Intel i810 - slow flash - several issues

[Nahuel]

Hello everyone. This forums have been of great help for me. Unfortunately, these problems I'm having don't seem to be so easy to find online.

The main problem is the low performance of the video card. I can watch flash videos (say, youtube) if they are small. If I want to go fullscreen, the video is very slow! This doesn't happen in Windoze, it works just fine there. I thought it might be a problem with the drivers. I'm using a driver available for my distribution (Arch Linux) called xf86-video-intel-legacy, which was the recommended for this card. The driver seems to work, except for the problem I just told you and the one I'm about to tell.

The next thing is a weird behaviour. When I watch any video (with Mplayer or VLC), I can't move the output window without getting flicker and a blue background. If I 'print screen', all I get in the pic is a blue square where the video should be. I thought this was normal, but when I open two videos I can move the second window and it'll work fine! no flicker! no blue background! I was also able to use scrot to print the screen.

I can set the window some transpareny and it'll set the video transparent too! That's the behaviour I want all the time... all of this just happens with the second video I open...

I hope you can help me, since I tried everyt hing I could find... I'll post my xorg.conf, in case you can find something useful:

Section "Module"
  Load "synaptics"
  Load "i810"
  Load "dri"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
  Identifier     "Layout0"
  Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
  InputDevice	"SynapticsTouchpad" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

Section "Files"
  FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/local/"
EndSection

Section "Device"
  Identifier     "Device0"
  Driver         "intel"
  VendorName  "Intel Corporation"
  BoardName   "82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device"
  Option         "Legacy3D" "false"

EndSection

Section "Screen"
  Identifier     "Screen0"
  Device         "Device0"
EndSection



Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier  "SynapticsTouchpad"
   Driver      "synaptics"
   Option      "AlwaysCore"        "true"  # send events to CorePointer
   #Option      "Device"            "/dev/input/mice"
   Option      "Device"            "/dev/psaux"
   Option      "Protocol"          "auto-dev"
   Option      "SHMConfig"         "false" # configurable at runtime? security risk
   Option      "LeftEdge"          "1700"  # x coord left
   Option      "RightEdge"         "5300"  # x coord right
   Option      "TopEdge"           "1700"  # y coord top
   Option      "BottomEdge"        "4200"  # y coord bottom
   Option      "FingerLow"         "25"    # pressure below this level triggers release
   Option      "FingerHigh"        "30"    # pressure above this level triggers touch
   Option      "MaxTapTime"        "180"   # max time in ms for detecting tap
   Option      "VertEdgeScroll"    "true"  # enable vertical scroll zone
   Option      "HorizEdgeScroll"   "false"  # enable horizontal scroll zone
   Option      "CornerCoasting"    "true"  # enable continuous scroll with finger in corner
   Option      "CoastingSpeed"     "0.30"  # corner coasting speed
   Option      "VertScrollDelta"   "100"   # edge-to-edge scroll distance of the vertical scroll
#   Option      "HorizScrollDelta"  "100"   # edge-to-edge scroll distance of the horizontal scroll
   Option      "MinSpeed"          "0.10"  # speed factor for low pointer movement
   Option      "MaxSpeed"          "0.60"  # maximum speed factor for fast pointer movement
   Option      "AccelFactor"       "0.0020"    # acceleration factor for normal pointer movements
   Option      "VertTwoFingerScroll"   "true"  # vertical scroll anywhere with two fingers
   Option      "HorizTwoFingerScroll"  "true"  # horizontal scroll anywhere with two fingers
   Option      "TapButton1" "1"
   Option      "TapButton2" "2"
   Option      "TapButton3" "3"
   Option      "XkbLayout"  "es"
   Option      "XkbVariant" ""
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Group      "video"
    Mode       0660
EndSection

[reed9]

First thing, try it without an xorg.conf. Unless you've disabled input hotplugging, it isn't needed.

I would also try it with the regular xf86-video-intel package, if that fails.

[Nahuel]

Thank you for your reply.

Tried without xorg. Fullscreen flash videos are now 'tolerable', but still slow. As for the videos, same behaviour.

I had tried to use the other driver before, but it tells me that it has conflicts with xorg-server:

bash-3.2# pacman -S xf86-video-intel
resolviendo dependencias...
verificando conflictos... 
:: xf86-video-intel tiene conflictos con  xorg-server. \u00bfQuitar xorg-server? [S/n] n
error: se han detectado paquetes con conflictos no resueltos
error: fall\u00f3 al preparar la transacci\u00f3n (dependencias en conflicto)
:: xf86-video-intel: posee conflictos con xorg-server

[reed9]

I would guess your packages are out of date. The xf86-video-intel driver in the repos needs at least xorg-server 1.6.2, and the most current xorg-server is 1.6.3-2.

Are you running an older version for any particular reason?

[Nahuel]

I'm now upgrading xorg-server.
How do I tell it to use xf86-video-intel and not xf86-video-intel-legacy? Do I unistall the latter? They seem to work under the same name 'intel'.
-edit-
Never mind, pacman removes xf86-video-intel-legacy because of conflicts.
Installed xf86-video-intel with no changes. Except perhaps a slight improvement when playing fullscreen flash videos.

Could it be just that the card doesn't support this kind of graphics?

I used to have ubuntu. I was able to use compiz and all the fancy graphics, but had the same problems when moving the window and watching fullscreen flash videos... For example, the picture wouldn't bend if I placed the video on the border of the cube. It shwed a blue background...
Maybe I should just give up :P Thank you for your help.