[GMA X4500] GPU video decoding (VA-API?)

[BlackStar]

@Blackstar it is 3426 kbps, the info is a bit hard to read. One of the problem with flash is that the scaling is very inefficent. vlc git can play youtube urls directly, i just have to figure out how to increase the prebuffering for "&fmt=37".

Really? Didn't know that!

Just tried, and I only get sound, unfortunately (using 1.0.5). However, it seems that Banshee 1.5.5 can do that too, which is fine for me!

[mendieta]

Many thanks for the new tests, Nexx!

Some tips for flash:

• I read on n Adobe blog that their Linux flash doesn't use hardware acceleration if compositing is active.
• There is a 10.1 flash beta, it is supposed to be much better on _some_ of the gpu's for what I read in Anandtech:
  http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3678&p=1

As for downloading flash video, there are some nifty Firefox extensions. OTOH, it sort of defeats the purpose of flash (to stream live inside the browser). And it won't work on sites like Hulu). It's still a god tip, particularly for movies encoded as flash.

[Kano]

Well you have to configure the most common extension to enable HQ37 download, it is not default.

[Nexx]

Many thanks for the new tests, Nexx!

Some tips for flash:

• I read on n Adobe blog that their Linux flash doesn't use hardware acceleration if compositing is active.
• There is a 10.1 flash beta, it is supposed to be much better on _some_ of the gpu's for what I read in Anandtech:
  http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3678&p=1

My pleasure ^^

I'm just using the default flash plugin installed by Ubuntu, which is 10.0 I believe, I don't watch enough HD video on YouTube with my laptop to worry about making it run better.

Using the 4500MHD under Linux has become a wonderful experience, if you only do light gaming then I would whole-heartedly recommend a laptop with this great little chip.

[mendieta]

My pleasure ^^

I'm just using the default flash plugin installed by Ubuntu, which is 10.0 I believe, I don't watch enough HD video on YouTube with my laptop to worry about making it run better.

Using the 4500MHD under Linux has become a wonderful experience, if you only do light gaming then I would whole-heartedly recommend a laptop with this great little chip.

Thanks again
In terms of my purchase, this was really useful and I don't need any more info. Cheers!

[mendieta]

@Nexx: can you please run a small test? Flash player on Linux downloads streams into /tmp. Visit the 1080p trailer again, pause flash player in your browser (so it doesn't take up any CPU) and play the flash file directly from /tmp. There's no reason to wait for it to download completely, if your internet connection is good enough you can double click it and let it play immediately (with Totem, VLC or whatever).

What's your CPU usage then? Does it still stutter?

I did that experiment in my lowly Vostro A90 (Dell Mini-9 for small biz). Of course the IGP there (GMA 950) is not nearly as capable as the X4500HD:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA#Table_of_GMA_graphics_core

I tried the Alice in Wonderland trailer, 740p. It's a slideshow, even with the 10.1 beta flash plugin, either from inside the browser of in vlc (loaded from /tmp)

The same movie trailer transcoded to xvid looks awesome in vlc:

transcode -i input_movie.flv -o output_movie.avi -y xvid

Not a suprise, as I've seen this before. It's just such a same! Can't wait for HTML5 to rule the world

[DebianAroundParis]

If that really is a Mesa regression, now would be an excellent time to bisect it, with 7.8 soon to be released.

Unfortunately I do not really have the time and energy to do that.
I thought that maybe this could be solved by upgrading to linux 2.6.33, and upgrading all the graphics packages once more. But I do not manage to get back to the lowest cpu utilization I ever got playing full HD videos.

[DebianAroundParis]

Fortunately things got better with the latest "everything" from Debian experimental. I can play FullHD videos
with other tasks already using 20% of each core, and my Core2Duo does not reach 100%. I am impressed (again) by the improvements of the past two years.

[mendieta]

Fortunately things got better with the latest "everything" from Debian experimental. I can play FullHD videos
with other tasks already using 20% of each core, and my Core2Duo does not reach 100%. I am impressed (again) by the improvements of the past two years.

Excellent. Do you mean flash videos? If that's the case, what Flash version is that? Thanks!

[whizse]

GPU decoding of H264 is coming now:

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/intel-gfx/2010-March/006382.html