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PowerDVD performance on 2405FPW

A

ah_sim

n00b
Joined
Aug 15, 2005
Messages
7
Hi all,

I've just got a 2405 and that thing is just too good to have. But I'm now having some issue with DVD playback and I would like to find out what happens before I make a move. The configuration of my pc:

AMD Athlon XP2500
Kingston DDR333 512MB
Asus A7V8X-MX
Matrox G400DH 32MB (isn't it better than the on board graphics?)
blah blah blah....

I'm not a tech geek and I don't play 3D game so I don't even have a better graphic cards. But matrox is known for good 2D performance so I thought it should be good enough for my purpose. But then when I tried to play DVD with PowerDVD 6 (CLEV-2 enabled) fullscreen, it's a bit sluggish (looked like it's dropping around 5 frames/s). When I checked with the CPU utilization it showed 99% for the PowerDVD process.

I'm wondering what exactly hit the performance. Is it due to the old graphics card or the CPU is too slow for such job (which doesn't make sense for me). I know enabling the 'hardware acceleration' in PowerDVD does boost the performance but that would make the picture worse (I think CLEV2 does better job in scaling). Can anyone tell me what to do except blind upgrading? =)

Thank you so much~~
 
cpu's fine, ur gpu is not up to snuff, today's on-boards are much faster than that, at least tin video-playback department :D
 
TehQuick said:
cpu's fine, ur gpu is not up to snuff, today's on-boards are much faster than that, at least tin video-playback department :D
Click to expand...

so do you mean the scaling task goes to the GPU? Then why does the CPU utilization went up all the way? How about the video memory, is 128MB enough then? Thanks a lot! :)
 
The onboard VIA/S3-Graphics should have at least MPEG2-acceleration, so it should be "faster" with the onboard-chip.

But sometimes these do not have a good analog signal on high resolutions.
A cheap FX5200 or 6200 or any ATI Radeon with DVI should be fine, just confirm that they support 1920x1200 on DVI.
 
koegs said:
The onboard VIA/S3-Graphics should have at least MPEG2-acceleration, so it should be "faster" with the onboard-chip.

But sometimes these do not have a good analog signal on high resolutions.
A cheap FX5200 or 6200 or any ATI Radeon with DVI should be fine, just confirm that they support 1920x1200 on DVI.
Click to expand...

I agree...matrox was known for dual screens and superb 2D, but that was back when everyone used analog CRT monitors, but now everything's digital and DVI. Reading text with DVI on a LCD is way better than I could get any analog monitor to be, even with a matrox.

Since you don't game Go find a used ati or nvidia card that supports dvi and 1900x1200. (craig's list if you've got one in your area or ebay). Your eyes will thank you.
 
Thanks for everyone's post. I appreciate it. Can you guys give me suggestion on which card I should get? say under US$100? Thanks. =)
 
Check that you have enabled the hardware acceleration in the powerdvd video options. And why are you running CLEV-2 enabled if you see its dropping frames? CLEV-2 only slows it even more.
 
johto said:
Check that you have enabled the hardware acceleration in the powerdvd video options. And why are you running CLEV-2 enabled if you see its dropping frames? CLEV-2 only slows it even more.
Click to expand...

CLEV-2 also makes everything look unnatural..I find the Original color profile looks best, at least on my CRT.
 
I just tried to enable hardware acceleration and the result was much better. However when the video had some fast motion, there was a line in the middle of the screen and the screen was kinda cut off in half. What does that mean? Does it mean G400 is not good enough to do the DVD decoding in such high res or the video memory is not enough? Thanks again! =)
 
I don't believe there is any case where you will run into video memory issues doing 2d work even with 32mb of ram. However i agree with everyone else that the video card is really inadequate for working at such a high resolution, a decent radeon card will do wonders for you.
 
Hey there,

I stumbled onto this when i was contemplating my own 2405 purchase today, and thought you might be interested. Go to
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...y_id=6198&cs=19&l=en&Page=productlisting.aspx
and then scroll down and click on the "Click here to see if your Dell system and graphics card is compatible with this monitor.", Link. (I can't direct link to it)

Anyway, I thought they did a good job there about outlining cards that function well with it. Hope it helps you!
-Brad
 
Bradish said:
Hey there,

I stumbled onto this when i was contemplating my own 2405 purchase today, and thought you might be interested. Go to
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...y_id=6198&cs=19&l=en&Page=productlisting.aspx
and then scroll down and click on the "Click here to see if your Dell system and graphics card is compatible with this monitor.", Link. (I can't direct link to it)

Anyway, I thought they did a good job there about outlining cards that function well with it. Hope it helps you!
-Brad
Click to expand...

*edit*

teehee.... Oops!, wrong thread.
 
Thanks again for everyone's input. After getting suggestions from different people I decided to grab a 'new' card. I read the video card upgrade thread in video card board and I've came up with the following choices:

Radeon 9600Pro 128MB
Radeon 9600Pro 256MB
Radeon 9600XT 128MB
Radeon 9800Pro 128MB

I know they are in different price region but they are all in my budget. I've read through the spec but I'm not sure which one I really need. The only game I would play with my card is world soccer 8 (or 9). Can anyone give me some suggestions again? =)
 
ah_sim said:
Radeon 9600Pro 128MB
Radeon 9600Pro 256MB
Radeon 9600XT 128MB
Radeon 9800Pro 128MB
Click to expand...


Since you don't game, you don't need the 256mb one. And the 9600XT and 9800pro are similar in performance if I remember correctly.

So either the 9600pro 128 or the 9800pro 128.
 
ah_sim said:
I just tried to enable hardware acceleration and the result was much better. However when the video had some fast motion, there was a line in the middle of the screen and the screen was kinda cut off in half. What does that mean? Does it mean G400 is not good enough to do the DVD decoding in such high res or the video memory is not enough? Thanks again! =)
Click to expand...

Maybe the "line" you see in horizontal fast movement is the tearing you see when vsync is off? Enable vsync in the drivers if you can find it.

Someting is way off in your system if it uses almost 100% CPU.
My P4 3.0GHz, nvidia 6600GT uses only 10% when playing DVD on powerdvd.
 
I bought myself a used 9800SE (which could soft mod to 9800Pro) with a $55 price tag. =) I will get it later today so I will report the difference after. Thanks for everyone's input. =)

Is the vsync option available in omega driver? I'm going to use omega driver for my 9800 so I could soft mod it to 9800 Pro. =)
 
DVDs play at a fixed framerate, 29.97 (for NTSC). Vsync only affects games, not movies.
 
Thats incorrect. if you are not using hardware accelration(not using overlays etc) then you can get tearing on the video.
 
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