DVD acceleration?

[mas582]

Does anyone know if the Nvidia cards support DVD acceleration?

My DVD player skips in Linux, and I've manipulated hdparm a number of ways.:confused:

I'm running a AMD-1.4GHz processor, and the DVD drive is generic, but 16x. I don't see why it would skip, cause even if it was running it though software it should be good...... I know the DVD's are not scratched.

Any suggestions? thoughts?

[Chalnoth]

So, you've turned DMA on through hdparm?

[mas582]

Yes, through multiple means and attempts with verification that dma was indeed activated...

bash-2.05a# /usr/sbin/hdparm -i /dev/hdd

/dev/hdd:

Model=ATAPI 12X DVDROM, FwRev=VER-0.08, SerialNo=
Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic }
RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0
(maybe): CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0
IORDY=yes, tPIO={min:227,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:150}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2
AdvancedPM=no

I enabled Ultra-DMA, I thought it was a spin-down problem, so I made it's spindown time 22+ minutes.

I'm concerned it may be the drive itself....but I have no reason to believe this yet.....

[Chalnoth]

Well, an obvious way to check if it's the DVD drive, to some degree of accuracy, would be to try it in Windows. Have you done this yet?

[mas582]

I have, but now I don't use windows at all. I'm all Linux baby!!...anyway, it may have skipped in Windows once or twice, but I can't recall to any degree of accuracy...therfore, unless I try it in someone else's machine I have no way of knowing. But if that is the only suggestion you or anyone can come up with-----OUT WITH THE DRIVE!!!! and I'll try it.. just say the word, and I'll try it...

thanks

[Chalnoth]

I don't know, I can't think of anything else. I'm rather new to Linux myself.

[bwkaz]

Which program are you using to play the DVD's?

[mas582]

I've tried ogle, xine, and mplayer...mplayer was the only one I had trouble with additional things....it wouldn't decode, despite my attepmts to force the decoding...I used the dvdnav plugin for xine, and I remember back in the day..ok so maybe only about a year ago I was able to play them in xine using the d4d and d5d plugins...I think that's what they're called....

[kappax]

Mostlikey it is the sound card drivers/running esd/arts

turn esd/arts off.

2. your sound card might not support the timeing featerus so the move and sound get out of sync so i pauses a second

3. i have found xine and mplayer to suck bad at dvd play back. So try OGLE ogle it is, Smooth play back and is made for playing dvd's only, even supports the nav stuff :)

[Chalnoth]

Okay, mas582, I checked, and the hdparm -i command means nothing, when it comes to which mode is used.

Try this:

hdparm -d /dev/hdd

This should tell you if it's using DMA mode. The setting shown with the -i command appears to only be the BIOS setting, not what Linux is using. You can turn DMA on with:

hdparm -d1 /dev/hdd

As a side note, for some reason, this won't work with my DVD drive (Pioneer 10x). I haven't tested why, but neither have I really attempted to play DVD's under Linux lately.

[mas582]

Yeah, sorry I didn't know about the hdparm -i /dev/hdd

I put the hdparm stuff in my /etc/rc.d/rc.S so it would run during boot...

here's the cmd's I have:

/sbin/hdparm -c3 -d1 -m32 -X udma6 /dev/hda
/sbin/hdparm -c3 -d1 -m16 /dev/hdb
/sbin/hdparm -c3 -d1 -m16 -X udma2 /dev/hdc
/sbin/hdparm -c3 -S200 -p66 -B255 -X udma2 -K /dev/hdd

the c3 enables 32bit transfers, S200 sets the spindown time of the drive (200seconds), p66 reprograms the IDE interface chipset for the specified PIO mode (PIO66), B255 disables Power Management on the drive, X udma2 enables UltraDMA2 mode, and K keeps the settings over reset.

This can all be found in the man page for hdparm.

When I just run the cmd in a terminal it yeilds:
#hdparm -c3 -S200 -p66 -B255 -X udma2 -K1 /dev/hdd

/dev/hdd:
attempting to set PIO mode to 66
setting 32-bit IO_support flag to 3
setting drive keep features to 1 (on)
setting xfermode to 66 (UltraDMA mode2)
Segmentation fault

(that Segmentation fault worries me...perhaps we could find info about what that means...?)

(side note, I have finals coming up, I don't know how much I'll be able to reply, but I'll do my best, thanks for all the help so far guys)

[mas582]

I added the -d1 flag to the cmd so it now reads:

# hdparm -c3 -d1 -S200 -p66 -B255 -X udma2 -K1 /dev/hdd

/dev/hdd:
attempting to set PIO mode to 66
setting 32-bit IO_support flag to 3
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
setting drive keep features to 1 (on)
setting xfermode to 66 (UltraDMA mode2)
Segmentation fault

[Chalnoth]

But setting PIO mode to 66? That seems strange. PIO modes generall range from 0-4, I thought, unless you're talking about frequency? That should be 33 for most computers...

[bwkaz]

If SET_DMA fails with an "operation not permitted", I think that's a known thing with RedHat. I don't remember for sure, but I think if you add an options line to your modules.conf and rerun depmod -a, you can get the hdparm -d option to take.

Ah, yes. According to this thread on LinuxNewbie (check about two-thirds of the way down -- the post by mahdi on 10-08-2002 01:52 PM), you add options ide-cd dma=1:

http://linuxnewbie.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67549

According to the poster, the information was found in RedHat's own documentation... ;)

[mas582]

Well in my spare time this weekend I swapped DVD drives with a friend, his player ran just fine on my computer, and it's slower, and older. Just to make sure it was my drive we put my drive in his computer, it skipped more than a giddy school girl....

Conclusion: Drive=trash

Thanks for all the help guys!!

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by mas582
it skipped more than a giddy school girl.... ROFL! Glad you got it figured out at least, even if it is the drive.