I'm sorry to take so long to get back to you, but I had a lot of
downloading to do to get to this point :^(.
On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 21:56:42 -0600, Charlie Mahan wrote:
> On July 30, 2004 20:17:08, deedee emrys wrote:
> > Is there a way to fix mplayer so that the resolution and depth is
> > reduced just for it (or is this a monumentally stupid question)? The
> > current resolution and depth work very nicely overall and I would hate
> > to change that.
>
> If it's working you're lucky. I glanced back through my notes on customer
> systems using that chip-set on various motherboards and found a case of,
> "some work at 1024x768, others are for kaka." 6/5 and pick'em, luck of the
> draw and the whim of the Gods of Silicon.
I didn't do anything special to get it to work well. However, the display is
very nice. Although the screen is really 15", it shows a bigger picture (and
clearer picture) than my expensive 17" monitor (???). I didn't expect that
from a budget system.
> The biggest thing is the colour depth anyway. Higher resolution does draw more
> memory and processor cycles but not to the same extent as going from 65,000
> odd colours to 16,000,000. I doubt you would see the gradations of colour
> anyway. I can't.
For some reason the difference is visible on this unit.
> It was worth a test but I don't think you need to go 800x640 as long as you
> stay at 16 bit colour.
In any event, it didn't work :^(.
> How much memory are you using for graphics and how much do you have in total?
> The reason I ask is that on-board graphics with some rare (getting less rare
> but...) exceptions use the CPU for all playback functions unlike a separate
> graphic adaptor (read as video card) which has a Graphics Processing Unit.
> Let's start there.
Good question. I don't know the answer. How does one determine the amount
of memory being used for graphics?
> In the "budget systems" (on-board graphics etc) I've assembled for people
> Athlon XP+ anything is OK as long as there's enough memory, Duron maybe,
> Celeron not so much. I don't recall off the top of my pointy head whether
> that chip-set was ever used on an Intel board or only for AMD processors. AMD
> only I believe. I'm using a newer generation of the SiS chip-set in the
> system I'm writing this on.
>
> So is it a Duron?
Actually, it is an Intel P4 processor (1.7GHz) with 256Mb RAM plus
another 256Mb swap.
> > >> I ran 'xvinfo' as suggested in the logs and got the following:
> > >>
> > >> X-Video Extension version 2.2
> > >> screen #0
> > >> no adaptors present
>
> That doesn't look too promising. A whole whack of stuff should be displayed by
> that command. Sorry for the length of this:
>
> nanook]$ xvinfo
> X-Video Extension version 2.2
> screen #0
> Adaptor #0: "SIS 300/315/330 series Video Overlay"
> number of ports: 1
> port base: 56
> operations supported: PutImage
> supported visuals:
> snip
I had expected that mine would have been long as well. Actually, it was
when I saw that xvinfo indicated no adaptors were present on my system
that I decided I needed to ask someone about that. Am I right in assuming
that the adaptors should have been installed or configured or whatever
when I installed Linux?
Of course, I could be on a completely wrong track, but I'm thinking that
XFree86 has something to do with this and maybe mine is not recent enough.
I'm using XFree86-4.3-5mdk. This came up again when I was downloading.
Two of the libraries I needed apparently are included in XFree86-4.3-30mdk
which comes with ML10 but not ML9.1 or 9.2. XFree86 in 9.1 only goes
up to 4.3-8.
> > > What kernel? Have you upgraded?
> >
> > The kernel is 2.4.21-0.25mdk.
I notice that the kernel with ML10 is 2.4.25. Do you know if trying to
install and run XFree86-4.3-30 with my current kernel will cause problems?
It's looking like I may have to upgrade to ML10 if I want mplayer to work
correctly.
> Two things, where'd you find *that* kernel and why don't you download the
> update kernel?
>
> ftp://ftp.proxad.net/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandrake/official/updates/9.1/RPMS/kernel-2.4.21.0.32mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm
I need the kernel sources (for something else) and that file takes a couple
of days to download using my system. ML9.1 comes with 2.4.13 or something.
I did two upgrades of the kernel to get where I am now, so I know it takes
a long time for me to bag the sources.
> If you're wondering why I always link to proxad in Paris it's because I know
> it's synchronized to Mandrake and it's fast.
>
> I know it
