noob topic. how to configure smplayer best for my system.

[vegenaise]

having some choppy playback as is. running it on linux mint 17.1 xfce on a sandybridge i7 x220t lenovo, w/ 8gb ram and an ssd. was sort of wondering if it relates to the default mint video drivers, or perhaps the many video configuring options within smplayer. interestingly, playback is flawless on lubuntu 14.04 out of the box w/ mplayer, so it must have something to do with my mint installation. below is a copy of my inxi -Fxz output. any insight would be greatly appreciated.

System: Host: ThinkPad-X220-Tablet Kernel: 3.13.0-37-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2)
Desktop: Xfce 4.11.8 (Gtk 2.24.23) Distro: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
Machine: System: LENOVO (portable) product: 4294CTO version: ThinkPad X220 Tablet
Mobo: LENOVO model: 4294CTO Bios: LENOVO version: 8DET64WW (1.34 ) date: 08/31/2012
CPU: Dual core Intel Core i7-2620M CPU (-HT-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 10765.4
Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 800.00 MHz 3: 800.00 MHz 4: 800.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1366x768@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card: Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-37-generic
Network: Card-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection driver: e1000e ver: 2.3.2-k port: 5080 bus-ID: 00:19.0
IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Card-2: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] driver: iwlwifi ver: in-tree: bus-ID: 03:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 378.1GB (8.1% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: ST92503010AS size: 250.1GB
2: id: /dev/sdb model: BP4_mSATA_SSD size: 120.0GB 3: USB id: /dev/sdc model: ExpressCard size: 8.0GB
Partition: ID: / size: 103G used: 29G (30%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 8.00GB used: 0.01GB (0%) fs: swap
ID: swap-2 size: 1.52GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Info: Processes: 280 Uptime: 2 days Memory: 1573.1/7867.8MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4

[rvm]

Send the mplayer log (options -> view logs) after playing video. That may give a clue about the low performance.

[vegenaise]

[rvm]

Have you tried without the coreserve option?

[vegenaise]

can you tell me where/how i would turn that off?

[rvm]

Preferences -> Performance -> Use CoreAVC

[vegenaise]

oh, i actually already had that turned on when i was trying to troubleshoot it myself.

[vegenaise]

so i was trying to research this a bit more and i think i stumbled on what is happening when i play video, it's called video tearing. i found some lubuntu documentation (suggesting a fix for it with mplayer, and they recommend switching the video output to gl. i noticed that smplayer has 6 some gl drivers. i was wondering if someone here might know which might be best for my sandybridge i7 w/ the older intel hd 3000 discreet graphics.