HD with Xvideo on i915GM (i810 driver)

[galenz at zinkconsulting.com]

On Oct 18, 2006, at 10:11 PM, Jeffrey W. Baker wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-10-19 at 00:33 -0400, Ken Mandelberg wrote:
>> I find that all of the video players (vlc, xine, mytthv) can't  
>> display
>> HD video on my Intel 915GM based laptop running with the i810 driver.
>> xine and myth show blue screens, vlc reports
>>
>> X Error of failed request:  BadAlloc (insufficient resources for  
>> operation)
>>    Major opcode of failed request:  142 (XVideo)
>>    Minor opcode of failed request:  19 ()
>>
>>
>> I imagine all of them are seeing the same issue with XVideo at HD
>> resolution. The problem is independent of the resolution of the  
>> display,
>> and is function of the source resolution.
>>
>> Any way around this?
>
> Yes, it's in the manual page:
>
>        Option "LinearAlloc" "integer"
>               Allows  more memory for the
>               offscreen  allocator.  This
>               usually helps in situations
>               where   HDTV   movies   are
>               required  to  play  but not
>               enough offscreen memory  is
>               usually available. Set this
>               to 6144 for upto  1920x1080
>               HDTV  support.  Default 0KB
>               (off).

Jeff's advice is correct. I have the same hardware and this will get  
720p working beautifully. However, on FC5 with the same hardware, I  
can't get 1080i playing with XVideo. I am curious how things work out  
for you.

When we were exploring it before, nothing seemed to resolve the  
problem. I lost interest when it was proposed I build X.org and the  
video player for debugging purposes to isolate the problem. I  
understand why there's a need for that, but I don't see any easy way  
to do that within the package management system. And building,  
installing, removing and replacing X again isn't on my top ten list.

-Galen