Processor Help (1 Viewer)

xclocked

Portal Pro
August 8, 2005
70
0
Sydney, Australia
Hey guys,

I have a HTPC I been using for a while now. I'm getting annoyed of MP because of the resources it hogs. I'm gonna upgrade the HTPC to a 2.8 Ghz Celeron but i'm not sure if that would still lag. I'm experiencing lag when i change the chanel (fps lag) and it takes a while to change a channel

Current Specs

Mobo: Asus P4TE
Proc: P4 1.8Ghz
RAM: 512MB RDRAM
GPU: NvIDIA 5200

Anyway, I was thinking if i just upgraded to a celeron 2.8 it would be a cost effective solution. The problem is, that the mobo is old, but it's the same pin needed for the celeron. Would it be able to work if i buy the celeron, and would it lag with a celeron 2.8? I'll be recording TV, And maybe** using HDTV.

EDIT: Oh, and what if i installed windows 2000, would media portal run smoother?
 

Marcusb

Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • February 16, 2005
    1,995
    29
    Melbourne
    your current set up should run MP quite ok. A lot of people use lower specs and have no problem.

    Post using the support template so we can see what could be causing issues and also explain what you mean by resource hog. What exactly is the symptom?
     

    onkl

    Portal Pro
    February 18, 2005
    341
    0
    47
    Wageningen
    Home Country
    Netherlands Netherlands
    You didn't mention the TV card you're using, but the way TV cards use resources vary wildly. The normal "good" card at the moment is the Hauppauge PVR 150/500, if you have a SW decoding card, you might cosider switching that, snce the rest of is quite OK as far as I can see.
     

    xclocked

    Portal Pro
    August 8, 2005
    70
    0
    Sydney, Australia
    I got a PinnacleTV Internal. The analoge one, not sure of the exact model name though.

    What i mean by it being a resource hog is that it depends on alot of hardware, like CPU and RAM.
     

    wortelsoft

    Portal Pro
    May 13, 2005
    374
    1
    47
    Rotterdam, The Netherlands
    Home Country
    Netherlands Netherlands

    xclocked

    Portal Pro
    August 8, 2005
    70
    0
    Sydney, Australia
    Relevant INFO:

    nVIDIA 6200
    Intel P4 1.8Ghz
    512MB RDRAM
    Pinnacle PCTV analoge internal tuner
    MP 0.2.0 rc1
    Asus P4TE
    latest tvcard driver for the pinnacle card.
    Latest nvidia driver
    BlueTwo skin


    CODECS: Not sure, does it really matter?
     

    Marcusb

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • February 16, 2005
    1,995
    29
    Melbourne
    xclocked, you are really making it hard to help you...

    For example, if you had told us that you were using "Overlay" (or VMR7)as your renderer, we could have told you that it uses a lot of CPU power rather than using the hardware acceleration that your video card supports and to use VMR9 Renderless instead.

    As for codecs, these are found in the config/TV main menu. Some are very good at taking advantage of hardware aceleration, while some are not and use a lot of CPU cycles. -Try DScaler, WinDVD or Cyberlink for a start.

    Your system should run MP quite well but first you really have to fill in the support template (it's really not that hard). Also, has your video card improved since your first and last post?

    Also, what do you mean by a resource hog? Is your CPU usage sitting at over 75% or something? Do you have any problems with performance or do you jsut prefer less usage? MP should really sit at around 5-10% at most, with hardware accelleration running.
     

    Pingus

    Portal Member
    February 2, 2005
    42
    0
    Denmark
    xclocked said:
    Relevant INFO:

    CODECS: Not sure, does it really matter?

    YES!!!

    Switching codec may very well have a huge impact in the CPU load.

    Using DScaler (built in) gives me a 100% CPU use watching a DVD / TV-show - with crystal clear quality!

    Using Windvd 6 codecs gives almost the same quality @ 15-17% CPU.

    Regards!
     

    xclocked

    Portal Pro
    August 8, 2005
    70
    0
    Sydney, Australia
    Okay, i switched to the dscaler codecs for both audio and video. And... It still lags when i change a channel. Oh, and when i start mytv i have to keep turning the TV of and ON. Otherwise it would be really fuzzy, i would still hear the tv though.
     

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