Can't run H264 or 1280X720 files

[lazyasian224]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

It's almost certain that the problem is with your processor. Upgrading it may be a bit of a pain. You're using an Athlon XP, which I believe is a "Socket A" processor. Socket A is no longer in use by AMD. It was replaced by Socket 754 (of which some processors are still around), which was replaced by Socket 939 (more processors are available), which was replaced by AM2 (this is the current standard), which is being replaced by AM2+, which will lead to AM3.

If you didn't care for any of that, know this: you can only use processors that match your motherboard. As I mentioned, you have a Socket A motherboard, or at best, a Socket 754 (my internet is extremely slow at the moment so I can't google to check it for you). So you're limited to processors in that range. If you're a Socket A, don't bother - even the best Socket A chip won't be able to play these back properly.

In order to get a more recent chip you'll need to upgrade your motherboard. This can be a bit of a pain, because it may involve upgrading many more components - your RAM likely won't be compatible, so you'll need to buy new RAM. It's also likely that you're using an AGP-based graphics card - AGP was phased out in favor of PCI-E[xpress], so you'd need to buy a new graphics card, too, unless your motherboard had built-in graphics support and you could get by on that.

Basically, you may end up essentially rebuilding your computer. It's not as bad as it sounds if you're comfortable with working inside of your system, but the expense may be a bit more than you were planning on.

oh wow... SWEET! NEW COMPUTER TIME!

even tho its a bummer i just bought a new graphics card a couple of months ago and stuff but i dont think my brother would complain if he got this thing...

umm i know its a little off topic but whats the easiest way to carry all my stuff in my hardrive to a new one, i currently have a EIDE WD Caviar SE 7200 RPM Hardrive thats 160 GB. Are these types of hardrives supported by current motherboards?

also, im really out of date with latest computer and laptop stuff
are there any laptops out rite now that are pretty much just as good as a desktop?
like is one more preferable than the other in terms of ability and versatility?

[hobbes_fan]

No laptop has the processing power of a current desktop. (IE if you plan play a lot of the newest games you'll find even the most expensive laptop on the market will struggle). Per dollar a desktop, particularly one you build yourself will have around double the performance of a laptop with equivalent specs.

To Ledgem: Would CoreAVC be worth a shot here? For $8USD it might solve his problems. But I'm not too sure how efficient coreavc is and whether it's enough.

WE had a discussion recently about this and these were my suggestions for a build
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...7&postcount=39
The most relevant ones for you would probably be the quiet HTPC and quiet allrounder. If you plan to reuse some stuff from your old pc like case, HDD and burner you're probably gonna spend around $300-$400.

You're probably looking at $600USD+ for a laptop with similar performance. Why because laptops use low power hardware in order to maximise battery life.

Yes IDE droves are still supported by motherboards, but don't plan to ever have more than 1 or 2 if you plan to get another hdd make sure it is SATA. Mainly because there are usually only one or two IDE ports on current motherboards. Basically you'll have to reinstall XP, too much hardware has changed.

[martino]

Originally Posted by hobbes_fan

No laptop has the processing power of a current desktop. (IE if you plan play a lot of the newest games you'll find even the most expensive laptop on the market will struggle).

Not really. Those 17" desk replacements with something like a Go 7950GTX or equivalent probably wouldn't have those problems...

Kinda offtopic, sorry.

[hobbes_fan]

You're looking at a DELL XPS m1710: Starting price $2000USD. Most reports I've seen even it's desktop brother which is still a very good card is brought to it's knees by Bioshock, FEAR, Crysis and Rainbow 6 Vegas. Unless you plan to play at 800x600 with no AA/AF/HDR. As I said only relevant if you plan on playing such games.

For $2000USD you could build a basic quadcore/high end dual core, 8800gt, 2x500gb hdd, bluray drive or HDDVD Drive, 2 gig ram and a 22" monitor and still have about $700 left over to buy a basic c2d laptop for portable use. I just don't see the value in buying a $2k laptop when the performance to price ratio is so poor.

PS to LazyAsian224, You definitely have a socket A, the fastest processor for that if you can find it is the XP 3200+. Should be able to get one on ebay for $20-$30. that's meets the minimum for h.264 1280x720 according to most sites. (OR you could try overclocking the living daylights out of what you have if you're willing to learn and experiment, most reports say you can get to 3200+ performance easily)

How to install a new processor
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...5E6678,00.html

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by lazyasian224

oh wow... SWEET! NEW COMPUTER TIME!

Originally Posted by lazyasian

]umm i know its a little off topic but whats the easiest way to carry all my stuff in my hardrive to a new one, i currently have a EIDE WD Caviar SE 7200 RPM Hardrive thats 160 GB. Are these types of hardrives supported by current motherboards?

Yep, your hard drive will be compatible with a new system. For reference, your drive is a PATA (Parallel ATA [Advanced Technology Attachment]), which is the "old" drive type. The newer type is SATA (Serial ATA). SATA has been around for a while, but PATA is still prevalent, and I don't believe that any motherboards are SATA-only. It'd be a simple matter of linking your drive into your new system and having fun. On a technical note, even if the motherboard were SATA-only, you could buy a PCI expansion card that had PATA connectors and use it that way - not a huge deal.

Originally Posted by lazyasian

are there any laptops out rite now that are pretty much just as good as a desktop?
like is one more preferable than the other in terms of ability and versatility?

That purely depends on what you want to use your computer for. If you're talking about watching anime and other movies, then the answer is yes: there are laptops that can match desktops in terms of that processing power. If you're talking hard-core gaming, the answer unfortunately is still no. Even though some laptops have some slick graphics chips in them, they'll always suffer certain setbacks (by default slower HDs, less powerful/fast hardware). Even if you clear away those setbacks, laptops will suffer from heat issues that desktops will not.

With regard to your question about moving your hard drive, if you're considering a laptop, you could simply throw your HD into an external enclosure in order to be able to use it with your laptop. In terms of cost, the cheaper external PATA enclosures are about $20 (sometimes even lower with rebates).

Originally Posted by hobbes_fan

To Ledgem: Would CoreAVC be worth a shot here? For $8USD it might solve his problems. But I'm not too sure how efficient coreavc is and whether it's enough.

I think it's always worth a shot, especially if the other solution involves spending a fair bit of money on a new system. Realistically, it won't make a difference. The Athlon XP processor line is in the same timeframe as mid-level Pentium 4's, in my opinion. I know that CoreAVC has helped out people with the fastest, latest P4's (2.8+ GHz) but I'm somewhat doubtful that it'd help any of them out if they tried to view videos at this size. I've forgotten if there's a post somewhere in this thread detailing a success story about it, but IIRC most of the success stories were just about playing H.264 successfully, not H.264 + monster resolution.

I'm also thinking back to my own 1.2 GHz Athlon system. It struggled with and couldn't smoothly play 1024xsomething XviD video. A 1.3 GHz Athlon XP would fare better, of course, but not that much better. I think that a 1280xsomething H.264 video is beyond it, CoreAVC or not. It'd be a pleasant surprise to find out otherwise, though.

[lazyasian224]

thanks guys, ill probably figure out what exactly im getting and order it all sometime soon hopefully

[mantidor]

I apologize before hand for this minor thread jack, but I really don't like to create threads when the topics are so similar...

I have a similar problem, however I can see the video, but...holy hell, I was really out of touch with the fansub scene (its been more than a year since my last download) but I had no idea it was this huge, 1020x720 movies!!? and only ~170Mb!?! I'm just blown away! I tried to play the movie but it stuttered a lot (video, audio was fine), I'm already downloading CCCP but I guess it won't help, probably my old machine is already showing its age? I have a really old ati card (9600) so I guess thats it, but maybe it should be able to handle it, what do you think?

complete specs: ati 9600 128Mb, pentiium IV 2,6 GHz and 512 ram

EDIT: I just installed it and it indeed solved the problem, good thing because I'm in no position to get a new computer for now

[martino]

Graphics card has very little to do with video decoding. It doesn't really matter whether you have an x1900 or an x300 or whatever. But that CPU of yours isn't the best. Will struggle on 720p h264 stuff without CoreAVC.

[WanderingKnight]

Realistically, it won't make a difference. The Athlon XP processor line is in the same timeframe as mid-level Pentium 4's, in my opinion.

I beg to differ: On Windows XP, with an Athlon XP 1.5 Ghz (almost the same processor, a bit slower), CoreAVC made a tremendous difference. In fact, on Linux, disabling post-processing with mplayer, I can still play Conclave's h264 HD encodes of Gundam 00 without problems (I have to boost priority a little).

[hobbes_fan]

I'd also like to add particularly with h264, the newer graphics cards (ATI x2000 series up, not sure about nvidia I think it's from the 8000 series up) software that supports the advanced HD function of these cards (PowerDVD Ultra is one I know of) the CPU load is significantly reduced from most benches I've seen by at least 25% when decoding h264. THis hardware/software combo is a rarity for this forum though but it is worth noting that these cards do have this functionality and independent benches demonstrate this
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/...eo/page14.html

Now this is still reliant on software capable of utilising these features (one I'm hoping for a freeware/opensource solution for soon, AMD is all over ATI to get this on Linux so I assume it will be sooner rather than later) but the benches don't lie. Newer graphics cards can make a significant difference if the software can utilise the processing power.

[virtual2210]

My Hardware
3 GHz P4 HT 1 GB RAM n 96 MB GFX(onboard GFX)

I mainly had problems with 1080p n higher. 720p works fine and so the other H264 encodes.

I used to have lots of lag while using CoreAVC(QTLite + CCCP) so I uninstalled everything else n installed K-Lite Mega and chosen FFdshow for H264. FFdshow has lots of customizations as compared to CoreAVC you can adjust deblocking skip and frame skiprate as per your needs. Well the default settings works for me no lag since then; so I'm gonna use FFdshow for H264. FFdshow downgrades your video a bit but eh! atleast you get smoother playback insted of laggy and outta sync playbacky by CoreAVC. AND it ONLY downgrades video quality when your CPU is overloading.

CPU Uses While playin 1080p (+ LAN Game Server + torrent client + 6 Firefox tabs on)


FFdshow settings

[Thingle]

He doesnt have a video card. It looks like the one he's got is an 8mb integrated, but still, that should run H264 files pretty well.

[emptyeighty]

Originally Posted by virtual2210

My Hardware
3 GHz P4 HT 1 GB RAM n 96 MB GFX(onboard GFX)

I mainly had problems with 1080p n higher. 720p works fine and so the other H264 encodes.

I used to have lots of lag while using CoreAVC(QTLite + CCCP) so I uninstalled everything else n installed K-Lite Mega and chosen FFdshow for H264. FFdshow has lots of customizations as compared to CoreAVC you can adjust deblocking skip and frame skiprate as per your needs. Well the default settings works for me no lag since then; so I'm gonna use FFdshow for H264. FFdshow downgrades your video a bit but eh! atleast you get smoother playback insted of laggy and outta sync playbacky by CoreAVC. AND it ONLY downgrades video quality when your CPU is overloading.

You're obviously doing it wrong. CoreAVC _is_ faster than ffdshow. You probably forgot to turn off h264 decoding in ffdshow, or there was some other h264 decoder with higher merit on your system.

[martino]

If I recall correctly CoreAVC doesn't have an option for dropping frames. Perhaps it could be this that made virtual2210 think that ffdshow is faster at decoding h264 than CoreAVC. As well as what emptyeighty wrote.

Originally Posted by virtual2210

atleast you get smoother playback insted of laggy and outta sync playbacky by CoreAVC.

This statement sounds incorrect. You should get laggy playback when forcing the decoder to drop frames, like you can in ffdshow. Since AFAIK CoreAVC doesn't drop frames and tries to decode them all, giving you actually smooth (or better said "too smooth" ie slow since it decodes all the frames but slower than in real-time) playback, at the cost of the video being behind audio in terms of synchronization. And trying to play 1080p with dropped frames on and in addition on a 3GHz P4 must look absolutely unwatchable (should look even worse than a horribly badly IVTC'ed NTSC DVD, more precisely I mean screwed up decimation, fwiw) unless by any chance you have some sort of a weird vision handicap. Even in the other case, without dropping frames, it'd be pretty unwatchable on such a system.

[virtual2210]

I felt like; may be I was wrong and I should check out and do as per instructions. One More Time.

I uninstalled everything and reinstalled CCCP+QT(CoreAVC)

This is how it should look While playing H264 . Right ??



And this is how the FFdshow Video Decoder settings look When its disabled for H264. Right ??



The playback was laggy usually outta sync. I tried lots but results were as previous installation. So I'd be back to FFdshow

Its not like favoring certain softwares or so... I just said what I had been experiencing.

@matino
Your comments made me confused. N BTW FFdshow aint droping lods of frames it hardly drop one or two frames every 5-9 secs(thats the time CPU uses stay 100% the drops back, Then 100 again after few secs) I dont even notice it droping any frames or sudden change of scene.

Off-Topic
---------------
I know P4 is crap for HD but it isnt right time to buy new PC I'm expecting successors of Core2 Family n PCIe cards in my next PC.

Last time when I upgraded fm 1.8 GHz to Pentium 4 HT 3.0E (checked out all details of it ) I had to regret of that coz just an year later Major upgrade Core 2 family was released. N so the PCIe has taken over AGP(I'm still shedding tears coz I cant buy a GFX due to outdated slot type ) Neways thats not the topic.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by virtual2210

I know P4 is crap for HD but it isnt right time to buy new PC I'm expecting successors of Core2 Family n PCIe cards in my next PC.

Last time when I upgraded fm 1.8 GHz to Pentium 4 HT 3.0E (checked out all details of it ) I had to regret of that coz just an year later Major upgrade Core 2 family was released. N so the PCIe has taken over AGP(I'm still shedding tears coz I cant buy a GFX due to outdated slot type ) Neways thats not the topic.

Here's a tip: there's no good time to upgrade your computer. Even if you buy the top of the line, within six months there will be an announcement of an even better product, and within less than a year it'll probably be released. The industry moves very quickly, and once you've bought something it's practically outdated.

The best thing to do is to not worry about that. Go with what fits your needs. Consider how "future-proof" your system will be - that is, how it will hold up to increasingly demanding applications - but don't buy a system based on how "future-proof" it is, because it's usually a waste of money.

The best time to buy a Core 2 system would be after the Core 2's successor is released. The next in line will be incredibly expensive, but it should make the Core 2 prices go down drastically. Unless the Core 2 processors are underpowered for what you're trying to do, that'd be the sweet spot in terms of timing for a system upgrade.

[hobbes_fan]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Here's a tip: there's no good time to upgrade your computer. Even if you buy the top of the line, within six months there will be an announcement of an even better product, and within less than a year it'll probably be released. The industry moves very quickly, and once you've bought something it's practically outdated.

The best thing to do is to not worry about that. Go with what fits your needs. Consider how "future-proof" your system will be - that is, how it will hold up to increasingly demanding applications - but don't buy a system based on how "future-proof" it is, because it's usually a waste of money.

The best time to buy a Core 2 system would be after the Core 2's successor is released. The next in line will be incredibly expensive, but it should make the Core 2 prices go down drastically. Unless the Core 2 processors are underpowered for what you're trying to do, that'd be the sweet spot in terms of timing for a system upgrade.

ext round of quads are scheduled for March. It is also quite possible according to most financial analysts (yes I enquired about buying some shares recently but it being rated a poor buy decided not to) that AMD has gone under by mid to late next year leaving an Intel monopoly so I assume Intel will go back to the bad old days of price gouging for crap. (duron v celeron, Athlon v p4, pentium D v X2). AMD's fault for digging themselves into a hole like this, but the prices for C2D are only the way they are because of the price war.

[Epyon9283]

I seriously doubt AMD is going to go under next year. They managed to survive just fine though the craptacular K6 processors. This isn't the first time Intel has held a performance lead.

[emptyeighty]

virtual2210: Those settings are correct. Are you using the latest CoreAVC (1.6)?

[virtual2210]

Originally Posted by emptyeighty

virtual2210: Those settings are correct. Are you using the latest CoreAVC (1.6)?

I use CoreAVC that comes bundled with freeware Quicktime Alternative 1.81. I dont remember the version prolly its 1.5.x.x

Plz note all the comments I made are about playing HD 1080p or better

For SD H264 I just randomly use FFdshow or CoreAVC(The one that comes bundled with Quicktime Alternative)

Never had problems with SD H264 & HD 720p H264