From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Aug 19 04:02:01 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5D384106564A for ; Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:02:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from corky1951@comcast.net) Received: from qmta04.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net (qmta04.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net [76.96.62.40]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 074148FC17 for ; Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:01:59 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta21.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.62.72]) by qmta04.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id w3tV1e0031ZXKqc54420y5; Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:02:00 +0000 Received: from comcast.net ([98.203.142.76]) by omta21.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id w41y1e0031f6R9u3h41yWF; Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:02:00 +0000 Received: by comcast.net (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:01:56 -0700 Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:01:56 -0700 From: Charlie Kester To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20100819040156.GA72647@comcast.net> Mail-Followup-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <20100819011024.GA10288@thought.org> <4C6CA223.2040801@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4C6CA223.2040801@gmail.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 1.5.20 X-Composer: Vim 7.2 User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Subject: Re: well, i guess it's time to ask..... X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:02:01 -0000 On Wed 18 Aug 2010 at 20:16:51 PDT Depo Catcher wrote: > >On 8/18/2010 8:10 PM, Gary Kline wrote: >>'ve hesitated. on my 3.0gh thinkpad, streams fly >>flawlessly. So if i buy one of the notebooks with a > >Stream what kind of movies? Some video players (like VLC) have >hardware acceleration that will help a lot if your video card/driver >supports it. >Things like Flash based movies might be kind of iffy though since >they can't take advantage of the video hardware [?]. Once you start >moving up to high def video you might have some problems, but know a >lot of Home Theater guys that use Atoms for media centers: >http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=103 > >My gfs Atom 330 plays videos in VLC fine and flash fine, but full >screen flash drops frames. This is under WinXP. >The new D510 CPU are faster in benchmarks; it has dual cores with >hyperthreading. But be aware that the Xorg intel driver in the current portstree does NOT support the graphics controller built into the D510 and other Pineview Atoms. The vesa driver works, but doesn't take advantage of AGP or other graphics niftiness. I have one of these myself, and can confirm that downloaded videos play acceptably well, despite using vesa. I can't speak to streaming video performance, however, since I don't use Flash and usually don't watch online videos. I've seen reviews of the D510 that say HD video performance is sub-par even on operating systems with drivers that fully support the graphics controller. >If you wait a few months, the new D525 CPUs should be out in consumer >computers - these are 1.8Ghz (instead of 1.6Ghz) and support DDR3 >(instead of DDR2). That might help a bit. Both are limited to 4 gigs. > >So, I would bet that 90% of the time it'll be enough if you have a >good video card with good drivers. I'm not an expert on them though, I >think they are neat though. There are Atom-based systems available with Nvidia graphics. Gary might want to consider one of those, although it probably won't be as dirt cheap or as low-wattage as a Pineview system. (I have no experience with them myself.)