[Sussex] configuring xine?

[David Falk]

john wrote:
> 
> Hi list,
> 
> does anyone know anything about configuring xine to play DVD's.

i'm more an mplayer fan then xine, ( http://www.mplayerhq.hu )

> I found this
> 
> "Oki, xine doesn't drop frames now but video output still is not really
> smooth!
> 
> Video output can be further improved by tuning your linux kernel:
> Set HZ to 1000 in /usr/src/linux/include/asm-i386/param.h

the line you want to change to 1000 is:

#define HZ 200                          /* if userspace cheats, give
them 200 */

looks like your using 2.4,

> and as I haven't got a scooby what the hell a scheduler or preemptive patch 
> is, that ones got me totally stumped.

http://www.plumlocosoft.com/kernel/ (ck 2.4 kernel patches) are a nice
set of patches that include the things your after.

"O(1) + Batch scheduler
Preemptible - enable this in kernel config
Low latency - enable this in kernel config 
Variable Hz with 64bit jiffies
Supermount-NG 
POSIX ACLs and extended attributes
XFS file system
Bootsplash
Gr Security
Rik Van Riel's rmap"

it will also make the above change to param.h and set HZ to a
default of 1000.

if it's an ide dvd drive you might wanna check it's using DMA, either
in dmesg/where syslog log's kern messages or if you've got hdparm, 

hdparm /dev/whateverthedvddeviceis

in dmesg or the logs it will look similar to this

    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xe408-0xe40f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio

hdc's a cdrom that's master on second ide channel using DMA. nothings on
hdd
so it shows up as being using pio.