Need help with mala and video issues

[SonicSlammaster]

Hey guys
It would seem im down this path yet again..im still having issues with the video display in mala (latest version) Ive messed with a number of things to try and fix this but still no luck. Ive realized that this is obviously not an issue with mala itself am i missing something?  Is there a particular codec or something i need to use for this? Also the video worked fine for me in rc9beta A if anyone has hung on to that any chance of a link?

thanks in advance guys

[retrometro]

video display problem... do you mean problem with the mala display itself or playing movies/videos in the mala menu?

[SonicSlammaster]

The videos in the mala menu they just seem too run slow for me is there even any earlier versions of mala i can get from somewhere? maybe my pc is just too old n f.cked to play them at the right speed.

[retrometro]

What are your PC specs? 

Also, what resolution video files and encoding do your videos use?

[SonicSlammaster]

intel celeron(R) CPU 1.70 GHz
1.69 Ghz
256 MB RAM
Ati radeon powercolor 9250

Its a fairly old comp but seems to do the job for what i need.
I read a previous post that i hadnt seen before, it mentioned using xvid to encode the videos.
I downloaded the xvid codecs and i have the divx codecs already installed but i dont know much in that department as in encoding and decoding ill have to give it a good run through.

[RitchieTheBrit]

Well, I just added an old AGP card to my test-bed machine, and all of my slowdown problems have vanished!  That includes the horrendous, unmatchable slowdown I get on fell-screen vids!  Even the video screensaver works fine now.

Do yourself a favour, get on eBay and grab a cheap card.  Mine is an old 64MB ATI FireGL 8700, and it made a world of difference!

[Joystick Jerk]

maybe my pc is just too old n f.cked to play them at the right speed.

Bingo.

I'll assume your running XP. 256 mb ram is barely enough right there to run XP, let alone a front end with videos.

Saying that, the makers of Mala fully admit it's a basic program and it isn't coded to run like a greased weasel. Even a beefy PC might show slowdown while playing videos in Mala.

[SonicSlammaster]

Well, I just added an old AGP card to my test-bed machine, and all of my slowdown problems have vanished!  That includes the horrendous, unmatchable slowdown I get on fell-screen vids!  Even the video screensaver works fine now.

Do yourself a favour, get on eBay and grab a cheap card.  Mine is an old 64MB ATI FireGL 8700, and it made a world of difference!
[/quote

Well ill keep that in mind i need to update my graphics card anyways. I think i may have mine set to pci ill switch to agp and see if it makes any change.

maybe my pc is just too old n f.cked to play them at the right speed.

Bingo.

I'll assume your running XP. 256 mb ram is barely enough right there to run XP, let alone a front end with videos.

Well this is it ya see it does run videos fine my gba vids run great and with the 9c9beta version of mala the videos were running full speed but there were some scrolling issues with the beta.

[RitchieTheBrit]

Okay, for the record, the machine that I had the vids running fine on has the following spec...

AMD Sempron 2800+
1GB PC3200 RAM
Generic Winfast Mobo
ATI FireGL 9700

The vides were skipping on the same machine when it was using O/B graphics and only had 512MB RAM. 

I think it is down to the graphics card, as the videos were skipping slightly on my 64x2 machine with 2GB RAM, when I ran it through the O/B graphics!

I am looing at getting an ATI 9200 with a decent hun of memory, hopefully that should solve the last semi-issue that I have with Malas performance (when chaning menus, the fade effect is very jumpy).

[Joystick Jerk]

The video card has nothing to do with it. Video accelerators are made for accelerating 3D graphics, and since Mala makes no calls to the Direct3D API, there would be no change. The speed at which Mala runs is determined by the main CPU of your PC and the amount of main memory you use.

This is why a lot of users use older cards for Mame. Since Mame is not using any 3D acceleration, it doesn't matter whether you have a top of the line card or an ancient diesel-powered model.