How do you view DivX and other movies in fullscreen on your slow systems?
By picking the right software :-)
- MPlayer: This is only distributed
in source form, which is a Good Thing! The ./configure script
carefully probes your system and the program will be compiled with
very good optimizations. MMX, 3DNow, SSE and the like are extensively
used. This program is in constant development so be prepared to RTFM.
- FFMPEG libraries for
the above. This includes an open-source DivX codec which is much
faster than the closed options. It will be optimized along with the rest
of MPlayer.
- XFree86 with XVideo, OpenGL and/or DGA extensions on a suitable
graphics card. The first two give hardware scaling which leaves more
oomph for the decoding on the CPU.
- A decent compiler, i.e. latest stable GCC.
Quick guide to get it work:
- Upgrade your GCC, binutils and XFree86 if necessary. Remember to
install XFree86-devel packages. Run xvinfo and/or
dga to see if the extensions work - they might only run in
certain modes.
- Download and unpack MPlayer and ffmpeg. Copy a section of the
latter into the MPlayer tree:
cp -rf ffmpeg/libavcodec
MPlayer/
- In the MPlayer directory: ./configure; make
Test it:./mplayer -vo xv somefilm.avi
and if it works, get root and make install
- Read The Fabulous MPlayer/DOCS/documentation.html for config options etc.
Hints and notes:
- XVideo is faster than OpenGL. It accelerates colorspace conversion
in addition to scaling.
- If your card and X don't have XV or DGA, try the VESA driver. You
can 'scale' the image economically by choosing a low-res mode. Of
course the quality is not as good as that of decent interpolative
scalers. I've noticed I have to use a framebuffer console and kill X,
otherwise things mess up when exiting mplayer; YMMV and this may be
fixed already.
- The order to try video modes is XV, OpenGL, DGA (possibly
also sdl:dga). I haven't tried the others very much.
- DGA is best if you can switch resolutions quite freely; that way
MPlayer will choose the best-fit resolution, and not need any scaling.
- Use remote cvs to get the sources; it's easy to update them later
just by saying cvs update -dP in the main
directories. Perhaps use a script to update both packages and copy the
libavcodec.
