[sinarquia]

Hi!

Trying to get better performance from my Celeron HTPC, I found some posts about adding the "UseEvents" option to the xorg.conf file when using NVIDIA cards.

I added
Option "UseEvents" "True"

to the Section "Device" of the xorg.conf file, and got about 2x improved performance (720p Heroes used to play at 95%, now at about 50%).

Is there any downside to that? Why is it not on by default?

Has anyone else had similar results? Can we recommend it?

My GPU is an integrated GeForce 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 630i.

Thanks,

Luis

[jking2100]

What version of the NVidia driver are you using? I am using 177.80 and I will test this this evening.

JKing

[jking2100]

I found this...

Option "UseEvents" "boolean"

Enables the use of system events in some cases when the X driver is waiting for the hardware. The X driver can briefly spin through a tight loop when waiting for the hardware. With this option the X driver instead sets an event handler and waits for the hardware through the poll() system call. Default: the use of the events is disabled.

[mdalacu]

No effect for me. (UseEvents + TripleBuffers)... Same drops for me (~200) with killa.sampla.x264.mkv

My hardware: AMD Athlon 64X2 4600+ Nvidia 7900 GT 2GB RAM

[BLKMGK]

No effect for me. (UseEvents + TripleBuffers)... Same drops for me (~200) with killa.sampla.x264.mkv

My hardware: AMD Athlon 64X2 4600+ Nvidia 7900 GT 2GB RAM

CPU too slow. C2D have to run about 3ghz to play that back smoothly. You're at 2.4ghz on a CPU that clock for clock is slower than an Intel. You're going to need a faster CPU to say the least - can you overclock that one any? If so you may see the numbers of dropped frames go down...

[Aron Parsons]

CPU too slow. C2D have to run about 3ghz to play that back smoothly. You're at 2.4ghz on a CPU that clock for clock is slower than an Intel. You're going to need a faster CPU to say the least - can you overclock that one any? If so you may see the numbers of dropped frames go down...

I don't even think overclocking an AMD chip will result in smooth playback of that clip. I've tried overclocking my 5800+ to 3.2GHz and it will still drop frames. The improvement is minimal from the stock clock rate of 3.0GHz. I just think the AMD X2 chips can't handle the requirements for that clip.

That being said, outside of the insane bitrates present in the killa sample, my AMD chip at 3.0GHz can handle every sane clip I throw at it. I would imagine 2.4GHz would be too slow for the standard 1080p x264 you can find out there. I don't see any reason to beat yourself up over it though; hopefully within another year we'll see GPU assisted decoding and more efficient multi-threaded decoding from ffmpeg.

[BLKMGK]

If you do much BD ripping and transcoding you may find that the Killa' Sample while intensive is somewhat indicative of a high bitrate BD. Before I overclocked my C2D I dropped frames on that clip - and in moves that had been ripped. I encode these myself and I know my settings are fairly high but I was most unhappy to see frames dropping. clocked the CPU up and the frames were smooth both in the test clip and in my rips.

So, if the content you're using is stuff off the 'net then yeah the Killa' Sample isn't exactly a good benchmark. But if yuo are encoding your own stuff and trying to maintain good quality then that clip is actually a good one for testing. My encodes of Planet Earth sure proved REAL intensive let me tell you!

[rodalpho]

Nothing short of liquid nitrogen will allow you to overclock your CPU enough to play the killa sampla smoothly on an athlon. It's ridiculously high bitrate.

[sinarquia]

Nvidia drivers 169.12 (ubuntu 8.04).
Sorry for wasting your time. Activating "UseEvents" has no notable effect; it was something else that was "hogging" the computer; I've yet to identify the cause.