Freezes on G4 with 2 monitors

[Revere]

I'm using a G4 AGP 1.2gig processor, 1gig RAM) with Radeon 9200 graphics card running 2 monitors (both VGA at 1400x900dpi).
VLC 0.8.5, 0.8.6 (latter worse) both tend to freeze after a while (minutes to hours, even from same DVD). Image stops moving, sound continues normally for several minutes, then sound sticks/stutters to a stop. The moment the image freezes only the cursor still works. Unable to force quit or anything else - only soln is to restart. Rebuilt the whole system (10.4.. Freeze situation improved a lot, but still occurs at random.
I have tried running "Activity Monitor" with VLC. It shows 50-70% processor cycles devoted to VLC, but no change just before or when freeze occurs.
Any suggestions?
Revere

[Zwerker]

I've got the exact same problem! Running a dual 450 MHz G4 ("Mystic") with 1 GB RAM and a newly acquired Radeon 9200 PCI. TFT @ 1280x1024 through VGA and TV @ 640x480 through S-video. OS X 10.4.8, VLC 0.86.

I've so far watched two DiVX-movies (TV in full screen mode) and on both occations VLC froze so bad I had to reset the computer. Picture stopped, audio kept running.

(Revere: funny thing that we both registered here today to ask about the same problem!)

[Revere]

Hi Zwerker
I've also found that Apple's DVD player is almost useless (stutters terribly with most DVDs) and Chroma (another DVD player) keeps video picture small in top left corner even if screen enlarged to fill monitor. I think the problem is with the 9200 driver, but trying to get any joy out of Radeon is a lost cause . . .
Would be nice if those clever guys at Videolan had some ideas regarding non-Apple installed displays.
Revere

[sonic]

Hi there,
I've got exactly the same problem on a G5 Dual 2GHz after changing the old ATI Radeon Mac Edition 32 MB from 2000 to a new ATI Mac Edition 9200 128MB because of the fan of the old card getting noisy. Apple DVD Player works and a .m4v file on Quicktime works also, but VLC crashes every time after 2-20 min. After putting back in the old graphics card, everything works again. I'm running 10.4.10, but the same occured when starting from a new 10.3.9 partition. It doesn't crash when I do a "save" system start, but as there are no core video & core audio extensions, the video stutters and there's no sound.

Any idea?

sonic

[Revere]

Hi Sonic

I have 2 drives in my G4 Mac/Radeon 128. The one drive has OSX10.4.10, and this one (since 10.4.7 or so) crashes etc. with VLC.
The other drive in the same machine has 10.4.3, and VLC works just fine if I start up from that drive.
Simply changing accounts while using the 10.4.10 system does not help.
Does all this give any clues to anyone?
I also have problems with some other players e.g. Chroma. It will not scale the movie picture size properly. There probably some or other link with core video or something, but I don't know enough about this stuff to be sure . . .
I have considered reinstalling 10.4.3 and then upgrading to 10.4.10 using a "combo" updater, but have not had the courage to go through all the effort involved.