Thread: Broken/Choppy 1080p playback after update, and confusion regarding VDPAU in 8800

hello fellow linuxers, first post here ever. have been using ubuntu 2 years now, , have lurked these forums solutions problems, , have had them resolved. time, however, @ loss. have been googling , trying random stuff 12 hours without results. after time may have original problem solve. man, bet you're excited!

have 8800 ultra , quad core 2,4.

here problem:
i did clean install of 10.04 2 weeks ago, , installed nvidia 256.44 driver. worked perfectly, , 1080p files ran cleaner alcohol - in unmodified native mplayer. in earlier distros run 1080p flawless in xbmc vdpau enabled, downloaded time measure if didn't appear need it. flowering meadows , bliss under moonlight until pressed damned "update now" button , went crap. not sure specific updates messed system - installed them blindly - update recent. 2 days ago.

xbmc can't play heavier hd without getting seizure. reinstalled nvidia driver , vdpau packages, nothing changed. followed countless tips (most found on forum) on how clean hd on ubuntu, figuring 1 of guides might fix whatever's broken, nothing helped. xorg.conf has been modified more times last ten hours previous last year.

, come across this guide, , tells me can't vdpau on graphics card. googled extensively, , found bunch of other sources said same thing - 8800 ultra not vdpau compatible.

begs question; how , why have gotten 1080p run flawlessly before, , vdpau entered video output (at least in xbmc , gnome mplayer, unsure if had in standard mplayer or vlc - these played 1080p well, vlc least, useless), , if have never used vdpau before - have imply when vdpau selected output, process doesn't fail rather jumps on different output without changing apparent config files - has gone wrong on system?

downloaded mplayer-nogui , did hocus pocus per trobleshooter's recommendation, , did playback little tad, heavier bitrates still unwatchable. when vdpau selected in (s)mplayer, sound.

understand there lot of different things might have gone wrong here, please ask further information missing in post of might find key.
ask if of lot have light shed on this. if resolved in way, forever grateful.
also, though 2 year long user of wonderful os, casual user , of lesser intellect, spelling things out me in big , clear letters way go.

given card not support vdpau, never using it, did ever check cpu usage while playing 1080p video?

in case, first try removing , reinstalling nvidia driver. after try using x11 video output, or multi-threaded mplayer here.
if no good, maybe try trading card in , buy more recent one, gt220 (full vdpau on every video format) same price.

Forum The Ubuntu Forum Community Ubuntu Official Flavours Support Multimedia Software [ubuntu] Broken/Choppy 1080p playback after update, and confusion regarding VDPAU in 8800

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