# XBMC and VDPAU



## Emil (Oct 9, 2011)

Hello,

I'm trying to get VDPAU working on FreeBSD with XBMC. Google tells me that VDPAU should work just fine on FreeBSD and that some people also got it working on XBMC.

When I play a videofile with VDPAU enabled XBMC the video plays fine with low CPU usage but the system hangs completely after 5 to 10 seconds. Only a hard reboot works. Playing video's with GLSL works fine.
I'm using FreeBSD 8.2 x86_64 and my Graphics card is a Nvidia GT 520. I tried the 285.05.09, 285.13 and the 275.28 Nvidia drivers with the same result.
Testing VDPAU with MPlayer didn't work because MPlayer makes X crash with and without VDPAU enabled.

Xorg and XBMC log don't seem to show any errors, but I included them anyway.


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## SirDice (Oct 10, 2011)

Any problems with the Nvidia driver should be reported on the Nvidia forums. It's neither created nor maintained by the FreeBSD people.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=47


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## Emil (Oct 11, 2011)

I got MPlayer working with VDPAU and it doesn't crash, so I don't think it's a driver problem. (ps. is it possible to edit my OP?)


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## SirDice (Oct 11, 2011)

Emil said:
			
		

> (ps. is it possible to edit my OP?)


Read the introductory email you got. You can edit after 10 posts _and_ 10 days of membership.

If Mplayer works I would agree it's not a driver issue. Did you build XMBC with any other options (besides VDPAU)? Perhaps some compiler 'optimizations' in /etc/make.conf?

I have built various ports with VDPAU turned on but unfortunately my videocard doesn't support it so I can't really test it


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## Emil (Oct 11, 2011)

Sorry, I usually don't read introduction mails because they nearly never contain any useful information.

The options I enabled are:

```
AVAHI		"Enable Avahi support"			on \
LIBBLURAY	"Enable libbluray support"		on \
FAAC		"Enable FAAC support"			on \
HAL		"Enable HAL support"			on \
LIRC		"Enable lirc support"			off \
MMS		"Enable mms:// & mmsh:// support"	on \
NONFREE		"Enable non-free components (rar, ccx, ffmpeg)"	on\
PULSE		"Enable PulseAudio support"		off \
RTMP		"RTMP support via librtmp"		off \
VAAPI		"Enable VAAPI support"			off \
VDPAU		"Enable VDPAU support"			on \
WEBSERVER	"Build Internal Webserver"		off
```

The only thing in /etc/make.conf is

```
PERL_VERSION=5.10.1
```


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## jalla (Oct 11, 2011)

For the record I have VDPAU working with xbmc, mplayer, vlc, and mythtv, both on my laptop and main workstation (and with Nvidia drivers at least from 170-something up to the present).

@Emil are you sure your whole system freezes up? I've seen errors where the xbmc-gui will freeze totally (not video related) where it's  necessary to get to a console or terminal window to kill xbmc.bin.

BTW your xbmc.log show no indication you're trying to play any media(?)


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## Emil (Oct 11, 2011)

Yes I'm sure the whole system freezes, CTRL + ALT + F1-8 doesn't react, numlock key doesn't react,pressing the power button doesn't do anything and Gnome freezes up while playing windowed.

xbmc.log is while using the Youtube plugin I think. Here is a log file while playing a file on my disk.


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## DutchDaemon (Oct 12, 2011)

Emil said:
			
		

> Sorry, I usually don't read introduction mails because they nearly never contain any useful information.



Well, that's encouraging.


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## Emil (Oct 12, 2011)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> Well, that's encouraging.



It's maybe a bad habit, but most of the time they contain as much as information as manuals coming with screwdrivers and EULA's. Do you read these always? I read the instruction mail now.


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## Emil (Dec 16, 2011)

I've found a very strange workaround for the problem.

When I stress my cpu (ea with burnP6 from the cpuburnin package) enabling VDPAU doesn't crash my htpc. When I kill burnP6 the system freezes after a few seconds.

I thought immediately about a memory problem, but Memtest86+ (v4.1) doesn't show any errors after 10h+ running.


Of course this workaround isn't usable, but maybe someone has now an idea what the problem could be?


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## Emil (Dec 16, 2011)

Disabling powerd fixes my problem 


Even better fix: Using the nvidia driver from ports (x11/nvidia-driver) and enable ACPI_PM.


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