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View Full Version : Status of the VSYNC capabilities of the open source drivers with Xv

hal2100
05-29-2009, 03:35 PM
Hello,

right now I am using XBMC on my Ubuntu 8.04 box and a 780G motherboard with the onboard graphic and the FGLRX driver (8.9).

The problem is, that "vsync always on" in XBMC is required for tearfree video. But there seems to be a problem with the driver code which produces 100% CPU load just in the GUI not playing any video. This is only if VSYNC is turned on.

As long as XvBA is not activated there is no real advantage of FGLRX for me (except that I now have tear free video).
Is the vsync code in radeo(HD) more mature which could lead to a lower CPU utilization?

If yes, can someone point me to info how to try out radeon(HD) with an "easy" way of reverting back to fglrx?
agd5f
05-29-2009, 04:29 PM
radeon supports tear free Xv on r1xx-r7xx chips assuming you are not using a composite manager like compiz.
hal2100
05-30-2009, 03:56 AM
I think I will give it a try.
But maybe XBMC doens't use Xv at all. The GUI needs OpenGL 2.0 and I am not sure what they use for video rendering.

Nontheless the high CPU load just for the GUI is not acceptable.

They only problem left may be the current status of the power saving code in radeon(HD) but this will mature over the time.

Any chance someone can tell me an "easy" way to try out radeo or radeonHD and reverting back to fglrx if necessary?
Boerkel
05-30-2009, 10:33 AM
If the xbmc-gui really needs OpenGL then you have to consider, that the open driver doesn't support 3D for your card yet.
There should be first 3D support soon, but... well "soon"... we all know what nasty word that is...
hal2100
05-30-2009, 05:03 PM
If the xbmc-gui really needs OpenGL then you have to consider, that the open driver doesn't support 3D for your card yet.
There should be first 3D support soon, but... well "soon"... we all know what nasty word that is...

I guess this is true for radeon and radeonHD?
XBMC depends heavily on OpenGL, afaik.

Perhaps I can give it a try.

Is there a live distribution (perhaps a clone of ubuntu?), which uses the latest open source drivers for AMD/ATI?
This should be the easiest way.