[185.18.10] Can't play the MGS4 trailer properly

[garyl]

1. Get the Metal Gear Solid 4 Trailer (532MB) and unzip.
http://file.4gamer.net/movie/MGS4_storyPV.zip

2. $ mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264 MGS4_storyPV.mp4
=> No problem, but the CPU usage is high.

3. $ mplayer -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau MGS4_storyPV.mp4
=> Too slow. The first "bomb!" sound should come with the "KONAMI" logo.
and the caption "Yamero! Liquid!" (= Stop! Liquid!) is delayed.
Mplayer shows "Your system is too SLOW to play this!" in a terminal,
but I'm using Phenom2 X3 720BE@3.2GHz.

My system:
mplayer-export-2009-05-23
NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-185.18.10
N9800GTE-512MX-F (55nm Low Power)

N9800GTE supports auto downclock (PowerMizer),
and it shows "NV Clock 300MHz, Memory Clock 100MHz"
during the playback.

[garyl]

I tested the VDPAU testing tool:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=133465

Results:

SURFACE GET BITS: 1130.02 M/s
SURFACE PUT BITS: 1242.95 M/s

MPEG DECODING (1920x1080): 49 pic/s <== SLOW
VC1 DECODING (1440x1080): 58 pic/s <== SLOW

MIXER WEAVE (1920x1080): 2380 frames/s
MIXER BOB (1920x1080): 4219 fields/s
MIXER TEMPORAL (1920x1080): 825 fields/s
MIXER TEMPORAL_SPATIAL (1920x1080): 306 fields/s

9800GT Low Power 512MB Linux x86_64

I think PowerMizer breaks something.

[garyl]

ir123 said
> I notice some of the tests are affected by cpu speed.
so I disabled Cool'n'Quiet.

Results:

SURFACE GET BITS: 1145.07 M/s
SURFACE PUT BITS: 1248.84 M/s

MPEG DECODING (1920x1080): 78 pic/s <== IMPROVED
VC1 DECODING (1440x1080): 58 pic/s <== SLOW

MIXER WEAVE (1920x1080): 2358 frames/s
MIXER BOB (1920x1080): 4237 fields/s
MIXER TEMPORAL (1920x1080): 826 fields/s
MIXER TEMPORAL_SPATIAL (1920x1080): 306 fields/s

Still I can't play the MGS4 trailer properly.

[garyl]

You can use "powernowd" to enable Cool'n'Quiet.

1. Enable CnQ on the BIOS screen.
2. Run Linux.
3. Install powernowd and cpufrequtils.

4. Load a powernow-k8 module.
# modprobe powernow-k8

5. Run powernowd and set the CPU usage (percentage).
# powernowd -u 100 -l 20 -p 1000

6. Check the current CPU clock.
$ watch cpufreq-info

7. Play the MGS4 trailer and check the CPU clock changes.

8. If you want to stop CnQ, run
# killall powernowd
and check the CPU clock.

[garyl]

I did a mistake. The Cool'n'Quiet process remained.
I removed the process and run qvdpautest again.

Cool'n'Quiet OFF

SURFACE GET BITS: 1141.44 M/s
SURFACE PUT BITS: 1248.05 M/s

MPEG DECODING (1920x1080): 78 pic/s <== OK
VC1 DECODING (1440x1080): 127 pic/s <== OK

MIXER WEAVE (1920x1080): 2364 frames/s
MIXER BOB (1920x1080): 4237 fields/s
MIXER TEMPORAL (1920x1080): 827 fields/s
MIXER TEMPORAL_SPATIAL (1920x1080): 307 fields/s

9800GT Low Power (Core 550MHz/Memory 1800MHz)

Still I can't play the MGS4 trailer properly.

I had managed Cool'n'Quiet by cpufreqd.
I changed it to powernowd and it works better.

Cool'n'Quiet ON by powernowd

SURFACE GET BITS: 866.771 M/s
SURFACE PUT BITS: 1246.87 M/s

MPEG DECODING (1920x1080): 69 pic/s <== OK
VC1 DECODING (1440x1080): 110 pic/s <== OK

MIXER WEAVE (1920x1080): 2380 frames/s
MIXER BOB (1920x1080): 4219 fields/s
MIXER TEMPORAL (1920x1080): 826 fields/s
MIXER TEMPORAL_SPATIAL (1920x1080): 306 fields/s

NVIDIA's AaronP said that,
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...0&postcount=11
> you may need to disable CPU frequency scaling or force it
> to a particular minimum level to ensure that the GPU has enough bandwidth.
but I think the bandwidth is enough.

[cehoyos]

Originally Posted by garyl

Still I can't play the MGS4 trailer properly.

Full, uncut output of (at least)

mplayer -frames 1 -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau MGS4_storyPV.mp4

missing.

Video plays fine on G98, Carl Eugen

[garyl]

cehoyos,
> mplayer -frames 1 -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau MGS4_storyPV.mp4

I got the latest mplayer-svn29324 and did it,
but it doesn't play anything.

Please get the movie by wget and play it by mplayer.
http://www.geocities.jp/ep3797/snaps...gs4_frame1.ogg

But I found it worked fine:

$ mplayer -framedrop -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau MGS4_storyPV.mp4

It shows "your system is too slow", but I can play the trailer smoothly.
http://www.geocities.jp/ep3797/snaps...mgs4_vdpau.ogg
The CPU usage is very low (3% for 1 core at Phenom2 X3 720@3.2GHz),
and I think it doesn't skip movie frames.

If I don't use VDPAU, the trailer requires 60% CPU usage for 1 core.
http://www.geocities.jp/ep3797/snaps...s4_novdpau.ogg

Anyway I think NVIDIA's PowerMizer is buggy.
Check this post please.
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...3&postcount=23

[cehoyos]

Originally Posted by garyl

> mplayer -frames 1 -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau MGS4_storyPV.mp4

I got the latest mplayer-svn29324 and did it,
but it doesn't play anything.

I know.

But I asked for the output of this command in case anything is wrong with your MPlayer compilation, Carl Eugen

[garyl]

OK, this is it.

$ mplayer -frames 1 -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau MGS4_storyPV.mp4
MPlayer SVN-r29324-4.3.2 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team

Playing MGS4_storyPV.mp4.
libavformat file format detected.
[lavf] Video stream found, -vid 0
[lavf] Audio stream found, -aid 1
VIDEO:  [avc1]  1920x1080  24bpp  29.970 fps    0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
==========================================================================
Forced video codec: ffh264vdpau
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
[VD_FFMPEG] XVMC-accelerated MPEG-2.
Selected video codec: [ffh264vdpau] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264 (VDPAU))
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [faad] AAC (MPEG2/4 Advanced Audio Coding)
FAAD: compressed input bitrate missing, assuming 128kbit/s!
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/8.33% (ratio: 16000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [faad] afm: faad (FAAD AAC (MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Audio))
==========================================================================
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
[VD_FFMPEG] XVMC-accelerated MPEG-2.
VDec: vo config request - 1920 x 1080 (preferred colorspace: H.264 VDPAU acceleration)
VDec: using H.264 VDPAU acceleration as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [vdpau] 1920x1080 => 1920x1080 H.264 VDPAU acceleration 
New_Face failed. Maybe the font path is wrong.
Please supply the text font file (~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf).
subtitle font: load_sub_face failed.
New_Face failed. Maybe the font path is wrong.
Please supply the text font file (~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf).
subtitle font: load_sub_face failed.
A:   0.2 V:   0.0 A-V:  0.192 ct:  0.000   0/  0 ??% ??% ??,?% 0 0 

Exiting... (End of file)

[garyl]

Fixed in 185.18.14 NVIDIA Driver.
Maybe this is it.
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...40&postcount=1
> Fixed VDPAU to eliminate some cases of corruption when decoding H.264 video containing
> field-coded reference frames on G84, G86, G92, G94, G96, or GT200 GPUs.
> Such streams are commonly found in DVB broadcasts.

I can play the MGS4 trailer smoothly with/without Cool'n'Quiet now.
With VDPAU: 7% CPU usage for 1 core in Phenom2 x3 720BE@3.2GHz.
Without VDPAU: 60% CPU usage for 1 core in Phenom2 x3 720BE@3.2GHz.

Also it will improve VDPAU with PowerMizer performances.
I can get the stable results of qvdpau now.
> Improved interaction between VDPAU and PowerMizer; appropriate performance levels
> should now be chosen for video playback of all standard resolutions on all supported GPUs.

I wrote:
>> $ mplayer -framedrop -vo vdpau -vc ffh264vdpau MGS4_storyPV.mp4
>> and I think it doesn't skip movie frames.
I couldn't feel it, but "-framedrop" skips movie frames.
I don't recommend it. :-)