Nick wrote:
On 12/11/05, Raphael Pooser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I've noticed relatively high processor usage by xorg when playing back
previously recorded video. To play back a 480x480 resolution rtjpeg
recording, xorg take 40% processor time. To play back a 384x480 video
it takes about 33%. This is on top of the normal usage by
mythfrontend. Mythfrontend takes about 13% to play back the recording.
Mythbackend takes about 35-30% to record a 480x480 stream. It seems to
me, it should take a lot more power to record something using software
encoding like I am than to actually play it back. I must be missing
hardware acceleration for the video playback, I'm guessing. I'm using a
radeon9600pro with the vga hooked directly up to the vga input of an lcd
TV. So the TV is acting like a monitor. Thing is, I have the
proprietary ATI fglrz drivers installed. But since I'm not really using
any of the functions of this driver, like opengl or TVout, maybe there
is a better driver I could install that could accelerate this 2D
video.... Anyone know what a normal amount for xorg to be using during
playback is, and if mine is abnormally high what are some methods I can
use to get that back down to a manageable 10-15%?
Raphael,
I use the fglrx drivers on my frontend system (2GHz Celeron, Radeon
9100IGP) and when just testing, got 3-4% X usage and 13% mythfrontend
usage whilst playing back a 720x576 MPEG2 recording.
First thing is to make sure you have xv working (type 'xvinfo' at the
prompt and check the output). The MPEG4 codecs require more CPU power
to decode than MPEG2 which is how they offer better compression
ratios.
Nick
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Nick, Thanks for your response, so you get 3-4% usage by X playing a
resolution way higher than the ones I'm using (480x480). Ok, something
is definitely wrong on my system. The odd thing is that xvinfo does
give me meaningful output (I can't rerun it to show the output because
I'm at work now). I ran it last night after beginning to suspect that
my adaptor didn't support xv. If I understand it correctly, the output
of xvinfo should show your adaptor name if it is supported, along with a
long list of features and specifications the adaptor can use for xv.
When I ran the xvinfo, I did get the name of graphics card (9600pro)
showing as the first (and only) supported adaptor installed, then there
were many lines about this or that special feature or extension
supported. So, it would seem that I have XV extensions capable of being
run at least, perhaps the video player in myth is somehow not using the
extensions at all and everything is being done by the processor? I'm
not sure how to do it; is there a way to specifically say "output
accelerated video using XV extensions" when viewing the video in
mythfrontend?
In your system, does your fglrx driver have the hardware opengl support
also installed? On mine, fglrx installed and the modules load no
problem , but it will only use Mesa for opengl, it won't use hardware
acceleration. Maybe that's part of the problem and xv only works if you
have opengl acceleration working also. This is all using RTJPEG straight
from the software encoded video; but if I understand correctly X should
use the same amount of processor time for any format on the same
resolution, and mythfrontend will take more or less as it does the
decoding. Thanks for any help/suggestions.
Raphael
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