Help me with xine-check

Alien_Hominid · 04-03-2006, 02:30 PM

Everybody is talking about speeding dvd playing performance, so I also decided to do it.
Running xine-check shows:

Code:

[ hint ] you have MTRR support but it's unused.
         It seems like your X server didn't set any MTRR ranges for the
         graphics card. Maybe upgrading your X server helps...
         You don't have a PCI graphics card, do you? AFAIK, MTRR only
         helps with AGP cards.
         press <enter> to continue...

[ hint ] DMA is disabled for your DVD interface.
         This will probably result in a serious performance hit when
         playing DVDs. You can issue the command
         hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc
         as root to enable DMA. It would be wise to add this command to
         some script that is executed executed at boot time.
         Note that you probably have to set the DMA mode for your drive as well.
         Most DVD-ROMs work fine with multiword DMA mode 2. You can use
         hdparm -d1 -X34 /dev/hdc
         (as root again) to set this mode. Maybe UDMA2 will give you even better
         performance, but it only works well with some controllers. You'll
         probably need UDMA capable IDE cables for this mode. If you want
         to try: make backups of your important data and type (as root again)
         sync hdparm -d1 -X66 /dev/hdc
         If your System still works fine after this, you probably want to keep
         these settings (add them to some boot script).
         If your system hangs or behaves very strangely after a few minutes,
         you should reboot immediately and never use this setting again on this
         machine. Good luck ;-)
         press <enter> to continue...

Code:

# cat /proc/mtrr
reg00: base=0x00000000 (   0MB), size=1024MB: write-back, count=1

What does this 1024 mean? I have Nvidia GeForce Fx 5700 256 Mb.
Another problem with dma:

Code:

 hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc
/dev/hdc:
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
 using_dma    =  0 (off)

Other mentioned options show similar error.

XavierP · 04-03-2006, 02:51 PM

Did you run hdparm as the user or as root? It needs root access. The 1024 is, I believe, block sizes.

Alien_Hominid · 04-03-2006, 03:10 PM

Of course as root.

Code:

root@UFO:~#  hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc

/dev/hdc:
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
 using_dma    =  0 (off)

Don't know if this helps but have nec cd-rw/dvd-rw drive ( _NEC DVD_RW ND-2500A).

Alien_Hominid · 04-04-2006, 12:25 AM

Any suggestions?

wchild · 04-04-2006, 02:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien_Hominid

Of course as root.

Code:

root@UFO:~#  hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc

/dev/hdc:
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
 using_dma    =  0 (off)

Do you have DMA support enabled in your kernel?
Are you sure your device is /dev/hdc and not /dev/something_else ?

Alien_Hominid · 04-04-2006, 10:04 AM

DMA and MTRR are enabled in the kernel.
Yes, I am sure (it's secondary master).

WilliamS · 04-04-2006, 10:13 AM

I put hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc
In /etc/rc.d/rc.local so it is enabled at boot.

I also put there
hdparm -d1 /dev/hda

and I've install Nvidia drivers for 3d acceleration, thinking this might have something to do with speed.

Alien_Hominid · 04-04-2006, 10:54 AM

Code:

hdparm -d1 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

My HDD is sata one.

vharishankar · 04-04-2006, 11:03 AM

You shouldn't have to use hdparm to enable DMA.

If you go to the kernel configuration (assuming you're brave enough to compile a kernel) you should see this option in Device Drivers -> Block Devices and enable support for S-ATA.

Then goto to ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support and go through all the options. See which chipset your driver supports. Choose the driver as Y and then save the configuration. Quit.

Then make the kernel using make then issue make modules_install and make bzImage.

You should copy the created bzImage to /boot/ directory as vmlinuz-2.x.y (where x and y are major and minor kernel version) and System.map to /boot/System.map-2.x.y and .config to /boot/config-2.x.y). Now update your kernel symlinks (/boot/vmlinuz, /boot/System.map and /boot/config) to your new kernel and reboot.

Alien_Hominid · 04-04-2006, 11:40 AM

Actually SATA support must be checked in
Device drivers >> SCSI device support >> SCSI device support >> SCSI low-level drivers >> Serial ATA (SATA) support and selecting correct chipset.
And what's the point of doing it?
I already have my SATA support enabled.

vharishankar · 04-04-2006, 12:04 PM

If you choose the correct chipset and compile it into the kernel, your DMA performance will be optimum.

Quote:

And what's the point of doing it?

This is so... but what is the kernel version? Also have you compiled in the specific chipset? It has a list there (I'm using make gconfig with kernel 2.6.16).

Alien_Hominid · 04-04-2006, 12:10 PM

Here is everything I found related to DMA in my kernel config:

Code:

CONFIG_GENERIC_ISA_DMA=y
CONFIG_ISA_DMA_API=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_PCI=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA_FORCED is not set
CONFIG_IDEDMA_PCI_AUTO=y
# CONFIG_IDEDMA_ONLYDISK is not set
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_PIIX=y (this is my specific chipset - some kind of Intel)
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA=y
# CONFIG_IDEDMA_IVB is not set
CONFIG_IDEDMA_AUTO=y
# CONFIG_BLK_DEV_HD is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_PDC_ADMA is not set (don't know whether this is related to dma)

Kernel version: 2.6.16-rc5.

Code:

Intel PIIXn chipsets support BLK_DEV_PIIX

This driver adds explicit support for Intel PIIX and ICH chips
and also for the Efar Victory66 (slc90e66) chip.  This allows
the kernel to change PIO, DMA and UDMA speeds and to configure
the chip to optimum performance.

Don't know if this chipset is right but this the only one for Intel.

vharishankar · 04-04-2006, 12:17 PM

Hmm.. the only suggestion I can give is to check your motherboard manual to verify (if you haven't done already).

BTW, My board is the old IDE board and doesn't have SATA. I use the nForce chipset drivers in the IDE chipset driver list.

Alien_Hominid · 04-04-2006, 12:23 PM

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...e=GA-8IG1000-G - here is my motherboard specification.

egag · 04-04-2006, 05:46 PM

did you already check the bios-settings for dma ?

egag