DVD Playback Quality and CPU/FSB Speed

hmsrolst

Diamond Member
Mar 18, 2001
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I'm building an MATX system which I'd like to be able to use for occasional DVD playback. How dependent on CPU/FSB speed is quality of DVD playback? In particular would DVD's play okay on a Celeron 500 system?
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,674
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With regards to DVD playback the video card is more important than the CPU since it is the one increasing the playback quality and offloading the work from the CPU at the same time. You should pick up a Radeon or a GF2 GTS (or better) video card.
 

AnAndAustin

Platinum Member
Apr 15, 2002
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:eek: Well if your CPU is a PIII or K6-2 500mhz you shouldn't need any help playing (ie decoding) any video files, certainly standard DVD. However a Celeron 500mhz is definitely not powerful enough to decode the video stream so you will need a card which has hw decoders built in. Out of the cards out there you can get a dedicated PCI decoder card but these really aren't worth the price. So you should look at a Radeon or GF4MX card. These will enhance you gaming perf as well, esp a GF4MX420 although a Radeon7500 isn't far behind.
 

Rand

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
11,071
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A Celeron 500MHz is pretty much borderline- it should be able to play back most DVD's with softweare decoding perfectly adequately but it may become a bit choppy in some scenes in excessively 'active' movies.
In general you should look towards a Celeron/PII 300MHz at a minimum, while 400-500MHz should adequately decode the vast majority of DVD's perfectly fine.

600MHz Celeron/PIII would be ideal, at that point the processor alone would be up to the task of decoding DVD movies quite fine.
If your on a budget then the Celeron 500MHz should do pretty well, but if you want an assurance then I'd suggest you look for a cheap ATi Rage 128 card.
Rage 128's are extremely cheap and easy to get and have exceptional hardware DVD playback capabilities.

Don't expect to be able to do ANYTHING else while watching the DVD however. Even modern PC's can slow down significantly if attempting to perform any intensive tasks while playing back the DVD.
 

aswedc

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 2000
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DVD playback is very demading on the FSB. Unless anyone can come up with another explanation of how it took almost all the resources of a Celeron 700 while a Duron 700 played with minimal problems.
 

AnAndAustin

Platinum Member
Apr 15, 2002
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;) Memory bandwidth plays a big part, something Celerons and K6-2 CPUs really lack. I would still say that playing video on a Celeron 500 is certainly pushing it a bit. Any Duron should be fine, any K6-2 may be problematic, a K6-III 500mhz is a possibility and a PIII 450mhz should be fine. Basicly if your CPU is very borderline even if the video plays you are likely to be sacrificing quality, with faster CPUs and gfx cards being so comparatively cheap it makes little sense in not going that route IMHO.
 

Peter

Elite Member
Oct 15, 1999
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It's in the graphics unit folks. With a VGA unit that has good (!) DVD decoding hardware, CPU and system load will be minimal - you can then watch DVD even on 233 MHz Pentium-1. Currently (and traditionally) SiS and ATi have the best there - the former even in the integrated-VGA chipsets starting with 530 and 620.

regards, Peter
 

hmsrolst

Diamond Member
Mar 18, 2001
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Thanks for all the feedback. Since I have several spare CPU's, and since opinion seems somewhat divided, I think I'll try directly comparing the Celeron 500 with a PIII 733.