Xv driver for XFree86/YDL2.3?

[Bill Fink]

On Fri Sep 6 2002, Henry A. Leinhos wrote:

> >>/ I'm apparently having trouble witht the Xv driver that comes with the 
> >/>/ XFree86 (ver 4.2.0-6.30e) in YDL 2.3.  I have compiled/installed both 
> >/>/ ogle and  xine, but the output window only displays half of the content 
> >/>/ (the left half).  Is there anything I can do (short of compiling XFree86 
> >/>/ using the Gatos drivers) to fix this?
> >/>/ 
> >/>/ My system is a Powermac Dual G4 450MHz with an ATI 128 Rage Pro AGP card 
> >/>/ (stock from apple), and I'm running YDL 2.3 with the latest apt-get 
> >/>/ upgrades.
> >
> >This should work just fine if you're running a non-SMP kernel, but will
> >have the problems you describe if you're running an SMP kernel.  You may
> >also need to reduce your resolution and/or bit depth (I'm running with
> >a resolution of 1280x1024 and a depth of 16).  I have a very similar
> >setup except I have a dual 500 MHz G4 and xine works great (uses about
> >1/2 the single CPU with DRI/DMA disabled and about 1/3 the single CPU
> >with DRI/DMA enabled) watching DVDs and other content.
>
> Thanks for the info, Bill.  I'm running my machine at 1280x1024 at 24 
> bits, with the SMP kernel.  Do you know if this is an issue with just 
> the PPC kernel, or all SMP kernels?  I don't think I'd give up SMP for 
> the sake of watching DVDs.  :(

Hi Henry,

Sorry.  I think I may have gotten two issues mixed up in my head.
It may have been DRI support that is a problem with SMP kernels.
I don't run with an SMP kernel because I like to run MOL (Mac-On-Linux).
Non-DRI enabled X may work just fine.  I can send you my XF86Config-4
file if you think that would help (I have basically the same setup
as you).  I also seem to recall on another mailing list that someone
solved a similar problem by disabling AGP or DRI.  Finally do you pass
any special kernel command line arguments for the video card at boot
time (I don't).  Basically the video card has a limited amount of
video memory and you may be exhausting that.  I know that the console
requires its amount, X requires its amount, and I believe that AGP
and/or DRI may also consume memory, as well as various other miscellaneous
video memory requirements.  I believe you have the same ATI card in your
system as I do in mine, in which case it has 16 MB of video memory.
You can check by doing a "dmesg | grep -i aty", which on my system
gives:

aty128fb: Rage128 Pro PF (AGP) [chip rev 0x1] 16M 128-bit SDR SGRAM (1:1)
fb0: ATY Rage128 frame buffer device on PCI

Your setting of 1280x1024 at a depth of 24 requires 1280*1024*24/8 bytes
of video memory or 3932160 bytes, which is almost 4 MB.  And I think
double buffering actually makes that nearly 8 MB.  And that's just for
the X driver.

I hope this helps.  As I said earlier, I'd be glad to send you my
XF86Config-4 file if you want to try it out as a test.

						-Regards

						-Bill