Video Performance on UD-160-M

Hello,

I received my UD-160-M that I’ve connected to a nearly-fresh install of Fedora 18. I was happy to notice that my computer automatically detected it and presented a normal log-in screen.

I thought I’d try my most important use case first. After ensuring Flash was installed, I went to YouTube and tried to play videos on both desktops simultaneously. The one on my built-in desktop played as well as before; however, the one on my new multiseat desktop was choppy in Firefox and as full-screen. It reminded me of when Adobe’s Flash 10 made my older software-rendering graphics cards stop working adequately.

Due to this, I would like to know what graphics adapter is built into the UD-160-M? Does it have any dedicated GPU, or does it rely on the CPU for graphics processing? If it’s the latter, then it makes these devices unusable to me because I don’t want poor performance during spikes of heavy CPU load.

I also tried to play a video using VLC Media Player. This worked fine on the original display, but did not work at all on the new display. I wouldn’t get a VLC window appear, and the console displayed the following message:

 xcb\_xv vout display error: no available XVideo adaptor 

Is this due to a wrong driver being loaded in what used to be xorg.conf?

FYI, here is my /proc/cpuinfo. I understand it’s a bit dated, but I would expect it to perform reasonably well for at least one multiseat client.

 processor : 0 
 vendor\_id : AuthenticAMD 
 cpu family : 15 
 model : 107 
 model name : AMD Athlon(tm) X2 Dual Core Processor BE-2400 
 stepping : 2 
 cpu MHz : 2300.000 
 cache size : 512 KB 
 physical id : 0 
 siblings : 2 
 core id : 0 
 cpu cores : 2 
 apicid : 0 
 initial apicid : 0 
 fpu : yes 
 fpu\_exception : yes 
 cpuid level : 1 
 wp : yes 
 flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx 
 fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr\_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow rep\_good nopl extd\_apicid pni cx1 
 6 lahf\_lm cmp\_legacy svm extapic cr8\_legacy 3dnowprefetch lbrv 
 bogomips : 4620.79 
 TLB size : 1024 4K pages 
 clflush size : 64 
 cache\_alignment : 64 
 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual 
 power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps 

 processor : 1 
 vendor\_id : AuthenticAMD 
 cpu family : 15 
 model : 107 
 model name : AMD Athlon(tm) X2 Dual Core Processor BE-2400 
 stepping : 2 
 cpu MHz : 2300.000 
 cache size : 512 KB 
 physical id : 0 
 siblings : 2 
 core id : 1 
 cpu cores : 2 
 apicid : 1 
 initial apicid : 1 
 fpu : yes 
 fpu\_exception : yes 
 cpuid level : 1 
 wp : yes 
 flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr\_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow rep\_good nopl extd\_apicid pni cx16 lahf\_lm cmp\_legacy svm extapic cr8\_legacy 3dnowprefetch lbrv 
 bogomips : 4620.79 
 TLB size : 1024 4K pages 
 clflush size : 64 
 cache\_alignment : 64 
 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual 
 power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps 

Thanks.

Hi Jawaad,

Thanks for posting! By far the biggest factor for Fedora graphics performance is GNOME 3. It’s pretty terrible for anything other than PCIe attached graphics.

Have you had a chance to try turning it off by going back to fallback mode?
http://plugable.com/2012/06/11/fedora…

And, moving forward, MATE-based spins are probably the answer.

Let us know how things have shifted with that change. Thanks!
Bernie

I tried it out. The fallback mode definitely helped; my normal terminal typing and Firefox browsing felt more natural than before.

There was no change to my VLC playback, and I’ve been having trouble with my Flash installation so I couldn’t exercise Youtube.

As it stands, I’m afraid I’m going to have to return the UD-160-M since it won’t fit my personal needs. As stated before, I’m not thrilled about the idea that a CPU spike when someone visits the wrong Web page could result in another’s PVR playback to become choppy.

This doesn’t mean it’s not a good product; I think the UD-160-M is wonderful on Fedora; it just won’t work for me. Please do let me know if you decide to build a model with dedicated graphics.

Thanks!

Hi Jawaad,

Understood, thanks for writing up these experiences! They’re helpful to others to understand the pros and cons. The more a scenario is focused on apps and web, the better the fit – the more on motion video or 3D gaming, the less the fit.

We try to make returns (within 30 days) painless, in case the product isn’t a fit, just visit http://amazon/returns.

Thanks again!
Bernie