Power Difference

[Honda_Boy]

Well I setup one of my extra computes to play video for me but my main purpose was so it could play a particular video. One particular anime series I watch is in HD (Darker Than Black, 1280x720) and my laptop has been overheating so the strain of HD video is causing it to heat up and thus the video starts to get choppy and unwatchable. I set-up this other computer so I could watch it (I'm outputting the video to my 27" TV via S-Video). It's specs after the upgrade are as follows: Athlon XP 2000+, 768MB PC2100 RAM, GeForce 6600GT, Integrated audio. Now I figured putting that 6600GT in it would make it stout enough to handle the video but it showed only slightly better tan the GeForce2 that was in it before. The video lags behind the audio BAD. So my guess is that old Athlon is just too weak.

My plan is to order a cube type Socket 754 barebone and use my Sempron 2800+ Mobile from my old laptop, the 6600GT from the video tower, 512MB-1GB of ram pulled from my Compaq downstairs, integrated audio, and other salvage/spare parts. My old laptop handled previous episodes that were the same res just fine and it's specs were Sempron 2800+ Mobile, 512MB PC2100 RAM, ATI Radeon Xpress 200M, Conexant Audio (probably integrated). Before my current laptop had overheating problems, it did alright too except for the occasional slow down where I'd have to turn off Zoom Player and restart it but that wasn't very often. Its specs are Celeron 440 1.86GHz, 1.5GB DDR2 533 RAM, Intel 945G Integrated Video, Conexant Audio.

So do ya'll think this'll work correctly? Is the Athlon 2000 really so weak it can't properly show an HD vid or do you think something is wrong with the vid? The vid worked fine on the laptop until it got too hot. I transfered the vid with a thumb drive but I don't think it got messed up. It just seems the processor is too weak. I figured the video card would have made most of the difference. I thought if The Radeon Xpress 200M could handle it, the 6600GT could but it seems the processor is just too weak.

One other question. Do you think adding a sound card and disabling the integrated audio woud make any difference?

And just a note. So far it's handled every other video I've thrown a it. All were .mkv types (.mkv's are usually much higher quality than .avi's) and one was even pretty high res too. It was about 1024x..... well I know it was 1024 wide but I don't know the height. It was a widescren 16:9 vid (most of them are).

Thanks for your opinions!!!

Edited October 1, 2007 by Honda_Boy

[JSKY]

I think the setup your putting together should be more then fine for just watching videos. The Athlon XP 2000 should be more then fine for that. A sound card might help if the onboard is giving you problems.

Try defragging just the video file once. See if that helps. Try adjusting the settings for the GeForce 6600GT. (download the latest drivers for it). Maybe it just needs to be tweaked some.

[Honda_Boy]

well, like I said it's an HD video and so far this system has the slowest processor that I've tried the video on, yet it has the second most powerful video card (I used to watch video on my main rig which has an Athlon 64 3500+ and twin 7600GT cards). I put the video on my external hard drive and I'll load it onto my main rig and see if the vid has any probs.

[Honda_Boy]

Nothing is wrong with the video. I tried it on my main rig running both off the external hard drive and copying it to the main drive and running it off that. It's something with the tower. I'm still wondering about the sound so I think I'll pull the SB Live! from the Compaq and see if that's it.

[Honda_Boy]

........ Huh.

It seems that the speed of the processor is merely screwing up the video when it loads. All I have to do is move the navigation bar to re sync the audio and it appears to work fine. I'll give it a try. Sitll, I wanna build another media rig cause this one is a mid-tower, beige, and loud. It's bigger than I want and makes too dang much noise.

Ok, aside from moving the bar, updating the video drivers and adding a sound card improved nothing. So I'll just say it's a slow CPU and maybe the audio will remain in sync after moving the bar. Still though, the video appeared to slow down and play less smoothly once the first character spoke. Oh well, in about 2 weeks, I'll have a 4th (running) computer in my room. Got a Sempron 2800+ just a waitin to be used.

Well snap, it only re syncs temporarily. That's it. My final conclusion is that the Athlon XP 2000+ is not fast enough to run High Definition 1280x720 videos.

Edited September 30, 2007 by Honda_Boy

[shanenin]

if you use the task manager while the video is playing, does it show 100% of the cpu being utilized?

[Honda_Boy]

The High Definition Darker THan Black video, yes. I also tried a regular .avi of Kekkaishi too. The .avi only went from 25-55% while the High Definition DTB .mkv maxed it.

[JSKY]

Sounds like that is the problem then. HD must really take the power. Now I'll keep that one in mind.

[Honda_Boy]

Someone told me on AnimeSuki that the processor wouldn't really matter if the 6600GT had native H264 support but it doesn't . H264 is the video type that .mkv uses like my most my .avi's use DivX type video.

Well like I said, in a bout a week or 2, I'll have a 4th running computer in my room that'll be smaller, quieter, and better looking that can handle the videos.

[JSKY]

Sounds Good

[Honda_Boy]

for the heck of it (and I'm bored in class) I decided to run a little test on the laptop. A different anime that also has an HD version, I downloaded the final ep but luckily this group released both a regular and an HD version. I ran the HD version with the task manager on and the highest the processor got was 88% but didn't stay up there. The temp stayed around 80-85 Celsius. I'm still running the non-HD version in the back ground and right now it's fluctuating mostly between 17 and 25% and once spiked to 47% and sometimes drops to 11%. The temp is remaining steady at 68-70 Celsius. It seems my laptop's temp problem has gotten a little better but still it's going to be demoted to school/internet only with it playing video only when I'm out somewhere like my granny's or on a trip.

I can't wait to get my system built. It's not quite the next computer I wanted to build but still it'll be nice to have so I can dedicate my main rig to games again (it has no space left and it only has 2 games installed). What's gonna be awesome is all I need to buy is the barebone. I have everything else already. The barebone has a motherboard, case, and PSU. I have the processor (Sempron 2800+ Mobile), the memory (512-1024MB, not sure how much I'll actually use), the video card (GeForce 6600GT), and pretty much everything else. It's gonna be great. The computer I'm using for video now will be turned back into a Linux rig. It had Kubuntu before I put XP on it but I think I'll give Ubuntu a try this time.

[jcl]

Someone told me on AnimeSuki that the processor wouldn't really matter if the 6600GT had native H264 support but it doesn't

The 6600GT does support H.264 decoding but it requires a media player and driver that support NVIDIA's PureVideo.

[Honda_Boy]

what media player and driver would that be? I use the Combined Community Codec Pack with Zoom Player to watch video. The CCCP is kind of a must have if you're watching anime in Windows.

[jcl]

what media player and driver would that be?

It looks like CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra and InterVideo WinDVD 8 Platinum. NVIDIA sells a PureVideo plugin for WMP but it doesn't seem to support H.264.