BSplayer, subtitles & processor load
 

Hi!

I've tested some movie players and found that BSplayer has a lower CPU usage (even than Media Player Classic), BUT... only when no subtitles are shown on the screen.

I've tested with almost all combination (with or without) of following: DivX, XviD, ffdshow, overlay, non-overlay, BSplayer 1.22 build 817, BSplayer 0.86 build 501, VobSub, various screen resolutions.

Then always when a subtitle text is shown on the screen, the processor usage will rise to 90-100% (I have a Pentium 4 @ 2 GHz).

To resume (very briefly) my testing:
.......................................... CPU Usage (%)
Media Player Classic ........... ~ 45% (no noticeable rise when subtiles are shown)
Windows Media Player 9 ....... ~ 48% (no noticeable rise when subtiles are shown)
BSPlayer 1.22 ...................... ~ 30% (no subtitles) and 90% (with subtiles on the screen)
BSPlayer 1.22 (/w "force RGB") ... ~ 48% (no subtitles) and 100% (with subtiles on the screen)

Why?

What should I do to have BSplayer behave normaly and have less CPU usage when subtitles are on the screen?

In item (9) of my Help2Help-post it says: "In this connection however note, that there may arise conflicts if there are more programs/utilities installed that can display subtitles, like BSPlayer itself, vobsub and e.g. ffdshow (which can also display subtitles)."
:wink:

Just tested HDTV sample from White noise at DivX site. With subtitles it gets to 60 % CPU usage on an 2.53 Celeron/1GB Dual channel. Are you sure you are using BSPlayer's internal module to display subtitles or ffdshow/vobsub ? If you press "S" do they dissapear ?

I am sure I was testing without VobSub loaded and with XviD video decoder (so ffdshow wasn't loaded - only for audio, but I've disabled that in order to get Fraunhofer MP3 codec decoding). How can those programs interfere with the playback of BSplayer?

So far I've identified the problem in BSplayer's own subtitle engine. I might be wrong, but that's my experience.

---- [Edit] ----

I've just finished a test:

I) BSplayer v0.86.501 + XviD decoder for video + MP3 (original?) decoder for audio & no-VobSub, no-ffdshow

In this configuration I get 100% processor load in windowed mode and no ovelay. If I check the overlay option (mode 1) in windowed mode I get a warning popup which says that "Overlay is disabled" (or something). So my video card (a professional openGL one, with 64 MB VRAM) cannot support overaly (at the resolution of 1290x1024). I let overlay option checked and make a trick - put BSplayer to change resolution at 800x600 in full screen mode... and voila! I get ~60% processor load which is acceptable for me.

II) BSplayer v0.86.501 (/w subtitles disabled) + XviD decoder for video + MP3 (original?) decoder for audio + VobSub for subtitles

This is the best configuration for me! Processor load at ~30% in full screen (/w overlay and changed resolution at 800x600). I am happy. So the overlay is the problem (or the lack of it).

Yes, overlay uses the GPU to decode the video stream instead of the CPU. But you may also try VMR9 if you have an openGL based card. Normally for 64 MB ram you should be able to use overlay at that resolution. You may also try 1024x768.

But still, my thoughts (based on almost a week of video tests) are that BSplayer's engine for subtitles is poorer in terms of perfomance than VobSub. I wrote that not to complain but the developers to be aware and improve the BSplayer which is my video player of choice.