Hi,

Currently I'm using RH as my main distro, but I'm not pleased with it's performance in dvd play. Where even windows XP can provide my with good dvd-playback on my 400 mhz. RH doesn't seem to manage it. I've tried every dvd-play (ogle performs best) and I've tried the native redhat audio driver and alsa driver. I've also udes dma on the drive and tried every accelerating option the players have to offer, but it keeps performing poorly.

Could anyone offer me a solution or give advice on which distro would perform better?

Anne

I also use Linux and only Linux on a Intel Pentium 2 - 400 MHZ in one of my machines. I can run DVD's and VCD's with a good performance under that machine. But it was not always like that . If you use Xine to play those medias, you may have to change under Xine's setup some of the configurations that may slow down the performance like:

Gui = you don't need Xsyncronize, stream or zoom activaded. (they are mostly for debugging)
Video = you don't need double buffer or autopainting actives.

Do the same with everything that you think may slow down the machine... it works quite smooth for me. There're also other players around which peoples like like mplayer or avifile. Just google them
and good luck

Oops, I forget to tell you. I use Mandrake 9.0. I've seem a post here somewhere with peoples complaining about RedHat 8.0's speed too. You may want to try a newer distro as 9.0 or even Mandrake I like Mandrake's packages, but indeed, as all Linux Distros, it cames with a plenty of useless programs, but I really like that distro . My 2 cents

I was thinking about swtiching to mandrake b/c I'd heard that they provide better multimedia support (e.g. use alsa drivers as default), but I'll wait to install it until I get my adsl which will be -hopefully- in three week, and then I can go and download it.

I will have to give debian a go with dvd as well, but so far i haven't been doing much with debian b/c I'm waiting for adsl to make good use of apt-get.

Anne

the distro you choose will have no relation to the ability to play dvd's. it's not a relevant connection to make really. just try a decent player like mplayer, try using decent video outputs like xvideo and you should be fine. it's possibly kde using up all the resources or something

I'm using fluxbox so I doubt that my problem lies with the windowmanager. Although flux does have some issues with RH8 so I might try dvd play in gnome.
I'll also install the latest nvidia drivers, that might help

Anne

hmm, well hwat does mplayer's output say? what video outputs are you trying to use in these programs? if you're using a stard x11 output then all the video will go via the X server, which will slow everything down to a crawl, esp on a lower spec system.

I'll have to get back to you on that after work, that'll be in about 9 hours :-(

Anne