720p video from an old PC?

[Zoom123]

Hello,

I have an old system running Windows XP with:

Athlon XP 2000+ (1.6GHz)
768MB RAM
Radeon 9550 (AGP) (Maybe this is the SE version - not sure)

I tried to use this computer as a sort of HTPC by connecting it to my 720p projector, but even standard definition video from hulu and netflix is choppy and the CPU is at 90-100% when playing the video.

Would a video card upgrade to something like Radeon HD4650 offload the CPU and make this system show smooth video up to 720p? Or would this be a waste of money/time and I should better upgrade the whole thing? (as I was initially planning)

Thanks!

 

[0roo0roo]

yea you are pushing your luck, web video is especially a huge cpu burden because there is an additional layer of color space conversion regardless of hardware accel apparently. xp athlon is just too old. not really worth investing anything more into it

 

[Puppies04]

yea you are pushing your luck, web video is especially a huge cpu burden because there is an additional layer of color space conversion regardless of hardware accel apparently. xp athlon is just too old. not really worth investing anything more into it

+1

You really are pushing that cpu asking it to deal with HD content, but if you are going to upgrade you could try buying a new GPU first and sticking it in the old machine just to make sure.

 

[betasub]

^ But even then, options on AGP cards with modern GPU/drivers are limited. And overpriced. The money would be better saved towards a full-build budget.

 

[mfenn]

^ But even then, options on AGP cards with modern GPU/drivers are limited. And overpriced. The money would be better saved towards a full-build budget.

:thumbsup: If the PC had PCIe, it would be a different story. As it stands, a new AGP card is almost never worth buying.

 

[Zoom123]

Thanks guys. I will stick to my initial plan then which is buying a new motherboard, CPU, RAM and video card.