Video (media) performance issues

[oshunluvr]

Sorry, I got nothing else at this point. I use VLC with "default" as the output and no problems.

[Spadge]

And you have a framebuffer installed? If so, which?

[oshunluvr]

Pretty much a stock 12.04 except for he xorg edgers ppa

[Spadge]

Right, I've disabled efifb and got uvesafb working instead. Things are looking up.

VLC in default mode still sucks donkey BADLY, but smplayer in gl(fast) appears to be working.

gtkperf is now running in about 7.11 or something.

I suspect efifb is not doing anyone any favours.

[schnelle]

You can try mplayer2 backend for smplayer. It is much faster than mplayer. And also you can try gl output.

[schnelle]

And if you upgraded your system from 12.04 to 12.10 try everything with new user.

[Spadge]

I did upgrade from 12.04 to 12.10b2, but only installed smplayer/mplayer2 after the upgrade.

I will try a new user.

[Spadge]

Interestingly, with a new user account I managed to get smplayer to output nicely using xv ... once I had turned off all desktop effects.

I am beginning to wonder if my graphics card is too new for the drivers to work properly. I never had these problems with the nv 450.

Are those my options then? To have a desktop that looks nice OR be able to watch videos on it?

Booo, hisss.

[oshunluvr]

+1 boo-hiss.

All I can advise is:

1. Go to nvidia forums and get advice on the best setup options.
2. Launch your video player with a script that turns effects off and then back on again when killed.
3. Wait for the update.

Patience my child and all will be revealed...

[Spadge]

I have a new SSD arriving, will make a fresh install on it - and I'm thinking of trying vanilla ubuntu with gnome shell on it. I've been using kubuntu for a few years now, time to try something new.

Then I will know if it's KDE or nvidia maybe?

[SteveRiley]

I have a new SSD arriving, will make a fresh install on it - and I'm thinking of trying vanilla ubuntu with gnome shell on it.

You have two choices. You can try the GNOME Remix. It's a complete distro, but they've held a few packages back from the latest and greatest. My preference would be to perform a plain-vanilla command-line install, then add the GNOME3 PPA and build up from there, starting with gnome-shell and gnome-core in a single apt-get. This will include GDM, X, Synaptic, a minimal set of applications -- and no Unity. After that, knock yerself out.

Oh, and for your SSD, add the boot option noop to the kernel boot parameters in GRUB. If you're going all SSD, there's no reason to use the default deadline I/O scheduler, since access speed of an SSD is uniform across all sectors. Add the discard parameter to any EXT2/3/4 partitions in fstab, and also each partition's superblock:

sudo tune2fs -o discard /dev/sd[i]XN[/i]

[Spadge]

I was thinking vanilla Ubuntu, install Gnome3 from Unity, boot into Gnome and kill Unity. Your idea has its merits for sure. I've never done a CLI install of Ubuntu before. FreeBSD a million times yes, but never Ubuntu that way.

I looked at Gnome Remix and was briefly interested, but it passed.

I will be keeping a 1TB spinning iron for data and stuff.

[SteveRiley]

With the demise of the alternate install ISO, you'll have to use the server ISO for a command-line install. After it finishes but before you add GNOME, run sudo tasksel remove server to delete the server-related stuff. Also remove the linux-server and linux-headers-server packages.

Since you'll have a spinning drive, don't change the I/O scheduler. But do configure the discard parameter for each of the partitions on your SSD -- this activates the TRIM wear-leveling mechanism.