Video HW output with ATI

[Rashkae]

Jack Knowlton wrote:
> Hi all.
> I have a Ubuntu HTPC running 10.04_amd64.
> Until some time ago I had a Nvidia 8400GS card and was able to use the
> vdpau output in mplayer (with packages from "cutting edge" repo).
> Now I have switched to an ATI Raden HD 4350 with the fglrx driver.
> 
> Since I have changed the GPU, 1080p MKVs don't run smoothly anymore and
> sometimes even 720p playback has a few hiccups now and then.
> Is there something equivalent to vdpau for an ATI card?
> I don't care for gaming, desktop effects and so forth, but I expect movies
> to playback without trouble.
> Thank you.
> 
> -JK
> 
> 

Your in for a rough ride with ATI card.  New mplayer supposedly works as 
far as hardware decoding goes.. I never actually tried, since I settled 
a while back with mplayer-mt (an experimental multi-threaded branch) and 
let the cpu handle video decoding.  Either way, you will have to compile 
mplayer from source.  Fortunately, that's not really difficult.
apt-get build-dep mplayer  should install all the pre-reqs you need. 
The guides you see that require several packages installed up updated 
manually are really only needed if you are also trying to build a 
functional mencoder alongside the new mplayer.