I get jumpy, laggy video playback of local mp4s when running Debian 8 or 9 off my SSD HD but the same video runs smoothly, oddly enough, when I boot from any liveCD like Debian 8 or Mint. Any ideas how I could improve performance from the HD (stats below)?


Processor : 2x Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T2390 @ 1.86GHz
Memory : 3111MB (1220MB used)
Resolution : 1280x800 pixels
OpenGL Renderer : Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.5, 128 bits)
X11 Vendor : The X.Org Foundation


-Version-
Kernel : Linux 3.16.0-4-686-pae (i686)
Distribution : Debian GNU/Linux 8.11
Desktop Environment : Unknown (Window Manager: GNOME Shell)
Load Average : 0.73, 0.96, 0.92


lspci
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV516/M64-S [Mobility Radeon X2300]
Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device
Kernel driver in use: radeon


Architecture: i686
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 2
On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
Model name: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T2390 @ 1.86GHz
Stepping: 13
CPU MHz: 1867.000
CPU max MHz: 1867.0000
CPU min MHz: 800.0000
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 1024K

RV516 is around 13 years old. Gnome was far less demanding when it was new than it is now.

If using the xserver-xorg-video-ati-radeon X driver, try switching to the modesetting X driver. If using modesetting try radeon. In Debian 8 Jessie, the modesetting driver is provided by xserver-xorg-video-modesetting. In newer releases with server 1.17.x or newer, the modesetting driver was merged into the xserver package, so should be used automatically if the radeon driver is not installed.

Are the live CDs you tried also using the resource-hungry Gnome shell? For an installed distro, are there background tasks eating CPU cycles?

Is the video still choppy if you use a less demanding DE, such as IceWM or TDE.

I don;t really see anything super resource hungry on the installed version:


PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1113 joe 20 0 621280 314112 49548 R 32.9 10.1 108:50.83 gnome-shell
783 root 20 0 186000 90044 20228 S 9.3 2.9 37:04.48 Xorg
7470 joe 20 0 368540 83672 56408 S 3.3 2.7 4:52.27 totem
13 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 2.3 0.0 2:02.14 ksoftirqd/1
10638 joe 20 0 81176 29648 23668 S 1.7 1.0 0:00.90 gedit
7 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 1.3 0.0 0:48.54 rcu_sched
1088 joe 9 -11 166556 10572 8436 S 1.3 0.3 2:16.27 pulseaudio
2230 joe 20 0 68128 25160 19544 S 0.7 0.8 0:08.50 gnome-terminal-
2519 joe 20 0 81148 25528 20864 S 0.7 0.8 2:04.90 psensor
749 root 20 0 18916 1780 1632 S 0.3 0.1 1:48.26 cpufreqd
1011 joe 20 0 70408 9240 8340 S 0.3 0.3 0:00.44 x-session-manag
1191 joe 20 0 38680 13320 7300 S 0.3 0.4 0:01.03 applet.py
1368 joe 20 0 1220716 430676 56984 S 0.3 13.8 76:51.19 iceweasel
1 root 20 0 24308 4040 2864 S 0.0 0.1 0:03.76 systemd
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.02 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:33.59 ksoftirqd/0
5 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/0:0H
8 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rcu_bh
9 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.06 migration/0
10 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.22 watchdog/0
11 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.24 watchdog/1
12 root rt 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.86 migration/1
15 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/1:0H
16 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper
17 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kdevtmpfs

Yes, one LiveCD was also running Gnome.

I will check out IceWM and TDE. However, I once tried out LXDE and XFCE for the same reason but it had no effect so I returned to Gnome.

How do I switch to the modesetting X driver?

That 32.9% + 9.3% is a lot of CPU for simply running a DE.

Two ways:
1-edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf to specify the desired driver, or
2-uninstall the driver(s) you wish not used (xserver-xorg-video-ati,xserver-xorg-video-radeon,xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu)(in Jessie and other older distros also is required xserver-xorg-video-modesetting be installed)

I read up on this and found the general structure I need to put in that conf.d file (it doesn't yet exist on my platform), and example I found for a different gpu:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce GT 640"
BusID "PCI:4:0:0"
EndSection

How do I find out the values for my Radeon? Is there a list of possible options somewhere online?
My BusID based on lspci (see above) appears to be: 01:00.0 --- can this be right, since it doesn't fit the above format?
I am out of my depth on this and pretty afraid of winding up with just a black screen and whirring fan.

This one has been shipping in openSUSE since 2011. As you can see being nothing but comments, it wouldn't do anything as is. It's an optional file. Removing #s from four lines would make it specify radeon:

The Radeon firmware seems to be failing (leading to GPU deactivation) for some reason. This is presumably the root of the problem.

I installed the non-free drivers but no improvement. I wonder whether this R520 driver is suitable for the Radeon I ride:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2048 Oct 13 21:27 R300_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2048 Oct 13 21:27 R420_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2048 Oct 13 21:27 R520_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21504 Oct 13 21:27 R600_me.bin

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV516/M64-S [Mobility Radeon X2300]


Dmesg seems to show Radeon driver failing and GPU deactivating:


[ 25.682863] [drm] Detected VRAM RAM=128M, BAR=128M
[ 25.682865] [drm] RAM width 64bits DDR
[ 25.691863] [TTM] Zone kernel: Available graphics memory: 435786 kiB
[ 25.691867] [TTM] Zone highmem: Available graphics memory: 1553262 kiB
[ 25.691868] [TTM] Initializing pool allocator
[ 25.691922] [drm] radeon: 128M of VRAM memory ready
[ 25.691924] [drm] radeon: 512M of GTT memory ready.
[ 25.691954] [drm] GART: num cpu pages 131072, num gpu pages 131072
[ 25.709149] [drm] radeon: 1 quad pipes, 1 z pipes initialized.
[ 25.764225] [drm] PCIE GART of 512M enabled (table at 0x0000000000040000).
[ 25.765394] input: HDA Digital PCBeep as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.2/sound/card0/input15
[ 25.765838] input: HDA ATI SB Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.2/sound/card0/input16
[ 25.765968] input: HDA ATI SB Headphone as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.2/sound/card0/input17
[ 25.775300] radeon 0000:01:00.0: WB enabled
[ 25.775316] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 0 use gpu addr 0x0000000008000000 and cpu addr 0xff8d9000
[ 25.775359] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).
[ 25.775360] [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
[ 25.775363] radeon 0000:01:00.0: radeon: MSI limited to 32-bit
[ 25.775427] [drm] radeon: irq initialized.
[ 25.778031] [drm] Loading R500 Microcode
[ 25.782816] radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load radeon/R520_cp.bin (-2)
[ 25.782888] radeon 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for radeon/R520_cp.bin failed with error -2
[ 25.782979] [drm:r100_cp_init [radeon]] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
[ 25.783051] radeon 0000:01:00.0: failed initializing CP (-2).
[ 25.783106] radeon 0000:01:00.0: Disabling GPU acceleration
[ 25.783212] [drm] radeon: cp finalized
[ 25.789691] [drm] Radeon Display Connectors
[ 25.789696] [drm] Connector 0:
[ 25.789697] [drm] VGA-1
[ 25.789700] [drm] DDC: 0x7e40 0x7e40 0x7e44 0x7e44 0x7e48 0x7e48 0x7e4c 0x7e4c
[ 25.789701] [drm] Encoders:
[ 25.789707] [drm] CRT1: INTERNAL_KLDSCP_DAC1
[ 25.789708] [drm] Connector 1:
[ 25.789709] [drm] LVDS-1
[ 25.789711] [drm] DDC: 0x7e60 0x7e60 0x7e64 0x7e64 0x7e68 0x7e68 0x7e6c 0x7e6c
[ 25.789712] [drm] Encoders:
[ 25.789714] [drm] LCD1: INTERNAL_LVTM1

Wondering if vesa driver will bring more joy? It is how I roll on my AntiX distro based a little on debian on problem gear with open source savage drivers,

Edit: because newer xorg and open source driver maintainers sometimes have strained working relationships.

Problem with my post is. I have the vesa option during the installer process.

In case you wanna try while in text boot screen without logging into gui. I cannot swear this will not bork your install. I would not be afraid to try it because a reinstall only takes me a few minutes.

The period after "radeon" deletes all radeon config files. Leave it on or off as you prefer.

Then install vesa in jessie 8

Since this is only a sd card that can be switched from computer to computer. With only changing the wlanx settings to connect up. Vesa is a good all around video driver in this use case-age.

VESA is slow! (ancient technology; no acceleration)
VESA supports no widescreen or HiDPI modes (for most environments this means distortion is normal).

VESA driver use cases do not include playing videos without stuttering or freezing. Its use cases include:
1-servers (enables using GUI tools; speed a non-issue; no need for video playback; mismatched aspect ratios unimportant)
2-rescue environments (same reasons as #1)
3-ancient hardware (devs don't have it to test with and/or wouldn't even if they could)
4-system installation (easy for devs to configure; speed a non-issue; no need for video playback; due to universal video BIOS support it works for hardware that lacks current driver support)

Yoyu missed quoting the savage driver I mentioned

Thanks for the support.

Another possibility is that your choice of video player is using an old or "non-optimal" config file on the h/d while the liveCD's are using auto/default config files.
How does web surfing compare when visiting Youtube for example or different media players?