Why Do I need a fast HTPC for DVD Playback

sportster64 · 2002-05-03

If I am using say a PII 266 with a Radeon 7200 that does the mpeg2 harware compression - I would think this would eliminate the need for a fast CPU ? Would this be the case if I were only using the HTPC for DVD playback to projector ?

kal

· #2 · May 3, 2002

On my P3/800 with a Radeon 7200 in H/W acceleration playback mode, I find that my CPU ultilization is usually very low (10-15% if I remember correctly). This jumps up significantly if I use FF/REW.

You *may* be ok with a P2/266, but it's definitely on the low end of the scale! I've heard of people using 300-400Mhz CPU's without problems for H/W assisted DVD playback ....

Kal

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rajiveaggarwal

· #3 · May 3, 2002

On my second PC PowerDVD on a P2/350 works for me without hardware assistance. Just - occasional pauses...

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mikef

· #4 · May 3, 2002

Personally, I wouldn't say that "occasional pauses" could be classified as "working". IMHO, one cannot expect reasonable results using a software decoder on a PII 350MHz.

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DRS

· #5 · May 3, 2002

I would say that with hardware assist (especially DXVA) a P-2/3-450 with 128mb ram is minimum for DVD only.

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xcel

· #6 · May 3, 2002

Hi Sportster64:

___A 266 MHz PII is about the bottom I would even consider and even than, your OS had better be as clean as possible with absolutely nothing running. I would say you would be in trouble with a particular SW based player as well given I have seen higher CPU utilization numbers using 1 player vs. the other â€¦ Since you are speaking of a possible LX chipset, canâ€™t you upgrade a small amount at least? Letâ€™s say a SECC based 333 MHz PII w/ a slight OC to 375 MHz? That would get you over the minimum I would think and that kind of chip should be available for ~ $25.00 over on E-Bay.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.

___ [email protected]

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sportster64

Discussion Starter · #7 · May 3, 2002

xcel - yes I might do the upgrade - but that I was waiting on to hear from you guys on what you thought first - Thanks.

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flow

· #8 · May 3, 2002

i had much the same question. i'm very new to this, so forgive me if this is a somewhat obvious question.

i have an old computer, a 400MHz PIII with 128 MB of RAM, that i'd like to convert into a dvd player/mp3 server. i planned on upgrading my video card to an ATI all in wonder 7500. as for sound, i was going to figure that out later

i read in the FAQ that 600MHz is the reccomended minimum for a system, but most of the post on the forum here seem to be concerned with the state of the art. i just want a dvd player. if i could get the tv recording/playback services that that ATI card offers working too, i'd be thrilled.

can a 400MHz PIII handle it? i can get more ram, memory's cheap. i'm not concerned with gaming at all, i have another computer for that. i'd prefer not spending too much money on this, i just thought it would be fun to try out with the spare parts that i already had.

is there a better card i should consider purchasing? perhaps with a little more horsepower to help out the processor? i read here that while the 8500 is better for gaming, it has some driver issues when it comes to dvd playback. a decent picture is all i'm really after. the tv i'm going to send this to isn't exactly cutting edge.

anyway, thanks in advance for any help anyone can give me. great forum you have here.

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minaelromany

· #9 · May 3, 2002

I have been running a P III 450 with 128 ram and AIW 128 for three years now and DVD runs very good on that system , I use POWER DVD XP 4.0 without HW assistance and even with software DTS and DPLII the cpu usage is 40/50 % that becomes 15/25 % with HW IDCT and sp/dif , which I think is great for this slow cpu , I don't do much T.V recording , but when I do the results aren't bad either.

I am getting a new Radeon 7500 later this month and maybe upgrade to Tualatin 1300 and new mobo ..

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Neil L

· #10 · May 4, 2002

I have two HTPCs, both with "slow" processors. Main system, AMD K6-II 350Mhz, 128meg RAM, Radeon VE. DVD playback is great with ATI player, or Zoom with ATI filters. PowerDVD is a no go on this system, though. It'll play, but lots of judder.

Other system is a 200Mhz MMX Pentium with a Mpact2 media processor. That playes DVDs perfectly also, just no custom resolutions. This is probably the best solution for a slow processor HTPC.

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Steiner83

· #11 · May 4, 2002

An interesting product today would definetely be VIA:s newest chip. It is clocked 933Mhz and suppostly it's perforemence outweights the Intel Celeron with the same frequence. However, the best thing of all is that it can be cooled passively, i.e. no noisy fans are needed for this little monster.

Finally completetly quite HTPCs

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mikef

· #12 · May 4, 2002

Quote:

Originally posted by Steiner83
An interesting product today would definetely be VIA:s newest chip. It is clocked 933Mhz and suppostly it's perforemence outweights the Intel Celeron with the same frequence. However, the best thing of all is that it can be cooled passively, i.e. no noisy fans are needed for this little monster.

Finally completetly quite HTPCs

Sounds quite encouraging, however I want to see those benchmarks before taking their word for it.

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Esben

· #13 · May 4, 2002

Quote:

Originally posted by Steiner83
An interesting product today would definetely be VIA:s newest chip. It is clocked 933Mhz and suppostly it's perforemence outweights the Intel Celeron with the same frequence. However, the best thing of all is that it can be cooled passively, i.e. no noisy fans are needed for this little monster.

Finally completetly quite HTPCs

The performance is strongly lacking on those CPU's. Comparing their performance with a Celeron is a "modified" truth. FPU performance is sverely lacing on the C3's, and thus would be a bad choice for gaming. Perhaps they'd work for HTPC's, but if you can get away with a much faster CPU with still very very quiet cooling I'd definitely choose that.

Another option for the users of old motherboard would be to use one of the newer "Tualatin" Celerons with a PowerLeap converter. Eg. using a 1 GHz CPU (100 MHz bus) and underclocking it to 666 MHz (66 MHz bus).

I think it would perhaps run with passive cooling as well.

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