On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 04:10:30PM -0400, Allan Gottlieb wrote > I am getting a new laptop. (likely dell 6430). > The two graphics options are intel HD 4000 and nvidia NVS 5200M. > Dell is as expected suggesting the 5200M. > > I do not need 3D or fast response. Dell hinted that DVDs might not play > with the intel HD 4000. This seems weird to me as the 4000 is supposed > to be a big improvement over the 3000 and I can't believe dell or others > would have sold laptops that can't play dvds > > Any comments or experiences?
2 personal experiences... 1) I have a Dell D530, over 4 years old, that could not keep up with the slowest feed of hockey games on NHLGameCenterLive. The feed runs via Flash. This was just after I had done a fresh install, and most of the system was lowest-common-denominator i686 code from the i686 install CD. After I ran "emerge system" and "emerge world", optimised with CFLAGS... CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -mfpmath=sse -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" ...the machine was able to keep up stutter-free on the low-speed feed. BTW, my current CFLAGS are... CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -mfpmath=sse -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -fno-unwind-tables -fno-asynchronous-unwind-tables" 2) I have an early ASUS Atom netbook, 2 gigs ram, with a Poulsbo GMA500. With the in-kernel GMA500 driver, it plays 720p HD from Youtube no problem. By setting "mem=1920mb" in the boot parameters, I now have it playing 1080p just fine even in Youtube's "large player", but not in fullscreen mode. If this old POS can play 1080p Youtube clips, a newer machine should easily be able to handle it. Additional comments... 1) Dell is probably thinking Windows built with lowest-common-denominator i686 code, running with full visual eye-candy. Yes, that would slow it down to a crawl. 2) Gentoo optimised to your machine has a huge advantage over any binary distro, be it Windows or linux. 3) I run ICEWM, a lightweight but powerful WM with minimal eye-candy. This allows the CPU and GPU to devote their power to doing stuff you really want/need. See my sig. 4) Use mplayer to play DVDs. It is much lighter than other popular linux players, and it can be optimised to your machine. My setup... [ebuild R ] media-video/mplayer-1.1-r1 USE="X a52 alsa dga encode gif iconv jpeg mmx mng mp3 opengl png quicktime rtmp sse sse2 ssse3 theora truetype vdpau vorbis win32codecs x264 xv xvid -3dnow -3dnowext -aalib (-altivec) (-aqua) -bidi -bindist -bl -bluray -bs2b -cddb -cdio -cdparanoia -cpudetection -debug -directfb -doc -dts -dv -dvb -dvd -dvdnav -dxr3 -enca -faac -faad -fbcon -ftp -ggi -gsm -ipv6 -jack -joystick -jpeg2k -ladspa -libass -libcaca -libmpeg2 -lirc -live -lzo -mad -md5sum -mmxext -nas -network -nut -openal -osdmenu -oss -pnm -pulseaudio -pvr -radio -rar -real -rtc -samba -sdl -shm -speex -tga -toolame -tremor -twolame -unicode -v4l -vidix -xanim -xinerama -xscreensaver -xvmc -zoran" VIDEO_CARDS="-mga -s3virge -tdfx" Note... do *NOT* blindly copy my flags. Select the ones appropriate to your CPU and GPU and playback/recording needs. -- Walter Dnes <waltd...@waltdnes.org> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
