11 as the video output :/

[Udibuntu]

Mike, Luca - the build took a while but appears to have been successful, but when trying to run I get this:

udi@udi-laptop:~$ mplayer -vo vaapi -va vaapi /media/ACER/wmdownloads/FighterPilot.wmv
mplayer: error while loading shared libraries: libva-0.31.0.6.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
udi@udi-laptop:~$

It's one of the WMV HD demo clips I use as POC for HD capabilities.

[jlennon]

Hi,

I have eeepc 1101HA, Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid. I installed poulsbo drivers from gma500/fix repositories. I've got loop on X/gdm start. I've fixed it with xorg.conf edit like as in the script http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338581/Gma5...ulsbo_lucid.sh. Loop was fixed, but when I installed mplayer-vaapi using http://kanotix.com/files/fix/mplayer-vaapi-latest.txt and try to play movie the X hang and I needed to hard restart. I find out, that it was because of the Option "ShadowFB" "true" in xorg.conf. => It means that the Option "Composite" "Enable" fixes the loop on start up (It was second of only two changes in xorg.conf I did against the original xorg.conf after installation of poulsbo drivers).

So I have finally got vaapi to work (by removing the ShadowFB option from xorg.conf). But now I had another problem. I'm experiencing lags in video. Similar lags I can also found when playing audio with audacious (not trying another player) since I install Lucid. I didn't have lags on Karmic. Now if I found these lags when I'm using mplayer vaapi, it will be maybe something bigger touching all the media playback.

Do or did you have anyone lags in media playback too. Do you have someone any idea what's going on?
Thanks to all who will help (or will try to).

And Big thanks to all who have done a part of work on that all.
Thank you guys.

There is my mplayer log for some hint (using smplayer):

/usr/bin/mplayer -noquiet -nofs -nomouseinput -sub-fuzziness 1 -identify -slave -vo vaapi -ao alsa, -nokeepaspect -framedrop -nodr -double -input nodefault-bindings:conf=/dev/null -stop-xscreensaver -wid 62914897 -monitorpixelaspect 1 -*** -embeddedfonts -***-line-spacing 0 -***-font-scale 1 -***-styles /home/lennon/.config/smplayer/styles.*** -fontconfig -font Arial -subfont-autoscale 0 -subfont-osd-scale 24 -subfont-text-scale 24 -subcp CP1250 -vid 0 -aid 1 -subpos 100 -volume 59 -cache 2000 -ss 214 -osdlevel  -slices -channels 2 -af scaletempo,equalizer=0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 -softvol -softvol-max 110 -va vaapi /home/lennon/Serialy/Futurama/s1_dvdrip/Futurama - S01E01 - Space Pilot 3000.avi

MPlayer SVN-r31303-4.4.3 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
Terminal type `unknown' is not defined.

Playing /home/lennon/Serialy/Futurama/s1_dvdrip/Futurama - S01E01 - Space Pilot 3000.avi.

Cache fill:  0.00% (0 bytes)   
AVI file format detected.
ID_VIDEO_ID=0
[aviheader] Video stream found, -vid 0
ID_AUDIO_ID=1
[aviheader] Audio stream found, -aid 1
VIDEO:  [XVID]  384x288  12bpp  25.000 fps  1000.7 kbps (122.2 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
 Software: VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.1 (build 2439/release)
ID_CLIP_INFO_NAME0=Software
ID_CLIP_INFO_VALUE0=VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.1 (build 2439/release)
ID_CLIP_INFO_N=1
ID_FILE_SUB_ID=0
ID_FILE_SUB_FILENAME=/home/lennon/Serialy/Futurama/s1_dvdrip/Futurama - S01E01 - Space Pilot 3000.sub
SUB: Added subtitle file (1): /home/lennon/Serialy/Futurama/s1_dvdrip/Futurama - S01E01 - Space Pilot 3000.sub
ID_FILENAME=/home/lennon/Serialy/Futurama/s1_dvdrip/Futurama - S01E01 - Space Pilot 3000.avi
ID_DEMUXER=avi
ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=XVID
ID_VIDEO_BITRATE=1000696
ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=384
ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=288
ID_VIDEO_FPS=25.000
ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=0.0000
ID_AUDIO_FORMAT=85
ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=128000
ID_AUDIO_RATE=0
ID_AUDIO_NCH=0
ID_LENGTH=1294.92
ID_SEEKABLE=1
Cache not responding!
ID_CHAPTERS=0
libva: libva version 0.31.1-sds1
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/va/drivers/psb_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns 0
Opening video filter: [scale]
Couldn't open video filter '***'.
***: cannot add video filter
[***] Init
[***] Updating font cache
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
[VD_FFMPEG] VA API accelerated codec.
Unsupported PixelFormat 61
[VD_FFMPEG] Trying pixfmt=1.
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
VO: [vaapi] 384x288 => 384x288 MPEG-4 VA-API Acceleration 
[VD_FFMPEG] XVMC-accelerated MPEG-2.
[VD_FFMPEG] XVMC-accelerated MPEG-2.
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
==========================================================================
ID_VIDEO_CODEC=ffodivx
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [mp3lib] MPEG layer-2, layer-3
mpg123: Can't rewind stream by 93 bits!
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/8.33% (ratio: 16000->192000)
ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=128000
ID_AUDIO_RATE=48000
ID_AUDIO_NCH=2
Selected audio codec: [mp3] afm: mp3lib (mp3lib MPEG layer-2, layer-3)
==========================================================================
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz 2ch floatle (4 bytes per sample)
ID_AUDIO_CODEC=mp3
[Mixer] No hardware mixing, inserting volume filter.
Starting playback...
[mpeg4 @ 0x8a38820]Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected
[VD_FFMPEG] XVMC-accelerated MPEG-2.
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=1.3333
VO: [vaapi] 384x288 => 384x288 MPEG-4 VA-API Acceleration 
[***] PlayResX undefined, setting to 384
[***] fontconfig: Selected font is not the requested one: 'Liberation Sans Bold' != 'Arial'


           ************************************************
           **** Your system is too SLOW to play this!  ****
           ************************************************

Possible reasons, problems, workarounds:
- Most common: broken/buggy _audio_ driver
  - Try -ao sdl or use the OSS emulation of ALSA.
  - Experiment with different values for -autosync, 30 is a good start.
- Slow video output
  - Try a different -vo driver (-vo help for a list) or try -framedrop!
- Slow CPU
  - Don't try to play a big DVD/DivX on a slow CPU! Try some of the lavdopts,
    e.g. -vfm ffmpeg -lavdopts lowres=1:fast:skiploopfilter=all.
- Broken file
  - Try various combinations of -nobps -ni -forceidx -mc 0.
- Slow media (NFS/SMB mounts, DVD, VCD etc)
  - Try -cache 8192.
- Are you using -cache to play a non-interleaved AVI file?
  - Try -nocache.
Read DOCS/HTML/en/video.html for tuning/speedup tips.
If none of this helps you, read DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html.

[lucazade]

gma500/fix ppa and poulsbo_lucid.sh script are outdated.

@Jbernardo. Should we remove them completely to avoid confusion?



There is no need to play anymore with xorg.conf options (like composite or shadowfb)

I don't have any lags during video playback. I'm able to watch a 720p without any glitches using mplayer with vaapi backend.


I'll try to make a customized Lucid livecd with poulsbo out-of-the-box.. in the spare time

[jbernardo]

I wouldn't remove them only if ppa-purge needs that the ppa to be purged still exists. Other than that, we need to clean up on poulsbo-config, to make sure we get the right options in xorg.conf (enable composite and remove shadowfb).

[lucazade]

I wouldn't remove them only if ppa-purge needs that the ppa to be purged still exists. Other than that, we need to clean up on poulsbo-config, to make sure we get the right options in xorg.conf (enable composite and remove shadowfb).

I believe poulsbo-config from gma500 ppa creates a correct xorg.conf. Am I wrong?

Section "DRI"
	Mode	0666
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Driver	"psb"
EndSection

Or it doesn't update the current xorg.conf removing old options?

[jbernardo]

Shouldn't it also have the "Composite" "enable" line?
Anyway, I'll have to check. But I think it won't touch a existing xorg.conf.

[lucazade]

Shouldn't it also have the "Composite" "enable" line?
Anyway, I'll have to check. But I think it won't touch a existing xorg.conf.

I've checked with xdpyinfo and in xorg.0.log
.. composite is enabled by default as extension

so i think it is not necessary the composite option in xorg.conf also because i'm able to run xcompmgr and metacity compositor.