Video freezes when triying to play a video file. It doesn't when the window is small

Support & Help Requests
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#1

Hello all!
I recently migrated from Ubuntu 14.04 with Mate-Desktop to Ubuntu-Mate 16.04 and I’m having problems when playing video files (not audio. The audio of the video file always works fine). I didn’t have this problem with 14.04.

I’m using VLC player (although I tried using another video player and got the same problem) and when the window size is small the video plays fine without problems, but when i resize the window, playing gets slower. When the window uses all the screen or when the window exceeds certain size, video freezes.

It seems to be a driver issue. I’m getting this message in the Ubuntu-Mate “Welcome”:
“Sorry, Welcome was unable to automatically identify the graphics vendor on this system.
Card/Chipset: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 [Chrome 9 HC] (rev 01)”
Thanks.

#2

Hi @AEE,

type the following terminal command (Ctrl + Alt + t) to identify the GPU:

lspci

and also take a look through the guide about graphics cards and then get back to us!:

#3

Hi @wolfman.
I’ve readed what you had recommended me, but my graphics card is not AMD or ATI. I have an integrated VIA graphics chip on my motherboard (ga-vm900m v.2.0).
I’ve also tried to install the correct driver via Control Center > System > Software & Updates > Additional Drivers, but i couldn’t find anything there.
This is the output of lspci command:

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.5 PIC: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 I/O APIC Interrupt Controller
00:00.6 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Security Device
00:00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237/VX700 PCI Bridge
00:02.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 PCI to PCI Bridge Controller (rev 80)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 PCI to PCI Bridge Controller (rev 80)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237/8251 Serial ATA Controller
00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 07)
00:10.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b0)
00:10.1 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b0)
00:10.2 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b0)
00:10.3 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b0)
00:10.4 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 90)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237S PCI to ISA Bridge
00:11.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237/8251 Ultra VLINK Controller
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102/VT6103 [Rhine-II] (rev 7c)
00:13.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A Host Bridge
00:13.1 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A PCI to PCI Bridge
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 [Chrome 9 HC] (rev 01)
80:01.0 Audio device: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A/VT8251 HDA Controller (rev 10)

Hope this will help. Thanks!.

#4

You should be using the openchrome video driver, “xserver-xorg-video-openchrome”.
Check your Xorg.0.log with the “Log File Viewer” that is under the Applications/System Tools menu. You will see what driver is loaded.

#5

Also

Code:
inxi -G

Will give you driver info.

#6

Hi @Dave_Barnes.
You were right about the driver but my problem it’s still there. Openchrome was the driver i was using on Ubuntu 14.04 lts with mate-desktop. I still got my partition of ubuntu 14.04 and i executed the inxi -G command as @anon42388993 said and got this:

Graphics: Card: VIA CN896/VN896/P4M900 [Chrome 9 HC] X.Org: 1.17.2 drivers: openchrome (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: [email protected] GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.6, 128 bits) GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.0.2

So, back again on my Ubuntu-Mate 16.04 I’ve also executed inxi -G and got this:

Graphics: Card: VIA CN896/VN896/P4M900 [Chrome 9 HC] Display Server: X.Org 1.18.3 drivers: fbdev (unloaded: vesa) Resolution: [email protected] GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.8, 128 bits) GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0

I’ve then installed xserver-xorg-video-openchrome with
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-openchrome,
sudo apt-get update,
sudo apt-get upgrade

and rebooted my pc, but it didn’t get better. I tried playing again a video with VLC and the problem persists.

Now I execute inxi -G and got this:

Graphics: Card: VIA CN896/VN896/P4M900 [Chrome 9 HC] Display Server: X.Org 1.18.3 drivers: openchrome (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: [email protected] GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.8, 128 bits) GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0

So, this makes me think, maybe this is not a driver problem. Is this a performance problem?. Ubuntu-Mate 16.04 is using more resources than Ubuntu 14.04 with Mate-Desktop?

#7

Is Accelerated video output turned off?

1 Like
#8

Yes! You have a cristal ball. It was that. It seems that i disabled it before, when i was testing with the old driver. It seems that all is working correctly now. Thanks allot!