<sect1 id="howto-configuration">
<title>Basic configuration</title>

<para>As a general rule, the initial &kplayer; settings are chosen for optimal
performance and playback, so no additional setup is needed. However, in some
cases changing the initial settings can improve &kplayer; performance.</para>

<sect2 id="howto-configuration-video">
<title>Video setup</title>

<para>XVideo is the video output &kplayer; uses by default. For many systems
this is the optimal choice. Make sure your X Server has XVideo extension
enabled. Look in your <filename>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</filename> or
<filename>/etc/X11/XF86Config-4</filename> file for a line that reads</para>

<para><userinput>Load "extmod"</userinput></para>

<para>This is the line that loads the XVideo extension, so make sure it is not
disabled. Also check <filename>/var/log/Xorg.0.log</filename> or
<filename>/var/log/XFree86.0.log</filename> to make sure that XVideo is loaded
without error.</para>

<para>If &kplayer; cannot use XVideo for any reason, it will fall back on using
X11 video output in the default configuration. X11 output is OK except it forces
the use of software scaler, which will consume significantly more processor
cycles, and it does not support changing contrast, brightness, hue and
saturation, so those controls will not be functional.</para>

<para>Depending on your video card, you may find that a different
&mplayer; video output type(s) work better for you. For example you can try
VIDIX output if you have a Matrox or ATI card. For Matrox cards there is also
XMGA output.</para>

<para><ulink
url="http://sourceforge.net/account/login.php?return_to=%2Fsendmessage.php%3Ftouser%3D137121">Add
a section for your video card</ulink></para>

<para>However, some video outputs may not support embedding video into &kplayer;
and will open their own window instead. Those video outputs are not
recommended.</para>

<para>You can change the video output type on the
<link linkend="settings-video">Video page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>, and optionally tell &kplayer; to fall back on other video
outputs if the one you choose fails.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-configuration-audio">
<title>Audio setup</title>

<para>The optimal audio outputs to use with &kplayer; are <acronym>OSS</acronym>
(the default) and <acronym>ALSA</acronym> (recommended when present).</para>

<para>If you see that &kplayer; cannot use the audio output you have chosen, it
is usually because another program has locked the audio device. If you find that
<filename>/dev/dsp</filename> is locked, the chief suspect usually is &artsd;.
Run</para>

<para><userinput><command>killall</command> artsd</userinput></para>

<para>and then try playing a file with &kplayer; again. If that works, the
permanent solution is to disable &arts; through &kcontrolcenter;. There is an
option to tell &artsd; to unlock the device after so many seconds of inactivity,
but setting it to 0 seconds or 1 second has not been found to work. If you
disable &arts; but not remove it from the system, some programs will still start
it, but normally it will then at least not lock the audio device. Another
program that may lock the audio device is Mozilla and its derivatives and
successors. Just use &konqueror; instead.</para>

<para><acronym>ARTS</acronym> and <acronym>SDL</acronym> audio outputs are not
recommended since they will cause stability problems, degraded performance and
a broken volume control.</para>

<para>You can change the audio output type on the
<link linkend="settings-audio">Audio page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel>, and optionally tell &kplayer; to fall back on other audio
outputs if the one you choose fails.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-configuration-mplayer">
<title>&mplayer; setup</title>

<para>Depending on how you installed &mplayer; you may have gotten a global
<filename>mplayer.conf</filename> file in a directory like
<filename>/etc/mplayer</filename>. The local version of that file is
<filename>~/.mplayer/config</filename>. Make sure that those files do not have
a <option>gui=yes</option> option. Remove or comment it out if you find it.
If you ever want to use &mplayer;'s own <acronym>GUI</acronym> (not
recommended), you can get it by running <command>gmplayer</command>.</para>

<para>Also make sure there are no other options that may interfere with
&kplayer; operation. If you see any, either comment them out or override them
in <guilabel>&kplayer; Settings</guilabel>. For example, the recommended cache
size is one megabyte, although you can use a different size depending on the
type of media you are going to play, as discussed for example in
<link linkend="howto-streams">Online Radio and TV micro-HOWTO</link>.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-configuration-smooth">
<title>Smooth playback</title>

<para>A while ago Arpi wrote a
<ulink url="http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/747/">Fine-tuning
&mplayer;</ulink> article where you can find more useful tips on optimizing
&mplayer;.</para>

<para>One thing you can do to get smoother playback is enable the hardware
<acronym>RTC</acronym> timer. Run</para>

<para><userinput><command>echo</command> 1024 >
<filename>/proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq</filename></userinput></para>

<para>as root, and also make sure <filename>/dev/rtc</filename> is user
readable.</para>

<para>Arpi also recommends trying options like <option>-mc 0.001</option> and
<option>-autosync 30</option>. Put them into the <guilabel>Additional command
line arguments</guilabel> field on the
<link linkend="settings-advanced">Advanced page</link> in <guilabel>&kplayer;
Settings</guilabel> and see if they make a noticeable difference for you.</para>

<para>The <option>-vop</option> &mplayer; option has since been replaced by the
<option>-vf</option> option, so that section of the article may be somewhat
obsolete or the tips may need some adjustment for the current &mplayer;.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-configuration-preview">
<title>Previews in the Open File dialog</title>

<para>There is some obsolete &kde; based software, like &kaboodle;, that tells
&kde; that it wants to be used for previewing media files, even those it does
not support, in the standard <guilabel>Open File</guilabel> dialog, which is
what &kplayer; uses. This makes browsing directories with media files painfully
slow, and unfortunately there is no option to turn off previewing selectively
for certain file types. Even if you turn off the <guilabel>Play
automatically</guilabel> option, the preview program will still be loaded. The
workaround is to either turn off previewing in &kplayer; entirely if you don't
need it, or remove the offending program from your system.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="howto-configuration-donkey">
<title>Previewing files in &kmldonkey;</title>

<para>The recent official &mldonkey; <acronym>GUI</acronym>s have been badly
broken, leaving <ulink url="http://kmldonkey.org/">&kmldonkey;</ulink> as
the most usable, albeit crashy, &mldonkey; frontend. &kmldonkey; supports
embedding of &kplayer; for previewing files, but it is recommended that you
change your <application>mldonkey_preview</application> script to start the
full &kplayer; for previewing partial downloads, since that will give better
interface and more options. If &mplayer; cannot play a partial download,
probably nothing else will, so just wait for a larger chunk to get
downloaded.</para>

</sect2>

</sect1>