DVD playback slow ????

[pickel]

I know it's an old system ( K-3-450 + ) w/ 192 Mb PC 100, but I just bought a Lite-on cdr/dvd player combo. The burner works great but the DVD is a little slow . I have an N Vidia 32 Mb video card and would like to just upgrade to ..say an 128 mb card instead of having to get a new Mb an CPU. Would that solve my problem ????? Thanks

What player software are you using? You are seriously cutting the specs close at 450 MHz for full-screen DVD playback, as software MPEG-2 decoding can be quite intensive.

WinDVD would probably be your best bet for any level of true hardware acceleration. BTW, a 128 MB video card will do little for your situation. The processor is the bottleneck here.

If you want a quick upgrade, drop in an ATI Radeon. Take your pick concerning the model, as all Radeon cards (even first generation) can offload intensive motion compensation, iDCT, run-time decode, and de-zigzag operations off the processor. The offloading may be enough to squeeze by with your K6-3.

http://www.sysopt.com/reviews/radeonve/index3.html

As for right now, make sure you have all background applications disabled when watching movies. You can also try using DVD Genie to tweak any performance options that may be available with your current software player.

http://www.inmatrix.com/files/dvdgenie_download.shtml

Good Luck,
Robert Richmond

[pickel]

Thanks for the reply Rob. Yes I disabled all background programs and have tweaked my running services ( Black Viper dot com ) I had to give my 2 Duron computers to my wife and daughter for business and college respectively and now have either this 450 or a 400 celeron to play with. The dvd/cdr came with Power DVD and Nero express. The burner Zooms @ 48x no problems. The playback isn't too bad , just needs a little kick, say 10% increase to be at real time. Thinking if I increased the speed of the video card , it would compensate for the CPU. I'll try the dvd genie and find a card that would be most compatible with this old Mbd. At least it's 4x AGP, so maybe I'll have a shot at it. Thanks again for the reply... have a good un !!! Ed

You would probably find that the Celeron 400 fairs better for DVD playback due to its fully pipelined floating point unit and much improved memory bandwidth, especially if you are using an Intel chipset motherboard. If your motherboard supports front-side bus manipulation, you will probably also find the Cellery is capable of 500+ MHz.

Overclocking the video card will not help, but overclocking the processor could. Your K6-3 450 should be good for 500 with just a little voltage bump.

Also take a look at your memory settings in the BIOS. Make sure they are tuned for best performance, especially as the socket 7 architecture lacked in regards to available bandwidth.

I do not believe your nVidia card will have the proper connector, but a hardware DVD decoder is another option. PCI DVD cards are dirt cheap these days (often $20-30 new), but you will need the proper onboard connector for one to work with your video card.

Robert Richmond

[pickel]

Yeah I have the celeron @ 454 w/ I beleive 75 Mhz with 83 Mhz the next and last higher setting. Which would give me 503 mhz. I has an Biostar Mbd. But I have it set up for my grand daughter with all her games and Barbie stuff
Thinking just getting a new Mbd and Cpu seems to be the EASY way out !! Maybe if I drink a couple of beers , I'll get in sync with the DVD playback Have a good nite !

[phenious]

What is your resolutiion at... Drop it down to 800*600 when you watch movies if it is not already there. I would imagine that would help...

-: phenious :-