[Pootle]

I'm a mostly happy bunny, having just upgraded my soundcard to a Delta 410, this is driving a combination of Naim and Quad power amps, with B&W nautilus plus other speakers.


The PC is an Athlon 1.2Ghz


I've just been enjoying big phat band, and comparing DD5.1 with DTS. I'm playing this with PowerDVD in 6 speaker mode.


With DD5.1 this sytem trundles along happily averaging less than 10% processor.


When I switch to DTS, the processor utilisation basically stays stuck to the roof, with occasional small dips. - Its probably averaging around 90%


What's going on - is this normal behaviour?

Here's the perfmon piccy


I have had a search around a found nothing else on this - but sorry if it has already been discussed.

 

[Namlemez]

Though I know nothing of their relative compression rates, but DTS does have a bitrate about 3x what DD does. Perhaps it simply is more processor intensive or the decoding isn't as optimized.


And from your picture, that doesn't even look maxed out. When mine is overworked, there's a flat line against the top of the graph.

 

[Cliff Watson]

Pootle,


Just checked with a music DVD (Diana Krall, Live in Paris) and found it to be 41% for AC-3 and 45% for DTS on a P4 1.5 GHz CPU. For DTS CD music it was around 8% in PowerDVD 4.0XP Deluxe.

 

[Pootle]

I looks like it's the high data rate on Big Phat Band, its DTS track is 1,536Kbps.

I've just tried out La Belle Helene - its DTS track is 768Kbps and that runs at about 35% processor, with DD5.1 running at about 33% - which is much closer to Cliff's figures.


It does look like I'll have problems with a DTS disc at 1,536 and real video on at well though...