720p playback in 0710 beta, hardware not good enough?

[Saegrov]

I've just bought a new pc for use with LMCE and i've been testing it quite alot the past few days.
I've been having some trouble with (i'm a perfectionist ) 720p playback. It tends to "chop" a bit, not often but a few times every minute and enough to bother me
This is when using UI2 with overlay and it's worse with transparency. I haven't tried with UI1 but it's not really an option for me either.
Also i don't find scrolling menus as responsive as i would like and i'm wondering if i should upgrade CPU and/or buy a more powerfull graphic card?

This is my setup:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 BE-2300 (1900 MHz)
Asus M2N-VM HDMI
Intel Pro/1000PT PCIe Server Adapter (not inserted yet, using onboard network card)
OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 CL 3 FlexXLC Edition 2 GB (2 x 1 GB, 800 MHz)
Samsung SpinPoint T166 500 GB SATA

[tkmedia]

I have seen a great difference in performance based on the video driver.

My Pc's performance was best with the default driver in 0710 b2.

I updated it and now tearing is back. Not sure if it is a driver issue or xorg.conf issue.

[Saegrov]

I've tried with both updated driver and the default ones and it's the same. Could you post you specc tk? Or link to a thread with it? Only need mobo, CPU and memory.
I'm still wondering what this means tho:

Supports HDMI™ Technology with HDCP compliant with max. resolution 1920 x 1080p*
*Due to the chipset limitation, only MPEG 2 & WMV Offload can support HD format 1920 x 1080p.

Link 1 to asus page.
Link 2 to asus page.

I don't quite get what this means, anyone got a clue?

[1audio]

I'm not sure what you are asking. The nVidia 6150 and 7050 will support 720P and 1080p playback with limitations on H.264 (the decode must be done in software so it needs a lot more power). There are driver problems with the nVidia drivers. With the blended UI2 the system has problems with video tearing and stability. The Overlay is mostly ok except some forms of blended video content do have problems with tearing and other artifacts.
At present there are no other options that will support UI2 well. We are all hoping for better video drivers as soon as possible but Linux is an ugly stepchild in this game.

[shortydigital]

would these 720p/ 1080p issues be present with the highly recommended 6200 card, also would it matter if the 6200 was pic, pci-e, or agp? I keep hearing that 128mb onboard is more then enough, but would 256 eliminate this chopping? Also why is the 6200 usually recommended on this forum over the 6600, 6800 or 7000 series.

[1audio]

The problem is with the driver more than anything else. The tearing comes from updating the screen asynchronously with the video. There are some tricks that are supposed to improve the issue but the combination of interlaced source, overhead from the alpha blended UI, and scaling can cause the problem. its like dropping 1/2 of a frame. I don't know if a much faster processor would help either because it may be an issue in the GPU itself. 128 MB is enough for the video. I should try 64 MB to make sure that 128 MB isn't overkill. Windows says that 128 MB is the minimum for 1080p.

[totallymaxed]

I've just bought a new pc for use with LMCE and i've been testing it quite alot the past few days.
I've been having some trouble with (i'm a perfectionist ) 720p playback. It tends to "chop" a bit, not often but a few times every minute and enough to bother me
This is when using UI2 with overlay and it's worse with transparency. I haven't tried with UI1 but it's not really an option for me either.
Also i don't find scrolling menus as responsive as i would like and i'm wondering if i should upgrade CPU and/or buy a more powerfull graphic card?

This is my setup:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 BE-2300 (1900 MHz)
Asus M2N-VM HDMI
Intel Pro/1000PT PCIe Server Adapter (not inserted yet, using onboard network card)
OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 CL 3 FlexXLC Edition 2 GB (2 x 1 GB, 800 MHz)
Samsung SpinPoint T166 500 GB SATA

Hmmm... we're using AMD64 X2 4800 processors in similar hardware without tearing at 720p using UI2 + Overlay

[1audio]

Here is the quickest way to see the tearing- a 1080i source with upscaled 480i  4X3 in it with bars on each side to mask the balance of the screen on 720p. The combination confuses the video engine and there will be tearing on the center image related to the deinterlacing. Its a major problem with many computer based video systems. Despite the claims of the video card guys most are pretty poor compared to the better stand alone chipsets.
A full progressive chain with a progressive source won't show the problem. I have not tried 1080i but 1080p does show the problems as well.
I would like to find a way to get the system to render the video at native rate- shifting format as the content shifts so I can feed it to an external scaler/deinterlacer. But getting the UI over that may be impossible since the UI will need to be rescaled on the fly. As far as I can tell Xine and Mplayer were not designed to work this way.

[cirion]

Hmmm... we're using AMD64 X2 4800 processors in similar hardware without tearing at 720p using UI2 + Overlay

UI2 + overlay has no tearing on my 8600GT with AMD64x2 4000+ either, but try using UI2 + Alpha blending.
I use the same xorg.conf in both modes, and UI2 Alpha blending is tearing... Try it.

[totallymaxed]

Hmmm... we're using AMD64 X2 4800 processors in similar hardware without tearing at 720p using UI2 + Overlay

UI2 + overlay has no tearing on my 8600GT with AMD64x2 4000+ either, but try using UI2 + Alpha blending.
I use the same xorg.conf in both modes, and UI2 Alpha blending is tearing... Try it.

Exactly my point... I have never been able to get UI2 + Alpha blending to work without tearing :-(

UI2 + Overlay works perfectly though with very smooth video playback