How can I optimize video playback?

[linkmint]

Hi,

I've been trying a couple of mint editions, Main, XFCE, and now fluxbox, on my Aspire One 150; so far it's a great distro (I've been using Elyssa since it's release on a laptop) that's why I would like to install it on my netbook but when I play a video, using any video player, (VLC, MPlayer, etc) I can clearly see the vertical screen refresh , So far I've configured and tried all video output modules, (X11, X11 extension, OpenGL, etc), disabled compiz, I even stopped extra services I don't need like bluetooth, printer; anyway, so I don't know what else to do I've googled for a solution for the past 2 months now, I even tried configuring the mttr with no results, except making general performance slow, so Is there a way to optimize video playback? If there is anything I need to post I will do it gladly because I truly want to have mint to work. Thanks beforehand.

[igorzwx]

The root cause of troubles seems to be the evil PulseAudio.

Withiout PulseAudio, all kinds of Ubuntu are working well on my old boxes (2003 and 2001).
Skype, Ekiga, Audacity, flash, video players, etc. Fantastic performance.

All howtos are here:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=32173
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[linkmint]

I read the post you suggested igorzwx, however pulseaudio is not installed on my system so it is not the cause, anyway I tried with ALSA and OSS as default audio mixers but it made no difference, if it's of any use, I have no sound problems at all. Thanks anyway for your time.

[lagagnon]

igorzwx: the OP has a video problem, not a sound problem, so I think your suggestion is misdirected.

linkmint: I think the solution is about halfway down this webpage: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne

[igorzwx]

As far as I know, in Linux, both audio and video playback means CPU.
That is why audio problem may create a video problem,
and other way round.
Do not forget that PulseAudio is both a network server and a sound server.
This means both CPU and RAM troubles.

The user seems to believe that ALSA emulattion of OSS is the real OSS.
I would not be surprised that he has PulseAudio installed, and believe that he has not.

[igorzwx]

Hi florix!

Is it a problem of NVIDIA?
His netbook might be as powerful as my the most ancient box.
And no such problems with videos.

[linkmint]

Sorry for taking so long to answer but school and work don't get along very well. I tried all of your ideas, I enabled "Sync to VBlank" but it didn't work, I also used and external monitor but the Vertical refresh is still present According to Synaptic PulseAudio, as such, is not installed on my system however I can be wrong. I recently messed a little bit with "UXA" acceleration but it didn't help at all . Also I don't have an nVidia card, here is the output of "glxinfo | grep render" command:
"Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GME GEM 20090326 2009Q1 RC2 x86/MMX/SSE2" maybe it can be useful. Thanks anyway to all of you for your time.