Slow/stuttering playback on "decent" system

[DmonHiro]

Hold on just a moment. You are on Windows, right? Then why are you using SMS? Use MPCHC, the one that CAME with CCCP. Also, disable fddshow's AVC decoding, and use Core AVC.

[Falkor]

out of curiosity, have you tried playing the file with the subtitles off?

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by DmonHiro

Hold on just a moment. You are on Windows, right? Then why are you using SMS? Use MPCHC, the one that CAME with CCCP. Also, disable fddshow's AVC decoding, and use Core AVC.

Because I was told to try it as it may fix things being that it uses its own decoders. Normally I use either zoomplayer or MPC, and both have so far had better preformance.

@Falkor
Not sure, I've made it so tat they don't show up by having VSfilter not load when a video starts, but don't know if they aren't still being processed or not. Doing this seemed to only make a very slight improvement, but that could have just been because or perception.

[Miles Teg]

Have you tried CoreAVC

SMplayer use ffmpeg exactly like CCCP, the only difference is that mplayer don't care about what is installed on your computer it's an easy way to see if it's a performance problem or a setting problem.

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by Miles Teg

Have you tried CoreAVC

SMplayer use ffmpeg exactly like CCCP, the only difference is that mplayer don't care about what is installed on your computer it's an easy way to see if it's a performance problem or a setting problem.

Was using core AVC, but the trial period is over now. Would have to buy it or steal it in order to use it further. Didn't really notice much improvement when I was using it anyway.

[Revenger1589]

Vagrant0, I used to have a similar CPU, a p4 @2.66ghz which was single threaded and able to play most 720p encodes. I also have tried a 2.8ghz Pentium D that played everything I threw at it. With the correct configuration, your CPU should be enough for most anime.

Uninstall every codec and on your machine (CCCP, coreavc, divx, etc) and get the latest CCCP beta, it should come with a relatively new version of FFDshow tryouts which is almost as fast as CoreAVC, and the latest version of mpc-hc. Use mpc as your default player and select Overlay Mixer as output (don't forget to uncheck "auto-load subtitles" inside playback.) The rest should be fine out of the box to give you the best performance possible. If you still have troubles, try changing the output to VMR7 (renderless) and checking "auto-load subtitles", the internal sub rendering from mpc-hc is faster the Directvobsub.

You really should be able to play H264 720p encodes just fine.

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by Revenger1589

Vagrant0, I used to have a similar CPU, a p4 @2.66ghz which was single threaded and able to play most 720p encodes. I also have tried a 2.8ghz Pentium D that played everything I threw at it. With the correct configuration, your CPU should be enough for most anime.

Uninstall every codec and on your machine (CCCP, coreavc, divx, etc) and get the latest CCCP beta, it should come with a relatively new version of FFDshow tryouts which is almost as fast as CoreAVC, and the latest version of mpc-hc. Use mpc as your default player and select Overlay Mixer as output (don't forget to uncheck "auto-load subtitles" inside playback.) The rest should be fine out of the box to give you the best performance possible. If you still have troubles, try changing the output to VMR7 (renderless) and checking "auto-load subtitles", the internal sub rendering from mpc-hc is faster the Directvobsub.

You really should be able to play H264 720p encodes just fine.

Broke down and did a reformat. Have not installed anything other than windows, antivirus, and CCCP. Have settings as suggested, despite there being no sound now (probably forgot to set it up in windows... Yeah, that fresh) video still stutters visibly. It actually seems to be a bit worse than before, even after I force a deblocking skip.

[npcomplete]

have you tried completely disabling antivirus? Not just to stop, but most will have an option to "unload" the AV software (module). Are you using Overlay renderer btw (fastest)? If you want to make sure to get all the settings back to default, you can use the reset all settings in the CCCP control panel.

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by npcomplete

have you tried completely disabling antivirus? Not just to stop, but most will have an option to "unload" the AV software (module). Are you using Overlay renderer btw (fastest)? If you want to make sure to get all the settings back to default, you can use the reset all settings in the CCCP control panel.

It's kaspersky, it uses less than 1% of my CPU. Even when disabled, exited, and task manager does not list any components, doesn't change anything. I wouldn't exactly want to be doing anything when I have no protection anyway.

I had tried both the overlay without subtitles loaded, and renderless vrml 7 with subtitles loaded. No improvement.

I think the only remaining option is to figure out how to re-encode files for a smaller screen size, and hope that there are some methods there that don't require 7+ hours of processing.

[Revenger1589]

You already did a format so the system should be clean, now, what version of CCCP are you using? If it's the stable one from 2008 I recommend you upgrade to the latest beta.

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by Revenger1589

You already did a format so the system should be clean, now, what version of CCCP are you using? If it's the stable one from 2008 I recommend you upgrade to the latest beta.

I installed the beta, left everything except what I had mentioned the same. I guess the issue is that the encodes just require too much needless processing for the sake of asthetics. Although my system may be older, it can run most everything I can throw at it decently... I still find it hard to believe that video alone would require so much, but the evidence says otherwise. So I need to either find groups that are still releasing in smaller formats, or figure out how to re-encode them... Even if that means using horrible subs, or personally asking groups to consider releasing a smaller resolution version. I certainly can't be the only one being left out by this effort.

[arenine]

Since you did a reformat, you might as well give CoreAVC another try if you haven't already. CoreAVC should still be the fastest H.264 decoder when I last checked.

[Revenger1589]

Originally Posted by Vagrant0

I installed the beta, left everything except what I had mentioned the same. I guess the issue is that the encodes just require too much needless processing for the sake of asthetics. Although my system may be older, it can run most everything I can throw at it decently... I still find it hard to believe that video alone would require so much, but the evidence says otherwise. So I need to either find groups that are still releasing in smaller formats, or figure out how to re-encode them... Even if that means using horrible subs, or personally asking groups to consider releasing a smaller resolution version. I certainly can't be the only one being left out by this effort.

Just to be completely sure your processor is the problem, open the task manager and check the CPU usage while playing a 720p video, if it's constantly over 90% there's no much you can do without an upgrade.

The latest version of CoreAVC (1.9.5) lets you use your video card to decode h264 if it supports CUDA, so if your Motherboard has a PCI-E slot you could buy a cheap 8400GS and use that to decode your videos.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Revenger1589

The latest version of CoreAVC (1.9.5) lets you use your video card to decode h264 if it supports CUDA, so if your Motherboard has a PCI-E slot you could buy a cheap 8400GS and use that to decode your videos.

This only works if the encode is compliant with hardware-acceleration standards, which most fansub releases are not. Besides, CoreAVC's hardware acceleration is still pretty new, and therefore sometimes doesn't even work with compliant encodes.

[SeijiSensei]

Hmm, I use the equivalent nVidia extensions to mplayer in Linux (called VDPAU), and from what I can see it handles most every H.264 fansub I throw at it. It made an enormous difference on my last computer with a 3 GHz Pentium-D. Playing H.264 videos before upgrading my video adapter to a 9500 put a considerable load on the CPU, enough that it would cause the fan to kick in (as Flash video continues to do). It makes less difference on my more recent, quad-core machine of course, but that's not what most people here have available to them.

I've heard this comment about fansubs not fitting the profile before. Maybe that's true with the Windows implementations, but my experience in Linux says otherwise.

[synaesthetic]

Lots of people are having this problem as more and more groups are releasing their work in 720p h.264. The number of 480p h.264 and 704x400 XviD releases shrinks daily.

It's only going to get worse--there's still 1080p as well.

This is upsetting especially considering the popularity and convenience of watching video on a netbook. While 720p and higher resolutions are really pointless on a screen resolution of 1024x600, a lot of times 720p is the only option other than time-consuming re-encoding at a lower resolution. And I can't imagine too many netbooks short of the nVidia ION platform playing 720p with softsubs smoothly.

[Revenger1589]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

This only works if the encode is compliant with hardware-acceleration standards, which most fansub releases are not. Besides, CoreAVC's hardware acceleration is still pretty new, and therefore sometimes doesn't even work with compliant encodes.

You're talking about DXVA, CoraAVC uses CUDA which doesn't need the encode to be compliant with any standards. As long as your video card supports CUDA, CoreAVC will use the GPU to decode the video.

[chikorita157]

The problem is that most netbooks use the crappy Intel GMA graphics card which don't have any support for CUDA... but I'm pretty sure CoreAVC can take advantage of nVidia Ion since the Ion uses the 9400m which have support for CUDA.

[Vagrant0]

Regardless, any way to re-code the files into something a bit less problematic, like .avi? Or just lower resolution? Something that doesn't happen to take dozens of hours to complete per file?

[Dark Shikari]

Originally Posted by Revenger1589

You're talking about DXVA, CoraAVC uses CUDA which doesn't need the encode to be compliant with any standards. As long as your video card supports CUDA, CoreAVC will use the GPU to decode the video.

No, it still needs to be compliant in many ways; CUDA is just another interface to the same hardware used by DXVA. It might have fewer arbitrary restrictions, but it still is limited.