Hallo,
my Mplayer (and also Smplayer) is bit broken in fullscreen. In Smplayer the video is slower and choppy. Not lot, but it's really annoying. When I run Mplayer from cmd, it's even worse (still talking about fullscreen) - the video is absolutely out of sync with audio after few seconds.

My configuration:
[michal@arch-linux ~]$ uname -rp
2.6.31-ARCH AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+

[michal@arch-linux ~]$ lspci |grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200] (rev 01)

[michal@arch-linux ~]$ glxinfo |grep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer

Driver specified in xorg.conf: Driver "vesa"
("radeon" doesn't work and fglrx neither)

WM: Openbox 3.4.8 + xcompmgr

Video output: xv or x11
(Any other doesn't work under normal user. Under root I can play movies with xvidix and probably few others. Howerver there are also few problems - green borders and few other parts of window)

What I have tried
I have tried to add lines

Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
Option "TexturedVideo" "on"

into my xorg.conf - whitout success. As I wrote, I also tried to change video outputs in (S)Mplayer. And the last thing - I have been playing with checkboxes in Smplayer - un/check stuff like "Direct rendering", "Postproccessing", or "Drop frames" didn't help.

Have you got any idea what to do? Movies are almost unwatchable and it makes me crazy...

Have you tried the ati driver?

You might not even need an xorg.conf with the latest xorg hotplugging enabled in archlinux. The ati driver will be used by default.

I have a Radeon 9600 card working (mostly) well enough like this.

The vesa driver is going to be slow. Period. Xv is not supported, so I'm not sure how you tried that. And none of those options you tried in your xorg.conf do anything with the vesa driver. You will need to get the 'radeon' driver working.

If you tell us what problem you have with the radeon driver, we might be able to help you fix it.

Adam

Thank you for replay. The problem is very simple - X doesn't start (only option after reboot is to log into console and put "vesa" back).

[michal@arch-linux ~]$ modprobe radeon
[michal@arch-linux ~]$ modprobe radeon -r
FATAL: Module radeon is in use.

(The first "modprobe" didn't insert, or plugged (or how should I call it) the module in kernel - simply do nothing)

Should I install something special, or the driver is only kernel module (and entry in xorg.conf)? I have installed "catalyst" (it should be fglrx, I think), but I couldn't modprobe it. So, any other ideas?

Well installing catalyst may have screwed things up even more. It hasn't supported your GPU in probably 5+ years. 'modprobe radeon', if it works properly, won't show any output.

So let's start with this.. Completely remove the catalyst drivers, attempt to start Xorg using the radeon driver, and then attach the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file that is generated to a post here.

Adam

I don't know, how much do you need - here is the end of log.

(II) LoadModule: "radeon"
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module radeon
(II) UnloadModule: "radeon"
(EE) Failed to load module "radeon" (module does not exist, 0)
(EE) No drivers available.

Fatal server error:
no screens found

Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support
at http://wiki.x.org
for help.
Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.

(Here is the unchanged version of log: http://kvaky.net/nahrano/Xorg.log)

I know, what does it say - there is no driver called "radeon". Probably it needs some extra package. I have found dkms-fglrx in AUR, but it wonť solve the problem with radeon. The description says "Proprietary kernel drivers/modules for.... (9500 and later)..." Should I try it? Or is it the same as "catalyst"?
I'm sorry for my stupid questions, but I'm really unsure and a bit afraid about my PC (I don't want reinstall every third month )

fglrx is the same as catalyst on linux. You need to install the radeon driver, but I'm not sure how that's packaged in arch. 'radeon' is packaged with the 'ati' driver, and many distributions have an xf86-video-ati package. Do you see one for Arch?

Adam

Yes, there is a package called xf86-video-ati and I have not installed it!

So I have installed it. And the result? The glxgears performance: from 90 FPS I have 900 FPS. And that is amazing. Also the movies ale running smoothly.

Thanks a lot, you have saved a lot of my nerves. Thank you.
Best regards, Michal Kváček.