Mint 18.1 Cinnamon 64 bits 1080p Choppy Playback

[Deminar]

Hi everyone,
I am not the most tech savvy person and after trying to read many posts and many Google searches, I am still not sure what I should do. Here's what is happening:

Any video I am trying to play that is 720p or more (1080p) is very choppy and the quality is actually very poor. This is true for Youtube, or any video files on my PC. My system is not the newest but is fairly performant. Looking at the information below, can any one help me figure out how to play 1080p or more?

System:
Host: THEMIGHTYDM
Kernel: 4.4.0-53-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.2.7 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.1)
Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena

Machine:
Mobo: Gigabyte
model: GA-MA785GM-US2H
v: x.x
Bios: Award
v: F5
date: 09/16/2009

CPU:
Dual core AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (-MCP-)
cache: 1024 KB
flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 svm)
bmips: 4018
clock speeds:
max: 2200 MHz
1: 1000 MHz
2: 1000 MHz

Graphics:
Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RS880 [Radeon HD 4200]
bus-ID: 01:05.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4
drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
Resolution: 1360x768@60.02hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RS880 (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.8.0)
GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0 Direct
Rendering: Yes

Audio:
Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RS880 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4200 Series]
driver: snd_hda_intel
bus-ID: 01:05.1
Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
driver: snd_hda_intel
bus-ID: 00:14.2
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
v: k4.4.0-53-generic

Network:
Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: r8169
v: 2.3LK-NAPI
port: de00
bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: enp2s0
state: up
speed: 1000 Mbps
duplex: full
mac: <filter>

Drives:
HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (32.2% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda
model: ST95005620AS
size: 500.1GB

Partition:
ID-1: /
size: 444G
used: 136G (33%)
fs: ext4
dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: swap-1
size: 16.64GB
used: 0.00GB (0%)
fs: swap
dev: /dev/sda5

RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present

Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0C
mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm):
cpu: N/A

Info:
Processes: 180
Uptime: 7 days
Memory: 1352.9/15541.8MB
Init: systemd
runlevel: 5
Gcc sys: 5.4.0
Client: Shell (bash 4.3.461)
inxi: 2.2.35

[kentw]

.

[Deminar]

I am assuming it is the on-board video. I do have 16 gigs of Ram.

[Hoser Rob]

It certainly looks like it's the video card ... I'm going to ignore the Toshiba thread hijacker guy, who whould start his own thread.

Here's the relevant line in that report from inxi:

GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RS880

Gallium means it's using the open source driver, and your card is a 3xxx/4xxx series one. See:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

The good news is that you aren't using llvmpipe, which would be rea;lly bad.

The bad news is, unfortunately, multiple. You are running the correct driver as far as I can see (radeon, which is the AMD open source one). But Cinnamon requires more modern hardware, and maxing out the RAM will help in Linux a lot but not with this. And you also want a proprietary binary video driver for Cinnamon, and AMD doesn't make one for your card.

You can find many forum threads/posts saying you should avoid Ubuntu 16.04/Mint 18 if you have an AMD video card. That's true because they're rewriting their Linux graphics stack so there's no binary driver.

However, even if you were to install mint 17.whatever you still couldn't use an AMD binary driver because they're unsupported for AMD video cards older that the 5xxx series. AMD does not have the best Linux support, and have a habit of dropping it for cards I don't really think are that old.

If you DO see a driver for your card in the Mint Driver Manager, or dl the one from the AMD site, you WILL bork the video, reboot to a blank screen, and have to take a crash course in CLI Linux recovery.

The first tring I'd suggest is to do a clean reinstall of another DE version of Mint. Mate or Xfce ... I use Xfce but I liked Mate too. Don't just install another DE on top because that is a good way to break things ... it's just about #1 on my list of bad noob advice.

Normally people here advise those with these issues with AMD cards to install 17.3 to get the binary driver. I've done that but in a case like yours I'm not sure that'd make sense because there's no proprietary driver for that either. It wouldn't even work on Mint 13/Ubuntu 12.04, which are almost EOL anyway. You may be better off sticking with 18 and hoping AMD improves legacy support ...

PLease note that this is NOT a Mint vs any other distro issue. It is a Linux issue though ...

The other thing you'll want to do if/when you install another DE is to turn off ALL the eye candy effects/desktop compositing.

PS: actually with 16Gb RAM you could run thge KDE Mint version too ... unlike Cinnamon, in KDE you can turn off ALL desktop compositing and seriously tweak itr for speed.

[Deminar]

Thank you very much for the thorough answer. It is greatly appreciated.

The good news is that I have made the mistake of installing the driver in a previous Mint edition and I did have to learn how to work my way out of the blank screen. (That was interesting.)

Your explanation also helps me understand why this problem I am having was also true when I was on Mint 17. At least, on Mint 18.1 I no longer have rendering lines in my DVD playback.

I will stick to Mint 18.1 as I believe it is an amazing upgrade. Perhaps this will give me a good reason to upgrade my PC and move away from AMD.

Again, thank you very much for the great answer.

[phd21]

Hi "Deminar",

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

Although I still do not understand why, Linux Mint "Mate" does seem to work better with video cards, like AMD ATI, so you might want to try it.

There are tips and suggestions for browsers and video playback, and one of those is to disable (turn off) hardware acceleration in the preferences (settings), restart browser and retry those videos on those websites, or if hardware acceleration was not turned on, then turn it on, and restart your browser, and retry. Which browser(s) are you using?

As for playing videos on your computer, sometimes using a different multimedia player will provide much better results. Try the excellent "VLC" , or "SMplayer" with MPV, the new "xvideo" or "xplayer"?, etc...

SMPlayer Sees New Release With MPV Support, Install via PPA

You can use the excellent "SMplayer" to view videos, Blu-ray & DVD discs, and stuff from various websites "SMtube" plays videos from YouTube and other websites very well..
Unlike other players SMplayer doesn't require you to install codecs to play something because it carries its own, all required codecs within itself.[/u][/color] This is the first release which now supports MPV and some other features such as MPRIS v2 Support, new theme, 3D stereo filter and more.
I recommend reading both web links below.

Noobslab - another excellent Linux website - This article on SMplayer and MPV 2016
http://www.noobslab.com/2016/07/install ... e-167.html

Web Upd8 - excellent Linux website - This article is for SMplayer & MPV
http://www.webupd8.org/2015/09/smplayer ... h-mpv.html

To install these using the PPA method, open a console terminal, type in, or copy & paste, each line below one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/mpv-tests
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mpv smplayer smtube youtube-dl

or for added smplayer themes and skins
sudo apt-get install mpv smplayer smtube smplayer-themes smplayer-skins youtube-dl

Also, there are browser add-ons to right click and view the videos on a webpage in an external multimedia player application, like MPV, or VLC, etc... which might also prove better. Check the Software Manager or
Synaptic Package Manager (SPM) first "browser-plugin", then the browser's add-ons.

External Video 1.3 by vayan - Opens video link in MPV.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... src=search

Firefox use MPV video player.
https://github.com/antoniy/mpv-youtube-dl-binding


Video Assistant 1.0.4 - Play embedded videos in external player
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... assistant/


AppLauncher 0.8.7.1-signed.1-signed Requires Restart by Nobuoka Yu
This extension lets you launch an external application through the context menu of your Firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... plauncher/



Hope this helps ...

Firefox_useExternalVideoPlayerMPV1sm.jpg

[kentw]

I am honest when i say i did not want support for myself in my first post / answer to Deminar, i saw that no one had answer his question so therefor i tried to answer shortly to suggest what i believed despite my not so high tech knowledge

[Hoser Rob]

Hoser Rob "the Toshiba thread hijacker guy" my profile name is kentw , why so negative about my post, ok seems its not so welcome for me to jump in, is it hurting you that i came in with a maybe not so much help / details. Omg, and in another thread someone asked about software question / comparasion - some (one that i saw) answers were not so positive which were reflected in the threadholders ( i believe dissapointment ) reply.

Thread hijacking means the OP is less likely to get proper support, you're MUCH less likely to get support, and just plain annoying, and any experienced user on any support forum for any Linux distro I've used will say the exact same thing. No one is being paid to do this. Start your own frakking thread.

[Deminar]

Hi Phd21,
Thank you very much for the additional information. I have tried a few players but not all of those you have suggested. I will have a read through the links you have provided and post the results back on here.

Again, thank you very much.

[Deminar]

I have tried many players and VLC by default appears to be the best one. (Which is the one I used before as well.)

However,
There seems to have been some updates from AMD with graphic support. Can anyone take a look at the following article and let me know of their thoughts: (Is it worth the try?)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3090213/ ... x-480.html

Regards,

Deminar

[MsToxic]

I'm having the same issue on my netbook. I tried playing 1080p videos with VLC and default player on LM 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit and they are choppy. No issues with 720p videos. I tested different distros via live USB and same results except LM 17.3 Cinnamon 64-bit. When I tried playing a 1080p video on LM 17.3 Cinnamon 64-bit with default player, it was lagging. I changed the settings in VLC 2.1.6 and the video playback was perfect. Try testing LM 17.3 Cinnamon 64-bit via live USB and select "all' for skip H.264 in-loop deblocking filter in VLC.

My HP netbook's specs:

System: Kernel: 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64 (64 bit)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.6.6 Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine: System: Hewlett-Packard (portable) product: HP Pavilion dm1 Notebook PC v: 0589100000252B00000320100
Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1611 v: 96.3A
Bios: Hewlett-Packard v: F.13 date: 07/07/2011
CPU: Dual core AMD E-350 (-MCP-) speed/max: 800/1600 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wrestler [Radeon HD 6310]
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
Resolution: 1366x768@60.02hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD PALM (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.8.0)
GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0
Network: Card-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: r8169
Card-2: Ralink RT5390 [802.11 b/g/n 1T1R G-band PCI Express Single Chip]
driver: rt2800pci
Card-3: Ralink
Drives: HDD Total Size: 516.3GB (36.2% used)
Info: Processes: 211 Uptime: 1 min Memory: 596.6/7584.0MB

The interesting part is I have the same AMD graphics card as yours on my HP desktop PC. I tried testing LM 18.1 cinnamon 64-bit via live USB and no issues. I don't think it's related to our AMD graphics cards. I think it's related to our CPUs. Our CPUs are so weak. I want to see if anyone who has the same CPU as ours to report whether they are having the same issue or not. That would be great. I've researched and I can't figure out why we're having this issue. I hope someone can find a solution.

My HP desktop PC's specs:

System: Kernel: 4.4.0-53-generic x86_64 (64 bit)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.2.6 Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena
Machine: System: HP-Pavilion product: NY548AA-ABA p6230f
Mobo: FOXCONN model: ALOE v: 1.01
Bios: American Megatrends v: 5.02 date: 08/31/2009
CPU: Quad core AMD Phenom II X4 810 (-MCP-) speed/max: 800/2600 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RS880 [Radeon HD 4200]
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
Resolution: 1440x900@59.89hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RS880 (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.8.0)
GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0
Network: Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
driver: ath9k
Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: r8169
Drives: HDD Total Size: 1392.9GB (1.7% used)
Info: Processes: 199 Uptime: 8 min Memory: 654.9/15794.4MB