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2.2. Video cards
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2.2. Video cards

There are generally two kind of video cards. One kind (the newer cards) has hardware scaling and YUV acceleration support, the other cards don't.

2.2.1. YUV cards

They can display and scale (zoom) the picture to any size that fits in their memory, with small CPU usage (even when zooming), thus fullscreen is nice and very fast.

  • Matrox G200/G400/G450/G550 cards: although a Vidix driver is provided, it is recommended to use the mga_vid module instead, for it works much better. Please see the mga_vid section about its installation and usage. It is important to do these steps before compiling MPlayer, otherwise no mga_vid support will be built. Also check out the Matrox TV-out section. If you don't use Linux, your only possibility is the VIDIX driver: read the VIDIX section.

  • 3Dfx Voodoo3/Banshee cards: please see tdfxfb section in order to gain big speedup. It is important to do these steps before compiling MPlayer, otherwise no 3Dfx support will be built. If you use X, use at least 4.2.0, as 3dfx Xv driver was broken in 4.1.0, and earlier releases.

  • ATI cards: VIDIX driver is provided for the following cards: Radeon, Rage128, Mach64 (Rage XL/Mobility, Xpert98). Also see the ATI cards section of the TV-out documentation, to know if you card's TV-out is supported under Linux/MPlayer.

  • S3 cards: the Savage and Virge/DX chips have hardware acceleration. Use as new XFree86 version as possible, older drivers are buggy. Savage chips have problems with YV12 display, see S3 Xv section for details. Older, Trio cards have no, or slow hardware support.

  • nVidia cards: may or may not be good choice for video playing. If you do not have a GeForce2 (or newer) card, it's not likely to work without bugs. the built-in nVidia driver in XFree86 does not support hardware YUV acceleration on all nVidia cards. You have to download nVidia's closed-source drivers from nVidia.com. See the nVidia Xv driver section for details. Please also check the nVidia TV-out section if you wish to use a TV.

  • 3DLabs GLINT R3 and Permedia3: a VIDIX driver is provided (pm3_vid). Please see the VIDIX section for details.

  • Other cards: none of the above?

    • Try if the XFree86 driver (and your card) supports hardware acceleration. See the Xv section for details.
    • If it doesn't, then your card's video features aren't supported under your operating system :( If hardware scaling works under Windows, it doesn't mean it will work under Linux or other operating system, it depends on the drivers. Most manufacturers neither make Linux drivers nor release specifications of their chips - so you are unlucky if using their cards. See Non-YUV cards.

2.2.2. Non-YUV cards

Fullscreen playing can be achieved by either enabling software scaling (use the -zoom or -vf option, but I warn you: this is slow), or switching to a smaller video mode, for example 352x288. If you don't have YUV acceleration, this latter method is recommended. Video mode switching can be enabled by using the -vm option and it works with the following drivers:

  • using XFree86: see details in DGA driver and X11 driver sections. DGA is recommended! Also try DGA via SDL, sometimes it's better.
  • not using XFree86: try the drivers in the following order: vesa, fbdev, svgalib, aalib.

2.2.3. Cirrus-Logic cards

  • GD 7548: present on-board and tested in Compaq Armada 41xx notebook series.

    • XFree86 3: works in 8/16bpp modes. However, the driver is dramatically slow and buggy in 800x600@16bpp. Recommended: 640x480@16bpp
    • XFree86 4: the Xserver freezes soon after start unless acceleration is disabled, but then the whole thing gets slower than XFree86 3. No XVideo.
    • FBdev: framebuffer can be turned on with the clgenfb driver in the kernel, though for me it worked only in 8bpp, thus unusable. The clgenfb source had to be extended with the 7548 ID before compilation.
    • VESA: the card is only VBE 1.2 capable, so VESA output can't be used. Can't be workarounded with UniVBE.
    • SVGAlib: detects an older Cirrus chip. Usable but slow with -bpp 8.

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