[alanwww1]

I switched from i3 to AMD Fusion as my favorite HTPC platform....)

Do you actually own a Zacate motherboard already ? I can not find one available yet. Also Sandy Bridge is promising. I think noth could be the winner :-)

[Robotica]

yes, SoC wins either way. But E350 has just perfectly balanced price, specs, power consumption, futureproof, etc for HTPC-usage while Sandy bridge is competing Llano in the lower desktopsegment... Day one Zacate hits the market, I buy one. Hey, but everybody has his favorite ;-)

[HuntBurton]

Heya, thx for this cool tutorial.

I have a little problem with the xorg-edgers ppa.
When I have upgraded to the ppa, my Xorg login screen stays black, but I can see my mouse cursor and I can move around with it...

I have a Core i3 and I am using Ubuntu 10.10.
Does anybody has a hint for me? :-)

here is a part of my Xorg.0.log, where the error occurs:

[ 39.222] (**) Option "xkb_options" "lv3:ralt_switch"
[ 39.222] (EE) Microsoft Microsoft® Nano Transceiver v1.0: failed to initialize for relative axes.
[ 39.222] (WW) Microsoft Microsoft® Nano Transceiver v1.0: found 37 axes, limiting to 36.
[ 39.222] (II) Microsoft Microsoft® Nano Transceiver v1.0: initialized for absolute axes.
[ 39.222] (II) config/udev: Adding input device Microsoft Microsoft® Nano Transceiver v1.0 (/dev/input/js0)
[ 39.222] (II) No input driver/identifier specified (ignoring)
[ 39.229] (EE) intel(0): Failed to submit batch buffer, expect rendering corruption or even a frozen display: Invalid argument.
[ 39.229] (EE) intel(0): Failed to submit batch buffer, expect rendering corruption or even a frozen display: Invalid argument.
[ 39.229] (EE) intel(0): Failed to submit batch buffer, expect rendering corruption or even a frozen display: Invalid argument.
[ 39.229] (EE) intel(0): Failed to submit batch buffer, expect rendering corruption or even a frozen display: Invalid argument.

[tiberian]

Hi,

for compiling the libbluray I needed the following package on Ubuntu 10.10

sudo apt-get install dh-autoreconf

Maybe you want to add it to the initial posting.

BTW: Thanks for that awesome How-To!

[alanwww1]

Hi,
for compiling the libbluray I needed the following package on Ubuntu 10.10

Thanks for the feedback. I add this to the first post.

[absurdhero]

I followed the guide and added alanwww1's xorg.conf. Upon starting x11, my television displays an Invalid Format error. I tried a few things to fix this:

- Tweaked the modelines with ones posted by others in this thread

- Removed xorg.conf to see what X11 would do by default (this was working with the version of X11 in maverick)

- Ran get-edid and tried the monitor section output by parse-edid


The xorg log didn't show any errors when using the xorg.conf but it must have been using a mode that the TV doesn't support. I don't know why the xorg-edgers ppa behaves so differently.

My hardware:
Intel i3-540
Intel Motherboard BOXDH55TC
42LG70 Television

If anyone has trouble with xorg-edgers, you can easily revert back to the released packages using the convenient ppa-purge utility with the following:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge xorg-edgers

[Makistos]

Hm, interesting.

I got X to work by first purging the x-edgers things by doing what absurdhero suggested. Then I installed xcfe and reinstalled the edgers drivers. So it definitely looks like the instructions are not adequate for a minimal Ubuntu installation, some packages are missing.

But there seems to be quite a few issues: first, isn't movie and music supposed to work in a similar fashion? I can now get sound from movies (I tested with a few vob's) but not music (mp3's). All sound should go through HDMI and my system is 3.0, although I guess I could set that to 5.1 and let the A/V receiver handle the downmix.

Secondly, for some reason I can only see one fourth of the video, for some reason the image is zoomed all wrong. This is an SD video but it looks like it is presented in 1080p.

Thirdly, the system already crashed. All the terminals got filled with these lines (I can't even reboot from console, but at least SSH still works):


Jan 9 14:59:10 korppi kernel: [ 995.399718] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung
Jan 9 14:59:10 korppi kernel: [ 995.405974] [drm:init_ring_common] *ERROR* render ring head not reset to zero ctl 00000000 head 23010e5c tail 00000000 start 02001000
Jan 9 14:59:10 korppi kernel: [ 995.411915] [drm:init_ring_common] *ERROR* render ring head forced to zero ctl 00000000 head 23010e5c tail 00000000 start 02001000
Jan 9 14:59:10 korppi kernel: [ 995.417716] [drm:init_ring_common] *ERROR* render ring initialization failed ctl 0001f001 head 23010e5c tail 00000000 start 02001000
Jan 9 14:59:10 korppi kernel: [ 995.770722] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung
Jan 9 14:59:10 korppi kernel: [ 995.776884] [drm:init_ring_common] *ERROR* render ring head not reset to zero ctl 00000000 head 23010e5c tail 00000000 start 02001000

etc. This happened after I tried to open a very simple

Note that I am only at the point where the instructions tell we can try movies (after creating those two links).

Any suggestions?

UPDATE: After I created the same xorg.conf as in the instructions, the movies work correctly. Except for one short clip, which makes the screen go all messed up for a while.

UPDATE2: Audio started working after I messed around with the settings, so that's sorted. The only remaining problem related to this setup is that even though I installed libbluray, BR-disks don't work. I just get a file manager and attempting to run any of the files does nothing. I have several things to configure still (ripping both DVD's and BD's etc), but the core system now seems to work (I can watch ripped movies & listen to music).

So the main thing was to install a desktop (xcfe, but I bet any would do).

[alanwww1]

I have put up a patch to trac, solving auto refresh rate and smoothvideo not working together in Intel hardware (probably also on AMD). I'd be glad if you Intel and AMD users can make a test and feedback.

http://trac.xbmc.org/attachment/ticket/1...hang.patch

Edit: I updated the first post according to this

[sandos]

I have a laptop with displayport and a i5-540m.

Does anyone know if setting the Displayport to 24fps/23.xfps even though the internal screen is still 60 will work?

[m_o_d]

Hi,
I compiled the latest version of libdrm and libva (2010Q4) and XBMC version 10.0 with option --enable-vaapi unfortunately when you start the video encoded h.264 (x.264) XBMC crash.

Does anyone have similar experience?

My crash log: http://pastebin.com/ZYUDiB3d

Thanks

[sandos]

I have a laptop with displayport and a i5-540m.

Does anyone know if setting the Displayport to 24fps/23.xfps even though the internal screen is still 60 will work?

Actually, this seems to have worked fine. Everything went super-smooth, I have to say! I used the smoothvideo patch as well.

I was wondering about the 24p mode though for the suggested xorg.conf. Its named 24, but XBMC says its 23.xx fps?

[Rude-Dog]

I just reinstalled my machine (Core i3 mobile in an ASROCK 100HT) from scratch, following the guide again and pulling in some new packages as well.
While after the previous installation I had to overclock my GPU for some decent results, this is now no longer necessary. Both CPU and GPU load stay nice and low.

One thing that still is a bit of a dealbreaker for me though is the fact that searching messes everything up. If I fastforward any movie file or skip sections, there is a prolonged dropping of frames, it sometimes takes more than 15 seconds to recover, and audio/video might still be out of sync.
It is even the case that if I stop a movie after I see the issue above, the next movie I play from scratch will also drop frames and keep doing so for quite a while.
I had no such problems on my previous ION system. It effectively kills the option of fast forwarding which is really bad.
How is this working for you guys? Alan, do you see different behaviour on the Desktop version of this CPU/GPU?

I'm still tempted to buy the BCM970015 addon if I can't fix the above.

Thanks,

R-D

[alanwww1]

I'm still tempted to buy the BCM970015 addon if I can't fix the above.

Hi !

Yes, as i wrote in my previous posts i also have a behaviour, that sometimes starting the video (i have not tried fast forward, but i will) playback gets really choppy with half frame rate and a lot of dropped frames. After starting it again once or twice it plays perfectly smooth. It only happens with vaapi for me. I will have to investigate this. One thing is sure, that it is somehow a different issue than we had with the surface re-use problem. Somehow the decoder can not feed enough frames for the renderer. I will have to do some deep debugging to get into the bottom of this problem. I hope i can solve it.

Please check that it is also only coming out at vaapi decoded files. Also please check that this comes up on every vaapi decoded files or just some with a certain refcount (eg. the files which were played with stutter before my pacth)

I wouldn't recommend putting a Broadcom decoder into your machine. This could cause more troubles than you have at the moment :-) As i heard there are some stuttering and other decoding problems with certain high bitrate, high refcount h264 files. I'd suggest wait until me or Elupus or anjy other Dev can fix the occasional frame rate problem.

[alanwww1]

Actually, this seems to have worked fine. Everything went super-smooth, I have to say! I used the smoothvideo patch as well.

I was wondering about the 24p mode though for the suggested xorg.conf. Its named 24, but XBMC says its 23.xx fps?

Good to hear. The mode is 24Hz, but the framerate of the movie is 23.976fps. The difference is taken care by Bobo1on1's great smoothvideo feature :-)

[igjunk]

Good to hear. The mode is 24Hz, but the framerate of the movie is 23.976fps. The difference is taken care by Bobo1on1's great smoothvideo feature :-)

First of, great job alanwww1! I really appreciate the time and effort you are putting into this.

Can you please elaborate on this statement. Can the intel VA-API driver output the proper 23.976hz rate out via HDMI, or is it only limited to 24hz?

Thanks a lot!