Linux ION2 h264 playback

bshellenberg · 03-09-11, 06:13 AM

I originally posted this on the forums.nvidia.com site, but having not a single view in 2 weeks, thought I would try here.

I'm getting a tearing effect with an Acer N282G system. ION2.

dmesg output:

[root@sms1061128 ~]# dmesg | grep NVIDIA
nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86 Kernel Module 260.19.36 Tue Jan 18 17:10:40 PST 2011
[root@sms1061128 ~]#

bit from Xorg.log:

(--) PCI:*(0:1:0:0) 10de:0a64:1025:045e nVidia Corporation GT218 [ION] rev 162, Mem @ 0xfd000000/16777216, 0xd0000000/268435456, 0xce000000/33554432, I/O @ 0x0000dc00/128, BIOS @ 0x??
??????/524288

I have thoroughly tested this on 3 different distributions: Fedora 14, Ubuntu (latest one for nettops) and PcLinuxOS (Mandriva roots). I tested 3 different h264 videos from different sources. I also used 3 different media players: VLC, Mplayer and Xine.

The tearing effect is not the typical single horizontal line that goes from edge to edge. It's more of a zig-zag effect (for lack of a better description) that occupies the top 10-40% of the video.

A couple links to some test videos:

http://www.dvdloc8.com/clip.php?movieid=13006&clipid=1
http://www.dvdloc8.com/clip.php?movieid=8419&clipid=2

Using the same videos, same distributions and same players on an Acer R3610 (ION1), I get a nice clean playback. I can only assume the issue is with the ION2 hardware or Nvidia drivers and support for the ION2 chipset.

Has anyone else had this issue, and can someone at Nvidia possibly test this to shed some light on it? I'd gladly ship Nvidia a test system with this specific setup if it would be of any help. With ION2 being the norm and h264 becoming a standard in it's own right, this is somewhat of a problem.

I have tried the very recent beta drivers, and they show no change to the situation.

jpterj · 03-09-11, 06:56 AM

Have you disabled composite?
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...20&postcount=2

On my ION system I found that I had to force Powermizer to performance mode in order to get reliable video decoding on high bitrate H.264 material.

There has also been reported on the MythTV mailing list that two matched sticks of memory has solved decoding problems on ION systems. I can't remember if these problems were related to tearing or not, and I don't know if it is applicable to IO2.

bshellenberg · 03-09-11, 07:21 AM

Yes, I've tried disabling composite extensions as well as forcing off the powermizer function; to no avail. As I said, this same setup (software, operating systems and drivers) does not show any sort of issues at all on an original ION system. It's just the new ION2. I can only assume it's either driver or hardware related.

mlord · 03-09-11, 11:03 AM

I pulled down the Fantastic-4 trailer (from your link), and it plays flawlessly with VDPAU under Mythtv-0.24 on my Ion2 Zotac HD-ID11 box.

I don't have any other media players configured for VDPAU.
The base system was once Mythbuntu-10.10, but I've rebuilt mythtv-0.24 from source for it since then.

Cheers

sandipt · 03-10-11, 09:54 AM

Hello bshellenberg,
NVIDIA needs some more info to repro this bug in house :
- Please attach nvidia-bug-report by running`nvidia-bug-report.sh` as root
- Which version of Mplayer you are using and what options you are passing while running mplayer ?

bshellenberg · 03-10-11, 11:25 AM

Bug report attached. I didn't use any command line options to play the videos. Only the path to the media file.

**danix** · 03-10-11, 11:43 AM

Is your mplayer configured (via one of the many possible config files) to automatically use VDPAU? If you're not setting VDPAU on the command line, you might not be using VDPAU for playback. Check mplayer's commandline output to see what video output (vo) and video codec (vc) are being used when you play the videos.

bshellenberg · 03-16-11, 11:16 AM

I got mplayer to work fine with vdpau after recompiling a bunch of bits on my distribution. But the problem remains for vlc, which is my primary focus. Is this an issue with vlc? Does it in no way support vdpau (even through vaapi?). It *appears* when I play a video that everything is correct. I get "[0x9b652fc] avcodec decoder: Using VA API version 0.31 for hardware decoding." which indicates ffmpeg is properly configured/compiled. Yet the output of vlc looks just like mplayer did *without* using vdpau.

This is frustrating. Why does this same hardware/software setup work just fine on the original ION?

hl_ · 03-16-11, 11:20 AM

VLC uses decoding acceleration in a pretty inefficient way and requires a lot of bandwidth between GPU and CPU. ION2 is quite bandwidth limited... maybe you're hitting a limit there.

03-09-11, 06:13 AM	#1
bshellenberg Registered User Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 4	Linux ION2 h264 playback I originally posted this on the forums.nvidia.com site, but having not a single view in 2 weeks, thought I would try here. I'm getting a tearing effect with an Acer N282G system. ION2. dmesg output: [root@sms1061128 ~]# dmesg \| grep NVIDIA nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel. NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86 Kernel Module 260.19.36 Tue Jan 18 17:10:40 PST 2011 [root@sms1061128 ~]# bit from Xorg.log: (--) PCI:*(0:1:0:0) 10de:0a64:1025:045e nVidia Corporation GT218 [ION] rev 162, Mem @ 0xfd000000/16777216, 0xd0000000/268435456, 0xce000000/33554432, I/O @ 0x0000dc00/128, BIOS @ 0x?? ??????/524288 I have thoroughly tested this on 3 different distributions: Fedora 14, Ubuntu (latest one for nettops) and PcLinuxOS (Mandriva roots). I tested 3 different h264 videos from different sources. I also used 3 different media players: VLC, Mplayer and Xine. The tearing effect is not the typical single horizontal line that goes from edge to edge. It's more of a zig-zag effect (for lack of a better description) that occupies the top 10-40% of the video. A couple links to some test videos: http://www.dvdloc8.com/clip.php?movieid=13006&clipid=1 http://www.dvdloc8.com/clip.php?movieid=8419&clipid=2 Using the same videos, same distributions and same players on an Acer R3610 (ION1), I get a nice clean playback. I can only assume the issue is with the ION2 hardware or Nvidia drivers and support for the ION2 chipset. Has anyone else had this issue, and can someone at Nvidia possibly test this to shed some light on it? I'd gladly ship Nvidia a test system with this specific setup if it would be of any help. With ION2 being the norm and h264 becoming a standard in it's own right, this is somewhat of a problem. I have tried the very recent beta drivers, and they show no change to the situation.

03-09-11, 06:56 AM	#2
jpterj Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 57	Re: Linux ION2 h264 playback Have you disabled composite? http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/show...20&postcount=2 On my ION system I found that I had to force Powermizer to performance mode in order to get reliable video decoding on high bitrate H.264 material. There has also been reported on the MythTV mailing list that two matched sticks of memory has solved decoding problems on ION systems. I can't remember if these problems were related to tearing or not, and I don't know if it is applicable to IO2.

03-09-11, 07:21 AM	#3
bshellenberg Registered User Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 4	Re: Linux ION2 h264 playback Yes, I've tried disabling composite extensions as well as forcing off the powermizer function; to no avail. As I said, this same setup (software, operating systems and drivers) does not show any sort of issues at all on an original ION system. It's just the new ION2. I can only assume it's either driver or hardware related.

03-09-11, 11:03 AM	#4
mlord Linux kernel hacker Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Ottawa, Canada Posts: 173	Re: Linux ION2 h264 playback I pulled down the Fantastic-4 trailer (from your link), and it plays flawlessly with VDPAU under Mythtv-0.24 on my Ion2 Zotac HD-ID11 box. I don't have any other media players configured for VDPAU. The base system was once Mythbuntu-10.10, but I've rebuilt mythtv-0.24 from source for it since then. Cheers

03-10-11, 09:54 AM	#5
sandipt NVIDIA Corporation Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 259	Re: Linux ION2 h264 playback Hello bshellenberg, NVIDIA needs some more info to repro this bug in house : - Please attach nvidia-bug-report by running`nvidia-bug-report.sh` as root - Which version of Mplayer you are using and what options you are passing while running mplayer ?

03-10-11, 11:43 AM	#7
danix NVIDIA Corporation Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Santa Clara, CA Posts: 237	Re: Linux ION2 h264 playback Is your mplayer configured (via one of the many possible config files) to automatically use VDPAU? If you're not setting VDPAU on the command line, you might not be using VDPAU for playback. Check mplayer's commandline output to see what video output (vo) and video codec (vc) are being used when you play the videos.

03-16-11, 11:16 AM	#8
bshellenberg Registered User Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 4	Re: Linux ION2 h264 playback I got mplayer to work fine with vdpau after recompiling a bunch of bits on my distribution. But the problem remains for vlc, which is my primary focus. Is this an issue with vlc? Does it in no way support vdpau (even through vaapi?). It appears when I play a video that everything is correct. I get "[0x9b652fc] avcodec decoder: Using VA API version 0.31 for hardware decoding." which indicates ffmpeg is properly configured/compiled. Yet the output of vlc looks just like mplayer did without using vdpau. This is frustrating. Why does this same hardware/software setup work just fine on the original ION?

03-16-11, 11:20 AM	#9
hl_ Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 138	Re: Linux ION2 h264 playback VLC uses decoding acceleration in a pretty inefficient way and requires a lot of bandwidth between GPU and CPU. ION2 is quite bandwidth limited... maybe you're hitting a limit there.