Zacate Users: What is the optimal config for HD video?
 

I been using a HP dm1z with a Zacate E450 processor. I have everything working on it. However, graphics performance have been lackluster, or buggy.

The open source driver seems to be far more stable for me, but I have full screen issues when playing avi files. At least in mplayer. Is there a config that is optimal with the open source driver? Does VLC, or some other video playing program work better with the open source driver?

I get much better video performance with the closed source driver, but I still can't play 1080p video without stutter. I also can't use vaapi, as it makes X crash completely. Only gl2. Is there a particular Ati driver version that is more stable with vaapi? I also cannot suspend to ram properly using the closed source driver. (Using ati-drivers-11.12)

My experience with the closed source drivers are not good as well - I wasn't able to make xvba/vaapi working and also have issues with suspend to anything. But what really forces me to use open source driver is that in gnome3, the closed driver produces a lots of artifacts, while open driver works flawlessly.

With mplayer/mplayer2, I somehow wasn't able to get rid of tearing. With VLC, everything is OK. If you prefer mplayer way of not showing any controls, you can use cvlc command (part of standard vlc package) to get the same.

For FullHD video, I believe that E450 doesn't have enough horsepower to decode it in software only, so xvba is the way to go. I tried several howtos, but wasn't able to get it running myself though. Good luck :-)

No kidding about the suspend part. I tried to wake mine from suspend and it fried the speakers!

I only had this netbook for a week, so at least I can RMA it. It failed to reinitialize after suspend, and the speakers let out a big load of static. The speakers haven't worked since.

It's a shame because I have everything working great now with the open source drivers. Even fluid 720p, which is good enough for now until I figure out how to enable vaapi. I still get sound through the audio out jack, so even that works still. Just not the speakers. I have no tearing issue, but I also leave compositing off, which is easy to do in Xfce.

Btw, I was able to remove tearing with compositing on with the closed source driver by enabling tear free with the amd control panel. That can be ran in Gentoo by running /opt/bin/amdcccle. It may be in a different location depending on distro. It has qt dependencies though.