Anything that can help with HD playback for PCI?

[nanaki333]

I've got a HIPHER HTPC (looks just like a damn dvd player) and it has onboard video obviously. i have a slight problem with 1080P HD playback though. It's running an X2 4200+ right now, and 1080P doesn't play properly. Massive amounts of skippage. It only has 1 expansion port, and that's PCI. Is there anything I can or should buy that could go in there to help take some of the load off the cpu? A PCI video card, or HD tuner or something? Or do I have to just upgrade the CPU to like a 6000+?

Also forgot, I was trying to get a blu ray drive (they only go for $159 after rebate for just the reader) and an external case. Will that HIPHER machine with onboard geforce 6150 output the movies to 1080P, or do I have to have an HDCP compatible card?

 

[nanaki333]

anybody? there's nothing in the ancient PCI that can help with HD decoding? what speed x2 would i need to take care of all the HD then?

 

[angry hampster]

PRocessor should be fine. You will need a decent graphics card (AGP 8X at the least).

 

[nanaki333]

i cannot run any agp or pcie cards. the HTPC case has 1 PCI expansion and that's it.

 

[Auric]

A quick goggle reveals the 6150 "supports HD Video". So, if it is capable of accelerating AVC and VC-1 then you just need the decoders to significantly offload from the CPU. PowerDVD Ultra may be included with such HD disc drives. If the 6150 does not include HDCP then something like AnyDVD would be required too. You may want to check nvidia's forums for user experiences as marketing claims are not to be trusted.

 

[v8envy]

PCI bus is limited to a bit over 100 megabytes/sec, in theory. In practice, you are sharing that with your network card, hard drive, the DVD drive, USB, etc.

Short answer: a PCI video card won't help.