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Expert3D-Lite and DVD Playback

In short, is anyone able to get DVD Playback to work smoothly in full screen (and high resolution) using one of these cards?

More detail: I have a SB 2000, with 2gb ram, plenty of disk and swap. I also have to Expert3D-Lite cards (each 48mb ram, I think) set up with Xinerama (desktop acrooss both). I have a couple of 20" Dell 2001FP screens. I have worked with a number of software packages that should be able to handle regulard DVD playback (xine, vlc, mplayer, ogle) The package of xine that came with the Sol Express version that was just released seems not to work (according to a number of comments on the web I found after wondering why it did not work out of the box; strange since that is what totem, the package in the gnome menu is what comes with the system, but oh well). vlc (from blastwave.org) has a number of complaints:

[00000189] main input: playlist item `DOOM.ISO'

[00000193] a52 decoder: A/52 channels:6 samplerate:48000 bitrate:448000

[00000196] arts audio output error: arts_init failed (loading the aRts backend "/opt/csw/lib/libartscbackend.la" failed)

/dev/dsp: No such file or directory

/dev/dsp: No such file or directory

[00000196] esd audio output error: cannot open esound socket (format 0x00001021 at 44100 Hz)

[00000196] main audio output error: couldn't find a filter for the first part of the conversion

[00000196] main audio output error: couldn't set an input pipeline

Xlib: extension "XVideo" missing on display ":0.0".

[00000195] freetype video output error: failed to load font file /usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont/FreeSerifBold.ttf

Xlib: extension "XVideo" missing on display ":0.0".

[00000195] main video output error: plugin was unable to allocate at least one direct buffer

[00000195] main video output error: video output creation failed

[00000194] main decoder error: failed to create video output

mplayer (gmplayer) seems to start (complains about not being able to open a sound device). Also, even though it gives me the menu option to double the screen size or make it full screen (somewhat like 4X the screen size of the default windows that pops up), it never really makes it that size. It makes the surrounding window that size, and just has bigger white or black bars surrounding the same size video.

olge was my last hope. Toda! It works . . . sort of. It starts, I get sound, I get smooth playback, and then I try to double the screen . . . I get a fair bit of pixelation and jittering. I make it fullscreen and it is very pronounced. The output on the console when I change from standard-window to full is something like the following:

WARNING[dvd_gui]: add_keybinding(): No such action: 'SaveScreenshot'

WARNING[dvd_gui]: add_keybinding(): No such action: 'SaveScreenshotWithSPU'

libdvdread: Encrypted DVD support unavailable.

libdvdread: Encrypted DVD support unavailable.

No accelerated IMDCT transform found

underrun and more samples played: 256, 1536

Xlib: extension "XVideo" missing on display ":0.0".

WARNING[ogle_vout]: Xvideo extension not found

Using mediaLib for colorspace convertion

#!#-@@@@display: frame rate: 0.000 fps

@@@@underrun and more samples played: 256, 1536

-!!#!##!#!!#!@@@@@display: frame rate: 25.036 fps

@@@@@@display: frame rate: 23.981 fps

@@@@@@@@@@@display: frame rate: 23.980 fps

@@@@@@@@+@

Gtk-CRITICAL **: file gtkwidget.c: line 1387 (gtk_widget_destroy): assertion `widget != NULL' failed.

@@@@display: frame rate: 23.924 fps

@@@@@@@@@@##@@@@display: frame rate: 23.753 fps

@##!##############@#######################@###############################!#### ##########################@################################!############@#@@###! ###!########################################################@##########@######## ##########@##################-#display: frame rate: 10.427 fps

######################################################!######################## #####!########################################################################## #####!######################################################@################### ###########################@####display: frame rate: 10.226 fps

###########@######################################################!############ #####@##@#################!##################################################### ##!##############################@######@########################!############## ###################################@#display: frame rate: 10.205 fps

#############################################################underrun and more samples played: 4842752, 4841472

underrun and more samples played: 256, 1536

During this, the cpu util (according to top) gets no higher than 30% for the combined ogle processes:

one of the output streams gets to a bit above 15%, the mpeg decode gets to about 10%, the rest about 5% combined.

So. 10fps. Do you think it has something to do with the way I set up the machine (have not yet tried removing the xinerama config, for instances) or is the expert3d-lite card just not powerful enough to decode mpeg2 on a 20inch screen? Perhaps I should decrease my resolution from 1600x1200x60hz (really nice) when playing DVDs? Not a great solution for me, since I like screen realestate and I want to be able to work while having a dvd playing on the other screen. I just figured these cards would be more than adequate to handle mpeg2 playback . . .

[5593 byte] By [whomever123] at [2007-11-26 8:32:23]
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# 1

I wouldn't hold my breath thinking that the Expert3D-lite has 48 meg ram... the are more like 16 meg

Sun Expert3D Lite, 24 bit color, High resolution 2D and 3D graphics accelerator with 16MB texture memory. Compatible with PCI 64bit/66MHz, 64bit/33MHz or 32bit/33MHz.

you are lucky that they handled the monitors...

the XVR-100 has 64 meg....

http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SunBlade2000/components.html#Graph ics

try again...

haroldkarl

haroldb at 2007-7-6 21:56:25 > top of Java-index,Sun Hardware,Workstations - General Discussion...
# 2

They do have 48mb total memory, of which 16mb is texture memory. 32mb is graphics memory.

In any event, this should not inhibit DVD playback, I would think (I can play DVDs back on an ati rage 8mb card that is on most of the intel server boards). Perhaps it is the speed of the memory, or the card's clock speed . . .

Also, the XVR-500 seems to have the same memory configuration (at least on size, not necessarily on speed). The XVR-500 is better than the XVR-100, right? I wonder what chipset it uses . . . I can find the maker of the chip the Expert3d-lite uses (older, and they--3DLabs--are out of business/bought up). I read that the XVR-100 is just a 32MB ATI Radeon 7000 MAC Edition, rebranded. My guess is that the XVR-500 is just another rebranded ATI Radeon card, but I have not found that info out yet. In fact, one ad on ebay suggests it is just another 3DLabs card, one that has the same chipset of the Expert3d-Lite card! Sun has a blurb that says it is twice as powerful as the Expert3d-Lite, so does that mean that the XVR-100 would be around the same "powerfulness" of the older Expert3d-Lite?

My sense is that it is hard to compare these cards anyway, as the 3d-lite card was marketing to lower-end 3d app users, whereas the XVR-100 only seems to be marketed to 2D users. Maybe it smokes the 3d-lite on 2D (DVD playback), but not on other types of usage. That would probably be good enough for me.

There do not seem to be too many XVR-100s or XVR-500s floating around on ebay (other than store sellers for inflated current prices), and I do not want to be buying a couple cards that give minimal at best performance increases. Anyone have any direct experience comparing them in this type of app?

Message was edited by:

whomever123

After a little more searching, I came across these two pages:

http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/graphics/xvr100/details.html

http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/graphics/xvr500/details.html

http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/graphics/xvr600/details.html

They give (rather poor, I think) comparision between some of the above cards. It becomes clearer to me that I should not be thinking of the XVR-100 and the XVR-500 in the same family (maybe obvious to you all). The XVR-100 and the XVR-600 are "current" generation, and though the former has no texture memory, it does have 64mb memory. Not sure the speed. The XVR-500 and Expert3d-Lite seem to have almost the exact same specs, but that a couple of performance parameters seem to be doubled (3d related stuff). And this XVR-100 seems to be the 32mb variety . . .

I am not giving up, but this is just one more reason to keep more Windows/Linux/Apple boxen around. People want to "play" on their workstations, too. I am not asking to be able to get F.E.A.R. to run respectably, after all. But maybe I should have leapfrogged the SB 2000/Expert3d-lite cards and gone for the (much more expensive currently) Ultra 45/NVidia card package. Still get Solaris, but ow do I like the Sparc chips . . .

whomever123 at 2007-7-6 21:56:25 > top of Java-index,Sun Hardware,Workstations - General Discussion...
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