My PC doesn't like to play HD clips. What's the bottleneck?

[TitanDiddly]

I've been trying to watch some HD clips recently, and my PC just doesn't want to do it. If I play in VLC, I get 'skipping', if I play in WMP I get it slowing down a lot (sound freq drops) plus some skipping. It makes the whole thing unwatchable. My system is as follows:

NF7-S V2.0 Motherboard
Athlon XP 2100+
nVidia5600 Ultra
512MB PC2700 RAM
80GB ATA100 HDD with serilell
Soundstorm onboard

What component(s) do you think are the main contributors to the slowness? The motherboard is 'the' board for Athlons they say. I know I could use more RAM, too. I'm not sure what I need. Help me out?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox
I've been trying to watch some HD clips recently, and my PC just doesn't want to do it. If I play in VLC, I get 'skipping', if I play in WMP I get it slowing down a lot (sound freq drops) plus some skipping. It makes the whole thing unwatchable. My system is as follows:

NF7-S V2.0 Motherboard
Athlon XP 2100+
nVidia5600 Ultra
512MB PC2700 RAM
80GB ATA100 HDD with serilell
Soundstorm onboard

What component(s) do you think are the main contributors to the slowness? The motherboard is 'the' board for Athlons they say. I know I could use more RAM, too. I'm not sure what I need. Help me out?

The CPU is definitely the bottleneck there. By today's standards, that's a slow CPU, especially for viewing HD. Are you talking about WMV HD (VC-1), H.264, or some other codec?

 

[dug777]

no suprises there 😉

read the min specs for HD (i assume your talking about 1080p), my xp2600+, 1gb RAM, 9800 pro can only just play 1080p smoothly 😛

720p is no problem tho, but it might be with a 2100+...

 

[TitanDiddly]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox
I've been trying to watch some HD clips recently, and my PC just doesn't want to do it. If I play in VLC, I get 'skipping', if I play in WMP I get it slowing down a lot (sound freq drops) plus some skipping. It makes the whole thing unwatchable. My system is as follows:

NF7-S V2.0 Motherboard
Athlon XP 2100+
nVidia5600 Ultra
512MB PC2700 RAM
80GB ATA100 HDD with serilell
Soundstorm onboard

What component(s) do you think are the main contributors to the slowness? The motherboard is 'the' board for Athlons they say. I know I could use more RAM, too. I'm not sure what I need. Help me out?

The CPU is definitely the bottleneck there. By today's standards, that's a slow CPU, especially for viewing HD. Are you talking about WMV HD (VC-1), H.264, or some other codec?

WMV-HD.

I suspected it was the CPU, I'll have to upgrade. What do you reccomend for my board? I know 2500+ is a popular XP chip for OCing. Can you tell me how OCing affects HD playback? Thanks.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox
I've been trying to watch some HD clips recently, and my PC just doesn't want to do it. If I play in VLC, I get 'skipping', if I play in WMP I get it slowing down a lot (sound freq drops) plus some skipping. It makes the whole thing unwatchable. My system is as follows:

NF7-S V2.0 Motherboard
Athlon XP 2100+
nVidia5600 Ultra
512MB PC2700 RAM
80GB ATA100 HDD with serilell
Soundstorm onboard

What component(s) do you think are the main contributors to the slowness? The motherboard is 'the' board for Athlons they say. I know I could use more RAM, too. I'm not sure what I need. Help me out?

The CPU is definitely the bottleneck there. By today's standards, that's a slow CPU, especially for viewing HD. Are you talking about WMV HD (VC-1), H.264, or some other codec?

WMV-HD.

I suspected it was the CPU, I'll have to upgrade. What do you reccomend for my board? I know 2500+ is a popular XP chip for OCing. Can you tell me how OCing affects HD playback? Thanks.

You'll have to make sure you get a mobile chip or an old 2500+ to be sure of a good overclock, one of my mates has a newish desktop 2500+ and it won't o'c more than 200mhz or so 😛

Going on his set up (xp2500+/512mb RAM/Nforce2 chipset/5200) he still can't play 1080p smoothly (and neither can i with my setup above 🙁 ), so you might want to set your sights on a 2800+ at least...

Providing your o'c is stable it should just speed up your HD viewing 🙂

EDIT: have you tried o'cing yours? mine was a 2000+ t-bred (B0stepping) and i can get 2.2ghz stable, without a pci/agp lock and stock hsf, with your board you should have a good crack at at least that, if not more, and that would make a big difference 😀

 

[TitanDiddly]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox
I've been trying to watch some HD clips recently, and my PC just doesn't want to do it. If I play in VLC, I get 'skipping', if I play in WMP I get it slowing down a lot (sound freq drops) plus some skipping. It makes the whole thing unwatchable. My system is as follows:

NF7-S V2.0 Motherboard
Athlon XP 2100+
nVidia5600 Ultra
512MB PC2700 RAM
80GB ATA100 HDD with serilell
Soundstorm onboard

What component(s) do you think are the main contributors to the slowness? The motherboard is 'the' board for Athlons they say. I know I could use more RAM, too. I'm not sure what I need. Help me out?

The CPU is definitely the bottleneck there. By today's standards, that's a slow CPU, especially for viewing HD. Are you talking about WMV HD (VC-1), H.264, or some other codec?

WMV-HD.

I suspected it was the CPU, I'll have to upgrade. What do you reccomend for my board? I know 2500+ is a popular XP chip for OCing. Can you tell me how OCing affects HD playback? Thanks.

You'll have to make sure you get a mobile chip or an old 2500+ to be sure of a good overclock, one of my mates has a newish desktop 2500+ and it won't o'c more than 200mhz or so 😛

Going on his set up (xp2500+/512mb RAM/Nforce2 chipset/5200) he still can't play 1080p smoothly (and neither can i with my setup above 🙁 ), so you might want to set your sights on a 2800+ at least...

Providing your o'c is stable it should just speed up your HD viewing 🙂

EDIT: have you tried o'cing yours? mine was a 2000+ t-bred (B0stepping) and i can get 2.2ghz stable, without a pci/agp lock and stock hsf, with your board you should have a good crack at at least that, if not more, and that would make a big difference 😀

Unfortunately, I am a complete noob to overclocking. Your words are encouraging though. I'll do some research.