Thinkpads Forum

Can my neomagic play AVI files if I upgrade cpu to at least 500 mhz? I try mplayer but it says UpdateOverlay failed invalid parameters
and <vo_directx><ERROR>not enough video memory
<vo_directx><FATAL ERROR>can't use overlay mode: please use -vo directx:noaccel

So the 2.5mb video memory is no use to play AVI type files? Thanks

This is a software problem, not a hardware problem. Any 600 series machine can play AVI files, and the Neomagic video adapter is quite capable of playing AVI files. I don't know what your error messages mean, but you are having a software problem either with your Operating System (which is?) or your "mplayer" program.

Are you using the built-in Microsoft Media Player program? A quick search on google for "vo_directx" turns up all these hits that refer to non-standard Windows software: Cygwin, TiVo hacks, alternate mplayer versions. If you are using any of these, then they are the likely culprits.

The first couple steps I would recommend to solve this problem are:
1. re-install your video adapter driver from an IBM download
2. re-install or update your Media Player version (free download from Microsoft)

There are different kinds of AVI files, and some current AVI files use DivX or other codecs which achieve high levels of compression. To play those AVI files, you need to have the correct codec installed (not from Microsoft but from DivX or wherever). It is possible that some AVI files require so much CPU power to decompress that you will not be able to play them acceptably on your 600E, but in my experience, the built-in Microsoft Media Player will not produce errors when the CPU is overtaxed: instead, it will just keep slowing down the video until it is moving at a glacier-like crawl...and then eventually it may freeze your system altogether...without issuing any errors.

Phil.

I agree with Phil on this one.

Try using K-Lite and see if it will play with the media player/codecs that comes with it: http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/

If it works, then it is definately a software problem.

Sounds to me like the video overlay mode is unavailable or incorrectly installed.

Open the Start Menu's Run box and enter:

dxdiag

And the DirectX diagnostic will run...

Are you running the latest version of DirectX? That's version 9.0c.

Look under the DirectX Files tab - are any errors reported?

Look under the Display tab - is DirectDraw Acceleration enabled - test it for any problems.

Next right click your desktop and select Properties, then the Settings tab.
Do you have 16bit or 24bit colour selected?

Click the Advanced button and then the Troubleshoot tab.
Is Hardware Acceleration enabled fully - the slider should be all the way to the right hand side.

In Mplayer look through it's Options/Preferences for a Hardware Acceleration option and ensure that it's enabled too.

warwound.

THe mplayer works in linux, but needs the "overlay 8000000" added to the xorg.conf.. is there something like that for windows that I can add?

What is "mplayer"? Do you mean "Windows Media Player"? What version are you using? What is your OS? I still don't understand your software environment, and that makes it hard to come up with solutions.

No, I don't think there is a fix like the one you describe for Linux. The fix in Windows is probably to use a Windows-compatible player and install the latest codecs and drivers.

Phil.

As i said in my previous post - the Windows 'Display properties' within the Control Panel has a control to determine what overlay/hardware acceleration is enabled.

warwound.

Its working I think..

two years later and I think the solution is this:

http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mpl ... 60473.html

You won't believe it. The thing that helped was changing the card mode
on the primary monitor from 100Hz to 85Hz! How can that be?... How
come I can't have the overlay with 100Hz? Any ideas? Perhaps it's due
to the fact that the two monitors have different frequencies?