Stutter - Throw money at it?

[DreamWeb]

Hey guys.

I'm still experiencing hiccups when running HD.. I also experience big time slow down when viewing the guide when I have the PIP preview window displaying SD and HD (moreso in HD).

I'm running SageMC.

I am currently running an integrated video card solution.. a nvidia 6150. I realize that this isn't exactly a beast of a card.. nor is my CPU a beast of a CPU.. but, I was expecting that these specs would run everything ok.

It doesn't. So, my question is.. would throwing money at the system improve the stutter on certain HD streams? Would a better video card help out? I'd hate to throw money at the machine and discover the same problems...

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I've spent many many hours trying different codecs.. FSE mode, etc. Some HD streams are ok.. a lot aren't (especially sports).

Thanks guys!

David

[reggie14]

I couldn't even get a 6600GT to work well with HD. I moved to an ATI HD3850 with the PowerDVD decoder and playback has been perfect. Unfortunately, this card gives me problems in Vista with dual monitors, so it hasn't been a perfect upgrade.

Is this hooked up to a computer monitor or a TV? If its a TV you're better off putting money toward an HD extender. If its a monitor, maybe an ATI HD3650 would work well for you without breaking the bank.

[blade]

I used to have a nvidia 6200 and had problems with vmr9 and stuttering with HD shows until I upgraded to some of the newer drivers and from that point on I got perfectly smooth playback with the card. I replaced that client with a HD extender because I wanted something totally silent.

I have a 6150 in my bedroom and have never been able to get smooth HD playback using VMR9.

[DreamWeb]

Thanks guys.

I'm now actually considering the ATI Sapphire 3450 HD. It's a cheap card.. but it sounds promising (built for HTPC usage)

I've never really been an ATI guy.. so, my question is.. I use Purevideo Acceleration with Nvidia.. what do I use with ATI? Cyberlink?

How do they compare when it comes to sage?

Thanks!

David

[reggie14]

I'd recommend using Cyberlink. Purevideo might still work, but you wouldn't get all the benefits of hardware acceleration.

Just so you know, do some research on HD playback via the HD3450 card. Its probably fine, but I know the HD2400 had problems with HD playback. I don't think it was fast enough for deinterlacing. Again, its probably fine. I haven't read anything that indicates it wouldn't work well.

[DreamWeb]

Hmm.. maybe I should just spring the extra $30 for the 3650 then. I prefer to have more power than necessary.. But, the 3650 isn't fanless.

[reggie14]

I didn't want to make you too worried about it. You'd think the 3450 would have quite a bit more power over the 2400. I just did a quick search on avsforum. No one has complained about the 3450 (at least, not in that way). People seem to be pretty happy with it. Its pretty much a brand new card though. I would think it would be a pretty safe buy now, but I'd probably wait another week or two to make sure bad reports don't start coming out about it.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by blade

I have a 6150 in my bedroom and have never been able to get smooth HD playback using VMR9.

I gave up on trying to get the 6150 smooth with VMR9, it's simply not up to it. But I do get very good HD results with 1080i/720p running the 6150 on an AMD 3800+ X2 with PureVideo decoders and using overlay. Having the dual core CPU really helped a lot.

[DreamWeb]

I decided to throw money at it I bought the ATI Sapphire 3650.

It's not fanless.. but I've read that it's very quiet. And it wa only $85.00.

After installing the drivers and looking at some HD content.. I was horrified.

Incredible amount of tearing. Yikes.

So, I started lookig through the Catalyst Control Panel's options.. and I found an option concerning "Wait for vsync". It was set to "OFF" by default. I turned it to "Always On" and this seems ot have cleaned up all (most? I need more testing) of the tearing.

I'll report back with my full opinion in a few days.

Thanks guys.

d.

[mrwolf]

IMO, for most cases you can probably make hardware work ok. I have a couple machines running FX5200 128mb cards and they do fine. One machine is a Dell Optiplex GX740 with an nVidia NVS-210 256mb integrated and I had a heck of time getting it optimized. I finally put 2-3 good hours into each machine one weekend and now my PQ and performance is quite amazing, especially for SD. People that don't know any better think it's HD until I show them the real difference. Another machine is an Optiplex GX745 with an integrated Intel 945 128mb video card and I hardly even had to adjust it. One difference might have been the CPU (Intel Core Duo vs AMD x64, Intel seems much better). Turning off that "cool & quiet" setting or whatever it is helped the AMD, too.

Not only do you have to really work with the manufacturer's driver settings in Windows, but all the different option combinations in SageMC should be tried. It takes patience, but it's worth it. My WAF even went up after I "stopped F*#king with the TV."

[sandor]

Originally Posted by phelme

I gave up on trying to get the 6150 smooth with VMR9, it's simply not up to it. But I do get very good HD results with 1080i/720p running the 6150 on an AMD 3800+ X2 with PureVideo decoders and using overlay. Having the dual core CPU really helped a lot.

i second this, the 6150 was crap when it came to VMR9. Overlay was fine, but didn't look good enough for me.

I've even got an old CPU, and have no issues. I think a proper video card makes much more of a difference with HD playback than the CPU. I have been running a 7600 GT for quite a while now, and never have any playback issues. Purevideo decoder here as well.

[EdwardATeller]

Originally Posted by sandor

i second this, the 6150 was crap when it came to VMR9. Overlay was fine, but didn't look good enough for me.

I've even got an old CPU, and have no issues. I think a proper video card makes much more of a difference with HD playback than the CPU. I have been running a 7600 GT for quite a while now, and never have any playback issues. Purevideo decoder here as well.

VMR9 has never worked for me, but overlay is working fine. Does VMR9 look a lot better than overlay?

[lobosrul]

I currently have an ATI 3450 (passive cooled) in my client machine. Its working great with VMR9(FSE) with the Purevideo decoder. The included ATI decoders work, but they aren't doing a proper IVTC.

My Nvidia 8500GT worked great before that too... except when it overheated and crashed!!

[salsbst]

You could throw an HD extender at it...

[kltye]

I'm using an Athlon64 3000+ with a Radeon x1600 PRO (AGP) on Vista and it does HD with VMR9 prefectly. I use the ATI MPEG decoder, the one that comes with the separate AVIVO download.

[ben_95sl1]

another dis-satisfied owner of the onboard 6150, and now owner of Ati 3450. I don't have HD yet, but 6150 couldn't handle the 1080i clips in VMR9. And worse yet it somehow made my sagetv server reset/crash during playback every few weeks even with various driver versions and motherboard/cpu/ram swaps, and fresh xp installs. There was NO WAY I was going to buy an nvidia card after that.