Baslinux mailing list

["David Moberg" <davidjmoberg AT lycos.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
 
> I am happy with one volume level for my music so won't worry about 
> high DMA being the same as low DMA.  Is streaming mp3 16-bit?

Yes, although both mpg123 and mplayer can convert to 8-bit for you.
It won't make any difference with an mp3, since you've already lost
most of the sound information by squeezing it into a 56k pipe.

> >> Is mplayer using the hard drive once it starts?
> >
> > Not if you have plenty of memory (so that Linux doesn't need
> > to swap).
> 
> Finally a use for the 256MB of RAM we put into that computer, or is 
> that overkill?

Overkill. Even 32MB is probably more than enough.

> I think I checked while playing a DVD and it used 
> about 100% of cpu time (if you added back the 39% that would be 
> used by Xvesa) but only a small part of the memory.

I just ran free before and after: 8MB difference.

> I have never heard of initializing a video card, or do you mean to 
> use the nvidia X driver?

Yes. "Initialize" is a fairly generic term.

> I could try it on a PCI VooDoo with 16MB 
> RAM - would that work better?  The VooDoo does not work too well 
> except in fb mode (resizecons and Xvesa are not happy with it) 
> whereas the Nvidia is very generic vesa.

Voodoo doesn't appear to have vidix support, so it's probably
useless.
 
> >> Is scaling used in games rather than movies?
> >
> > No. If you're resizing the DVD at all (if MPlayer is changing the
> > aspect ratio by default, or if you have an X window and you are
> > resizing it to something bigger or larger than the DVD) you are
> > using scaling. If you don't have proper drivers, this is being
> > done in software, which is very slow.
> 
> When running in vesa mode am I scaling?

You said that -noaspect had no effect, so I assume not. Vesa will
pick an appropriate video mode automatically, if your graphics
card and monitor support it. (720x480x65536 width x height x
number of colors)

> >> Do they work better on DVDs movies?
> >
> > Not significantly.
> 
> Other than your 30 fps test on a video clip, or trying to play a 
> DVD in X, is there a way I should compare them for speed?

No. There's no need to benchmark, just see if you can get an
accelerated mode through vidix. You say that vesa works fine,
so I would just stick with that.

David

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