1080p playback.. faster cpu or graphics card?

[ChiefBrody]

Hi all, long time user of Mepo (as my girlfriend calls it) despite occasional trips to Vista MCE.. I always come back!

Little hardware question:

I've just treated myself to a 47" 1080p screen to enjoy 720p and 1080p 264 content from Mediaportal (and later either a hardware HD-DVD or bluray player - or perhaps a PC based solution)

However, I cant get decent playback of 720p during high motion, and barely at all on 1080p - but I want to be sure where the bottleneck is before I invest in more bits.

Setup:

Running Nvidia 6200LE PCI-E @ 1920x1080, P4 Prescott HT (3ghz) 1gb DDR2 667, XP Pro Sp2, Trust 514DX (Optical out for audio to amp) - cant remember my exact motherboard but is an MSI 478 board with DDR/DDR2 sockets, and onboard Radeon R200 (which fares about the same as the Nvidia card)

I've run the videos (.MKV files and quicktime HD content files) in MPC, and the same issues occur.. 720p fine until there is high motion then stuttering kicks in... inevitably fallling out of sync more and more unless the high motion sequence is brief in which case it rushes to catch up with itself. 1080p is much worse, less motion required to trip it up.

Now I checked the task manager during these bouts and saw that cpu usage was 95-100%.

Should I go for a decent HW video accellerating card (like the ATI 2400/2600, or the forthcoming 3850?) in order to lessen the load on the CPU, or should I replace motherboard and cpu, going for a Core 2 Duo type (as my laptop can play the 720p stuff no problem, and its the 1.7ghz C2D, with a poop Intel Graphics card - but is only running a res of 1280x720)

Thanks for any advice!

Forgot to add that I've tried various 264 codecs including CoreAVC, and FFDshow - some perform better than others but overall the problem remains.

[Spragleknas]

My opinion:
You should get a better gfx- and, if needed, later upgrade mobo/cpu/mem.

You will probably get a much better picture (in SD and HD) with a HD2400 (ATi) or 8400GS (nVidia), which are both really cheap cards that supports HD-acc. The later will soon (or now?) be released with a new 65 nm core.

[ThaClown]

I have the HD2400, works great.
Just make sure you get the latest PowerDVD for playback/codec....

Id I was buiying new i'd go for the HD2600Pro...

[Spragleknas]

Why 2600 and not 2400? I am askin since you got the 2400 and recommend 2600.

Also: Pro has lower core speed than XT --> less heat. BUT: I have never seen a pro-card that included the DVI-HDMI adapter.

[knutinh]

Originally Posted by Spragleknas

My opinion:
You should get a better gfx- and, if needed, later upgrade mobo/cpu/mem.

You will probably get a much better picture (in SD and HD) with a HD2400 (ATi) or 8400GS (nVidia), which are both really cheap cards that supports HD-acc. The later will soon (or now?) be released with a new 65 nm core.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3047

Silicon Optix HD HQV Scores 
                        Noise Reduction Video Res Loss Jaggies Film Res Loss Stadium Total 
AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT   15              20             20      25            10      90 
AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT   15              20             20      25            10      90 
AMD Radeon HD 2600 Pro  15              20             20      25            10      90 
AMD Radeon HD 2400 XT    0               20              0      25            10      55 
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 25              20             20      25            10     100 
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 25              20             20      25            10     100 
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT  25              20             20      25            10     100

We excluded tests of NVIDIA's 8500 series, as their video drivers have not yet been optimized for their low end hardware. Even so, we have been given indications not to expect the level of performance we see from the 8600 series. We would guess that the 8500 series will perform on par with the AMD HD 2400 series, though we will really have to wait and see when NVIDIA releases a driver for this.

While most new cards support offloading of all or most of the decoding, there are significant quality differences in the post-processing.

Remember that if you are using the GPU for video decoding, then you also have to use the GPU for post-proc.

-k

[Spragleknas]

I read this before. However, I don't see what you are trying to say; would you rater upgrade CPU/MB/MEM? Keep in mind that this will probably cost 4-5 x gfx...

[ChiefBrody]

Thanks all - Ordered a 512mb 2600pro this morning for £49 - pretty good I think, and will hopefully sort out the issue, and also give me a reasonable living-room gaming machine on a monster screen

[knutinh]

Originally Posted by Spragleknas

I read this before. However, I don't see what you are trying to say; would you rater upgrade CPU/MB/MEM? Keep in mind that this will probably cost 4-5 x gfx...

My point was that a 2600 or 8600 will probably give better quality for HD video than a 2400 or 8500. This is not evident from all of the reviews and commercials out there.

-k

[ThaClown]

Well, I was a bit fast in my purchase.
Probably would have payed a little more for the 2600...
the DVI-HDMI adapter I already had so that was no problem for me....

But both are great imo im very happy with it!

[ChiefBrody]

new card installed... 264 playback from QT Mov's flawless, cpu usage 5-8%...

..MKV's proving more troublesome... got Revenge of the Sith x264 mkv playing at the moment, cpu usage bouncing between 35-93% during the extreme high motion opening sequence.... but seems to be playing ok.

Will see how I get on.

playing The Empire strikes back (720p) in mediaportal = 8% cpu but framerate looks around half (12fps)

strange

This is using the Powerdvd7 codec