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  • From: sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] Mplayer and dvds (PCI and AGP)
  • Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 18:05:37 +0000 (UTC)


ATI Mach64 4MB RAM, no heat sinks, plays DVDs in vesa mode and also in x11 -noaspect 800x600 WITHOUT LOSING SOUND. (Black and white, anyway).

This card beat all the others . Heat sinks and fans and lots of memory are apparently for games, not DVDs, despite one website saying you needed a faster card (for 400MHz computers).

It produces squarer looking text.


On Fri, 3 Jun 2005, sindi keesan wrote:

I just tested, in VESA and x11 modes (-noaspect): Three AGP cards with Nvidia GeForce2 MX400 (Inno3d) MX420 (PNY) and Ti (Asus), all with heat sinks and big fans, the 420 also with a round PS/2 size TV out port. The MX's have 64MB RAM, the Ti 32MB but it is supposed to be faster RAM.

One PCI Voodoo 3dfx with 16MB RAM (to 1280 resolution 24-bit color) which I know works as framebuffer so is probably vesa 2.0 - how can I test?

None of these will do svgalib properly - garbage on exit - or test with whatvga2 or work in Compushow (runtime error 200).

cpu 605MHz PIII, 256MB RAM.

Black and white Cary Grant movie.

The Nvidia's all played a DVD perfectly in VESA 2.0 mode.
The VooDoo did not work with -vo vesa - just exited to the prompt.

The Nvidia's all lost their sound in x11 mode, even with -noaspect, on a black and white movie that was moving slowly, in about 20 seconds (halfway through the credits). (In a previous movie the credits were shorter and there was a lag between sound and lips - not sure which came first - and THEN the sound cut out shortly after, and people were moving slowly, but that was a color movie. And in the other movie the credits were relatively quiet, whereas this movie played Brahms.)

In x11 mode the VooDoo PCI kept going with sound but occasionally the sound would arrive before the lips moved. After that things would match up again for a while. No sign of losing sound, or of slow motion.
So this card is usable in x11 and might be better with -framedrop.

SO:

1. The amount of meomory is irrelevant in cards with at least 16MB.
2. The speed of the memory (main difference between MX and TI) is not important either.
3. MX400 and 420 act the same as the Ti and each other.
Any Nvidia GeForce2 card works in VESA mode but in x11 mode it loses sound and may also give slow motion even with -noaspect. With -framedrop it works.

4. Voodoo did not work in PCI mode, but worked a lot better than the nvidia in x11 mode and is therefore likely to be just fine with a slightly faster cpu. It would probably work better with -framedrop than the Nvidias.

PCI is just as good as AGP. Someone else measured a 5% improvement in speed in some gave with AGP, same card.

Voodoo should work perfectly on a slightly faster cpu in x11 (probably needs -framedrop otherwise, at least for color movies), and
Nvidia GeForce2 works perfectly in vesa mode at 600MHz but not in x11 without -framedrop (except for black and white movies without a window manager).

Should I test a 4MB 3DTrio or ATI Mach64 AGP card with DVD playing?
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