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How will this dinosaur do streaming netflix?

Not well for HD. The P4 can't decode moderate-high bitrate H.264 and the Nvidia 6800 won't be able to help it out.
 
mfenn said:
Not well for HD. The P4 can't decode moderate-high bitrate H.264 and the Nvidia 6800 won't be able to help it out.
Click to expand...

Agree with this, not even worth attempting to upgrade as RDRAM is obscenely expensive and you're using ancient as heck AGP for video.
 
Bummer! I recently resurrected the P4 after acquiring it from a friend who had bent like 20 pins on it. Had to perform a bit of processor surgery and it seems to work fine now (haven't benchmarked it though). Hasn't crashed at all, so that's a good sign. I had high hopes thinking I'd have a machine worthy of at least 720p. Are there different levels of HD on netflix? I haven't seen any adjustments, just the highlighted HD in the corner when it's active.
 
Last time I checked Netflix automatically enables it based upon your PC & network connection. Not sure if there's a way to force enabling of it but in all honesty you'd be better off purchasing a Roku box and using that instead.
 
nsafreak said:
Last time I checked Netflix automatically enables it based upon your PC & network connection. Not sure if there's a way to force enabling of it but in all honesty you'd be better off purchasing a Roku box and using that instead.
Click to expand...
chromecast would suffice
 
All of this kind of Hardware is just not worth the cost of upgrading. The problem is even an i-3 sandy bridge or later would have integrated video with both HD Video and HD Audio without the video card or sound card. P4 is just getting too old to run anything.
 
Papa Hogan said:
Would it fare better than this one? Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.0 Ghz 1 GB ddr 3200 @ 200 Mhz (same) nvidia 6800
Click to expand...

I would expect the Athlon64 to perform significantly better than the P4 (like 2-3x).

BTW, it won't do 1080p because Netflix in a web browser is currently only 720p no matter what your hardware. I'm not sure how the P4 would do on 720p HD streams, but I doubt the A64 would have an issue.
 
Just get a Roku (2 XS or 3). It will pay for itself in energy savings alone (+/-4.5W vs +/-150W), is quieter, and looks and performs better. Use Plex + Plex Media Server to stream personal media from another PC.
 
It's not going to cope. As soon as you get to a fast-paced scene with lots of action, it will just choke and die. And not to mention it's going to be hot and noisy- not really a pleasant film watching experience.
 
I stream Netflix with my G620-powered HTPC but, to be honest, my crappy $69 LG BD player streams it better. Just saying.
 
postmortemIA said:
chromecast would suffice
Click to expand...
That looks pretty cool! Do smartphones receive in 720p? I don't have one nor have I discovered any need for one so far; therefore, I know very little about them. My wife has one we could use, though.

glugglug said:
I would expect the Athlon64 to perform significantly better than the P4 (like 2-3x).

BTW, it won't do 1080p because Netflix in a web browser is currently only 720p no matter what your hardware. I'm not sure how the P4 would do on 720p HD streams, but I doubt the A64 would have an issue.
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You may know, but in case not, the A64 is 64-bit capable, but it's not dual core. Will I gain some performance by getting a 64-bit OS for it? It's currently running XP home. Wouldn't it matter that it's running 800 Mhz slower than the P4?

oynaz said:
I actually think the Athlon64 would be powerful enough. I would give it a try.
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I've been trying it for awhile now (upgraded video card to no avail), but it gets super choppy when receiving HD. SD Netflix runs fine, though. More RAM, maybe?

Charlie98 said:
I stream Netflix with my G620-powered HTPC but, to be honest, my crappy $69 LG BD player streams it better. Just saying.
Click to expand...
I have an LG network BD player, too, but searching for and adding movies is horrendous. Also, if I remember correctly, it does not play the following episode in a TV series without clicking on it. PC plays like 2 or 3 in a row before it requires input.

DaveSimmons said:
You could get a Roku -- silent, low-power, simple.
Click to expand...
How can I build one for free? 😀


Thank you all for your kind replies!
 
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Papa Hogan said:
I have an LG network BD player, too, but searching for and adding movies is horrendous. Also, if I remember correctly, it does not play the following episode in a TV series without clicking on it. PC plays like 2 or 3 in a row before it requires input.
Click to expand...

That's true enough... I pick them on the PC and then pull them up on the receiver.

You can pick the next one in the series at the end of the preceeding episode, no biggie.
 
Papa Hogan said:
That looks pretty cool! Do smartphones receive in 720p? I don't have one nor have I discovered any need for one so far; therefore, I know very little about them. My wife has one we could use, though.
Click to expand...

Yes, smartphones and tablets do Netflix 720p. Newer ones can do 1080p. (Following that line of logic, yes an iPhone 5S is about 2-3 times more powerful than your P4).

Papa Hogan said:
You may know, but in case not, the A64 is 64-bit capable, but it's not dual core. Will I gain some performance by getting a 64-bit OS for it? It's currently running XP home. Wouldn't it matter that it's running 800 Mhz slower than the P4?
Click to expand...

AMD famously proved that MHz doesn't matter, much to Intel's chagrin. It's all about home much work you can do per clock cycle. But no, 64-bit OS will not make the system run faster.

Funnily enough, we're now in the reverse position where AMD is trying to clock its CPUs to the moon because its can't keep up with the instructions per clock of the Intel chips. What a difference a decade makes.

Papa Hogan said:
I've been trying it for awhile now (upgraded video card to no avail), but it gets super choppy when receiving HD. SD Netflix runs fine, though. More RAM, maybe?
Click to expand...

RAM is not going to help you here. The CPU is simply not powerful enough to decode the compressed video stream. You could theoretically buy a GPU with the right offload hardware to help the CPU out, but at that point you might as well just get a streamer box.
 
Keep in mind that the cpu power of your listed cpus is on par with the older single core intel atoms. The p4 at 2.8 is rated 335 passmarks and the Athlon 3200+ is 499. Newer Atoms are 600 and beyond.

Charlie98 said his g620 struggles with HD and it is rated at 2273 passmarks.

I like to take a challenge just to see if I can, but realize that the cpu and AGP bus are limiting your results for HD decoding. The AGP cards were twice the price and power needs for 1/4 the performance last time I checked.

Jim
 
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Papa Hogan said:
That looks pretty cool! Do smartphones receive in 720p? I don't have one nor have I discovered any need for one so far; therefore, I know very little about them. My wife has one we could use, though.
Click to expand...
Chromecast gets content straight from the internet. It is SOC with 2GB of RAM. Any PC with running chrome or iphone or android phone can be used to control it. Pretty much what you use to post here would work. The device has up to 1080p HDMI output onboard. It works on 720p TVs as well.

Roku supports more stuff, sure, but $35 is $35...
 
So thats the socket 423, non HT version of the P4? Scrap it... The only viable P4s are 3+GHz, with HT and 800FSB dual channel DDR2, 900 series chipset. I think all 800 series are too slow now, except for maybe some 875P. But yeah I wouldnt even attempt HD with it. It doesnt sound like you care too much about HD anyway...
 
Papa Hogan said:
P4 2.8 geegahurts
1 GB 800 rdram
WD raptor 160 GB w/32 MB cache
Nvidia 6800 gs AGP

Thanks!
Click to expand...

AHAHAHAHAHAHA.... yeah... those pc's did hurt your power bill..

they make awesome space heaters tho and winter is up!


Anyhow it will most definitely stream netflix without any issues...
Id install a very light OS on it tho... might be a good time to learn some basic ubuntu, or Chrome OS.

However as others have said tho, a roku box may be better.... even a HDMI Chrome Andriod dongle would probably be better, as some of them can stream HD.
 
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