XBMC's Thoughts On XvBA: AMD Catalyst Has Problems

[oliver]

Here we go again.

Even though AMD also has it's shortcomings, it still _feels_ as they are actually really trying. Just ask bridgeman how much they are churning in the Linux front, which AMD actively supports!

Yes, there should be more support, 10% of their dev time on Linux instead of windows would be awesome. In time, maybe we'll get those 10%.

See it like this. Intel has loads of cash to burn, does care about Linux and knows it's (embedded amongst others) potential and see's the benefit of pumping some extra cash into Linux. Even if Intel pumps in 3 times more money than AMD, that's still pocket change to them. And it's not like Intel massively cares. Think plulsbo or wtf that was again. I think it won't even be that wrong to say, that percentage wise, Intel's Linux bits are smaller then AMD's, but because it's just so huge, there's more resources.

AMD on the other hand also see's there's some benefit (Coreboot, r600g etc) and wants to help the community. However due to much smaller budgets, they simply don't have the amount of resources. If your smaller and have less spare change, justifying the Linux dev team gets harder.

Both these companies however, do actually care about open source, or see that it's far more beneficial to just pretend to care, and at least release their stuff in an open source manner.

nVidia however has written an excellent windows driver. They've written it so well, that it was quite easily portable for them to several platforms. Because of that, nVidia may seem like this awesome Linux friendly company, that has like the best video driver. The truth however, is that nVidia simply doesn't really care about opensource. They realize there's some extra sales to be made by having and releasing a Linux driver, but that's it. "Open source is a wrong business model" or something the like (I really have to find that interview again).

[johnc]

AMD on the other hand also see's there's some benefit (Coreboot, r600g etc) and wants to help the community. However due to much smaller budgets, they simply don't have the amount of resources. If your smaller and have less spare change, justifying the Linux dev team gets harder.

They're crazy: they have great APUs and are ceding potential HTPC sales because they don't want to make the investment.

nVidia however has written an excellent windows driver. They've written it so well, that it was quite easily portable for them to several platforms. Because of that, nVidia may seem like this awesome Linux friendly company, that has like the best video driver. The truth however, is that nVidia simply doesn't really care about opensource. They realize there's some extra sales to be made by having and releasing a Linux driver, but that's it. "Open source is a wrong business model" or something the like (I really have to find that interview again).

Maybe. But NVIDIA wrote VDPAU from the ground up for us UNIX and Linux folk, open sourced it, and made it better than DXVA.

Words and intentions are great, but at the end of the day I need something that just works.

[[Knuckles]]

My current laptop is a Lenovo Ideapad S205 with E-350 APU.

Very cool machine, but I'm massively disappointed with gpu. Video playback has been incredibly hard to get working (and when you have a not-very-advanced dual-core 1.6ghz cpu, you do need GPU help sometimes). Xbmc-xvba is as close as it gets, but I have to keep toggling it off and on between videos, because of artifacts in a lot of them (I'm guessing because of missing 5.1 support).

Would I buy AMD APU again? While the famous atom + sandy bridge graphics doesn't come out, yes. After that, goodbye AMD APUs, and good riddance, honestly. It seems all I get from AMD in the GPU side are bugs and disappointments. No problems in the CPU department, which is a pity, because when you glue a GPU to your CPU, and the GPU sucks to use, well then the hole package falls apart.

[benmoran]

I've got an Asus E45M1-I machine that I just put together, and it really does work amazing. Besides the obvious shortcomings that have been mentioned. This is mostly a testiment to the XBMC guys rather than AMD though. It's too bad because it's -almost- perfect, but not quite. I personally bought this machine with the intention of dumping fglrx as soon as the open source drivers get up to snuff. Sure, it may take a few years, but I don't think there is any need to update htpc hardware that often. Not unless the next level of HD content comes along (post 1080p).

I agree it does suck for Desktop users, but thanks again XBMC guys for an awesome AMD experience. And thanks Michael for this article, which hopefully gets AMD to step up to the plate.

[popper]

My current laptop is a Lenovo Ideapad S205 with E-350 APU.

Very cool machine, but I'm massively disappointed with gpu. Video playback has been incredibly hard to get working (and when you have a not-very-advanced dual-core 1.6ghz cpu, you do need GPU help sometimes). Xbmc-xvba is as close as it gets, but I have to keep toggling it off and on between videos, because of artifacts in a lot of them (I'm guessing because of missing 5.1 support).

Would I buy AMD APU again? While the famous atom + sandy bridge graphics doesn't come out, yes. After that, goodbye AMD APUs, and good riddance, honestly. It seems all I get from AMD in the GPU side are bugs and disappointments. No problems in the CPU department, which is a pity, because when you glue a GPU to your CPU, and the GPU sucks to use, well then the hole package falls apart.

well Knuckles, you can always buy a cheap Raspberry Pi and get full Hardware decode with that as all the ARM devices today will probably play all 1080P video using full Hardware decode/encode unlike AMD and their non functional UVD decode block while you wait for the sandy bridge SOC to appear.
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=113824 or perhaps you prefer an allwinner 10 instead http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Allwinner_A10

[johnc]

well Knuckles, you can always buy a cheap Raspberry Pi and get full Hardware decode with that as all the ARM devices today will probably play all 1080P video using full Hardware decode unlike AMD and their non functional UVD decode block
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=113824

Threw ICS on my HP TouchPad... that little Snapdragon processor can curb-stomp just about anything I throw at it (except 10-bit [High 10 Profile] H.264 content).

Amazing what you can get out of hardware when you're working with good drivers.

Thank you, Qualcomm, for not mailing it in.

[popper]

http://www.j1nx.nl/multimedia/xbmc/xbmc-allwinner-a10-mele-a1000-arm-device-openelec/

especially update2

Allwinner A10 Features list;


1.2ghz Cortex A8 ARM Core
MALI400MP OpenGL ES 2.0 GPU
DDR3 Controller 800MHz 1GB max
2160p Hardware-accelerated Video playback (4x the resolution of 1080p)
NAND Flash Controller that is capable of 8-way concurrent DMA (8 NAND ICs)
4 SDIO interfaces (SD 3.0, UHI class)
USB 2.0 Host as well as a 2nd USB-OTG Interface (USB-OTG can be reconfigured as USB 2.0 Host, automatically)
24-pin RGB/TTL as well as simultaneous HDMI out
SATA-II 3gb/sec
10/100 Ethernet (MII compatible)
A 2nd 24-pin RGB/TTL interface that is multiplexed (shared) on the same pins for a standard IDE (PATA) interface.
GPIO, I2C, PWM, Keyboard Matrix (8?8), built-in Resistive Touchscreen Controller, and much more.

[M1AU]

I didn't bought any ATI/AMD hardware since I moved over to Linux about 5 years ago. Every once in a while I look out for new AMD products, just to find out that they still didn't made there homework.
No really, I'd love to build a new HTPC and I'd love to use AMD hardware for that, but I simply cant because not every feature I want is supported.

[[Knuckles]]

well Knuckles, you can always buy a cheap Raspberry Pi and get full Hardware decode with that as all the ARM devices today will probably play all 1080P video using full Hardware decode/encode unlike AMD and their non functional UVD decode block while you wait for the sandy bridge SOC to appear.
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=113824 or perhaps you prefer an allwinner 10 instead http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Allwinner_A10

Thanks, but I want a laptop, not just a static sit-on-the-shelf media player. For that, I have a desktop box with an nvidia graphics card.

[TheWretched]

Hm...

I've been using the XVBA branch for a while now... not that my 3Ghz Quadcore needs it, but it's still nice to see "no" CPU load, even with high bitrate h264. No sure why there's so much arguing about High Profile 5.1 though. I've yet to encounter them in a massive scale. PS3 doesn't support it either (just flat out denies playback), but works, if you rewrite the header. Didn't have to do that with any of my current media, though. All my video is encoded to BDROM spec, and thus works like a charm. MPEG2 isn't as CPU intensive and can easily be decoded without the GPU helping, even on low end CPUs. Not sure of 1080P MPEG2, though, as none of my BDROMs use it, and none are made today using it, either. HD TV in Germany uses h264 only, and that works too, for me. Though I don't watch a lot of TV, so it's not something I really need.

For me, it's much more problematic to get stable digital audio passthrough working with SPDIF. With the old Audio Engine, it worked sometimes, but now with AE, it always says "device busy", although mplayer and others happily pass the audio to my receiver.