Discussion Forums > Technology

Processor/Chipset Vs Video Card

(1/6) > >>

arknorth:
Here's a set of slightly philosophical questions for us folks stuck with older systems (and without the answer 'replace your computer' - to some that could be an impractical answer).

Say you have a good working computer that you're using for videos and playbacks - up until the last few years, that wasn't much of an issue, with almost any hunk-of-junk system being able to handle 480p vids.  But lately, as we all know, what with the HD massacre rampaging through the fansubbing communities, which is more important for those of us with these older, but basically just viable machines in your opinion?

Now, for the sake of argument, we will stay within a paramiter of machine types - no one expects a 12 year old PIII systems to be able to drive HD vids, so we won't go there.  But machines made from a year or two after the release of XP and OS10 (and yea, you folks with Lynux as well), just when the early Media Centers were hitting store shelves, should be able still to be upgraded to nearly usable status.  For example - my clunker...

I took the motherboard of a Dell OptiPlex 160L and remounted it in an Antec console case, then proceeded to max it out on RAM and added cards to free up said RAM from operating the video and audio.  What I did not do is max out these cards, specifically the video card.  Currently it has an nVidia 256MB beastie in it.  Of course, I can upgrade this to a 512MB if needed, seeing that this would be the final strength upgrade available to me.

The processor is a P4 2.2GHz with 8KB (L1)/512KB L2 cache, 400/533MHz FSB and 2GBs of PC-3200 DDR. Both onboard video and audio systems are disabled and sent to their respective cards (PCI based).

Current issues are - Image shatterring while using VLC on higher res vids - Video dragging/lagging on Media Player Classic on higher res (720p) vids (also occurs on Windows Media Player).

With all that, and in your humble opinions, would upgrading the video card be worth it, or just a waste of time with this processor/chipset configuration?

SECONDLY - IF you were to bare-bones from AN OLDER SYSTEM (IE: Don't just say get the latest and greatest money-burner chips and boards - some folks can't DO that, and there are many bargans to be had out there). what would your reccomendations for MINIMUM Processor, chipset and video cards be to run mid-ranged HD videos?  (Mind you, this is also assuming they DO have a monitor that can handle HD as well.)

A-N

erious:
Before you buy anything - try using mplayer and see if you still can't run 720p video.
(might need some tweaking in options, but afair it's all rather intuitive)
It really does wonders with video playback on slower PCs.
Since I'm a bit out of the loop with actual best value for money nowadays, I'll leave the hardware advice for the folks with more current information.

bork:
Most of the newer/decent video cards are now PCIe and more the likely not available on your existing motherboard.  This might limit your capability to do much upgrading.   

arknorth:

--- Quote from: erious on August 24, 2010, 04:23:05 PM ---Before you buy anything - try using mplayer and see if you still can't run 720p video.
(might need some tweaking in options, but afair it's all rather intuitive)
It really does wonders with video playback on slower PCs.
Since I'm a bit out of the loop with actual best value for money nowadays, I'll leave the hardware advice for the folks with more current information.

--- End quote ---

Yes, I should have added what player for a limited system would be advisable as well.  Thanks.

Remember though, the questions are about systems more than software, though if that's a fix, we'll see.


--- Quote from: bork on August 24, 2010, 04:32:21 PM ---Most of the newer/decent video cards are now PCIe and more the likely not available on your existing motherboard.  This might limit your capability to do much upgrading.  

--- End quote ---

There are still quite a few PCI based 512MBs available (more than IDE/PATA Hard Drives at least) - That's what us scroungers do - SCROUNGE!  ;)

A-N

x5ga:
most video decoders rely on the CPU for the actual decoding, the video card doing only the rendering stuff. A P4 has a pretty good decoding speed, considering its age. Also a 256MB video card should be more than enough for rendering 1080p videos. My advice would be to use CoreAVC+media player classic homecinema, and if it doesn't work (720p should work with your configuration, can't say for sure that 1080p will) upgrade the CPU. I doubt any P4 motherboard has a PCIe slot, and all the newer video cards use that slot. You didn't specify the exact model of the video card, but it might support CUDA if it's a nVidia, so CoreAVC could use that to help improve the decoding speed. Still, the main upgrade would be a new CPU+Motherboard.

About the minimum specs for watching HD videos... I sincerely can't say for sure, but I'd recommend at least a dual-core CPU, 2GB of RAM and at least a ATi Radeon HD2xxx series (or the equivalent from nVidia). Or you could try and get a HD4xxx series and the cheapest CPU/motherboard with a PCIe slot and decode HD material using DXVA. That should probably be the cheapest option.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page