[AP0ll0UK]

Evening All

I've been playing with console emulation on my Ubuntu 14.04 x64 machine in the last few days [my son wants to go back over the original Resident Evil games]. Due to emulation issues and low FPS I've have gone from the Nouveau driver to the nVidia 331.38 proprietary for my GT 640. Whilst this has helped increase my FPS in emulation, its had a knock-on to playback in XBMC. In particular, low FPS, high number of errors and some skipped / dropped frames regardless of the quality of the file.

I'd prefer not to have to go back to the Nouveau driver, stick with the nVidia proprietary driver and get to the bottom of the playback issues - at this stage I'm a little stuck so I've attached my debug log in the hope that someone can help. Pastebin Link The first couple of files I play seem ok but the third runs at about 15 fps.

I have a separate issue with audio as my system is connected to the TV via HDMI, but my audio goes via an optical cable into my 5.1 system. If there are any issues highlighted in the debg log RE audio sync then I'll cover this in a seperate thread as it's been ongoing for a while and I'm aware of it.

I've had a look around for optiumum nVidia settings and unless I've missed a thread, I can only find an old post that refers to various tweaks which I don't know if they are still applicable to 13.2 Git:0f3db05 and Ubuntu 14.04.

If there is any other information I can provide then please let me know.

[nickr]

You should make sure that you have VDPAU acceleration turned on in XBMC's video playback settings.

You should also ensure that your audio settings are correct - believe it or not if the settings are wrong the immediately noticeable effect is in video playback!

If none of that seems to work, provide a debug log (wiki) to pastebin or similar. Easiest way to post to pastebin in Ubuntu is to install pastebinit and then run

Code:

pastebinit .xbmc/log/xbmc.log

You'll note that a url is left behind - copy and paste it here.

[wsnipex]

did you set deinterlacing to always on?
20:46:44 T:140423452407552 ERROR: CMixer::InitCycle - interlace method: 1 not supported, setting to AUTO
20:46:46 T:140423469192960 ERROR: Previous line repeats 49 times.
20:46:46 T:140423469192960 DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuity2 - was:4041961.711872, should be:4022564.889521, error:-19396.822351
20:46:46 T:140423452407552 ERROR: CMixer::InitCycle - interlace method: 1 not supported, setting to AUTO
20:46:46 T:140424403613440 ERROR: Previous line repeats 16 times.

Further, you have enabled audio passthrough in Xbmc, make sure PulseAudio (wiki) is configured correctly.

[AP0ll0UK]

Thanks for the feedback. I've posted my responses and some updates below:-

You should make sure that you have VDPAU acceleration turned on in XBMC's video playback settings.

You should also ensure that your audio settings are correct - believe it or not if the settings are wrong the immediately noticeable effect is in video playback!

If none of that seems to work, provide a debug log (wiki) to pastebin or similar. Easiest way to post to pastebin in Ubuntu is to install pastebinit and then run

Code:

pastebinit .xbmc/log/xbmc.log

You'll note that a url is left behind - copy and paste it here.

VDPAU acceleration is enabled.

My audio settings weren't correct but I've included a proper update on this below

Pastebin link was included in the middle of my first message albeit in the middle of the post, sorry if it was tucked away but I'll remember that for next time.

did you set deinterlacing to always on?
20:46:44 T:140423452407552 ERROR: CMixer::InitCycle - interlace method: 1 not supported, setting to AUTO
20:46:46 T:140423469192960 ERROR: Previous line repeats 49 times.
20:46:46 T:140423469192960 DEBUG: CDVDPlayerAudio:: Discontinuity2 - was:4041961.711872, should be:4022564.889521, error:-19396.822351
20:46:46 T:140423452407552 ERROR: CMixer::InitCycle - interlace method: 1 not supported, setting to AUTO
20:46:46 T:140424403613440 ERROR: Previous line repeats 16 times.

Further, you have enabled audio passthrough in Xbmc, make sure PulseAudio (wiki) is configured correctly.

I did have deinterlacing enabled but have now disabled it. My audio definately was configured properly but now is. Here goes....


When I first built this system based on Ubuntu 14.04 and the latest XBMC at the time, I was having problems with 5.1 / DTS surround sound which was becoming very frustrating. I stumbled across this thread [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1608804] and ended up getting it to work, although I believe this not a very good workaround. The trouble I've had is that the last time I ended up trying to sort out the audio, my system was down for 2 days and my wife was getting annoyed. However, since then the audio was getting out of sync by .25ms after roughly 30 minutes of playback. The only workaround I had for that was to adjust the audio sync every 30 minutes but this has become very annoying.

I made a decision this week after playing with the emulators that I need to resolve the remaining issues I have with this build before adding additional functionality. Not many of the issues are XBMC related, a lot are Ubuntu or third party and are more related to my lack of knowledge on Linux than actual bugs - things for me to investigate. Tonight I agreed some downtime with the Mrs and have tried to plough through things.

I've reversed the steps above regarding audio and reinstalled Alsa and Pulseaudio, and configured Pulseaudio as per the Wiki. After a bit of fiddling with Pavcontrol I have 5.1 / DTS working, my system is connected from the SPDIF port straight into my receiver via an optical cable. I don't know if it's just my imagination but the quality of the surround sound does seem a lot better than it has been,

I've also disabled Deinterlacing as suggested and things seem to be much better. Should I not be able to use Deinterlacing though?

Dropped Frames and Skipped Frames seem to be a lot lower, although they are still there.

Audio playback whilst better still seems to be getting out of sync after about 10 minutes of playback.

I've included the latest debug log below, hopefully it should look a little cleaner. Just need to try and nail these last couple of problems. I had to remove some entries from the log regarding Tv channels and EPG updates otherwise the log would have exceeded Pastebin's 500k limit for non-premium users.

New Pastebin link here - http://pastebin.com/JQ6r24cv

[nickr]

I did miss your pastebin in the first post, my apologies.

I regard pulseaudio as evil in a media player and avoid it at all costs. However if you do use it, you really do have to go through the long and tedious crap on this page:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=PulseAudio

As a point of comparison, shove openelec on a USB stick and see how that runs.

Also I see you have some banned-topic addons in there, there is nothing XBMC devs or helpers can do if one of these is part of the problem.

[fritsch]

Forcing Deinterlace to On .... is your issue. You have an idea what "Deinterlace" does and when you need it?

Keep that Setting to Auto - always.

[wsnipex]

I'd also get rid of the huge load of dubious plugins you have there, at least till you can rule out they cause issues.