Netflix video lag: Anything to do with integrated GeForce 9200?

[Eug]

I have this machine:

Acer Aspire X3400 Athlon II X3 435 - 2.9 GHz triple-core
8 GB DDR3
Onboard GeForce 9200 (SiSoft sees it as an 8200.)
Rez is 1920x1200
Windows 7
640 GB 7200 rpm hard drive

Even though Blu-ray works perfectly on it as does all the other HD I play on it, I get lag on it with HD Netflix. I have MS Silverlight 5.1 installed (latest version), and whether or not I activate hardware acceleration makes no difference. Netflix HD sometimes stutters.

It works perfectly fine on my iMac and MacBook Pro, so it's not my internet connection. Hell, it even works better on my Pentium SU4100 ultraportable with integrated graphics, although not absolutely perfectly.

I tried setting the UMA frame buffer size to 64 MB and 512 MB and the result is the same. I was tempted to pick up a cheap nVidia GT 520 or AMD HD6450, as my slim desktop can handle a low profile card, just to see if that would solve the problem. However, I'm guessing it will be a waste of money, because Blu-ray and other HD playback already works perfectly, so I'm thinking it may be either a driver issue or a Silverlight thing. Plus, I only have room for a normal sized PCIe card. The nVidia card was a silent double-thickness card, and I was worried about driver issues with the AMD card.

Any advice?

 

[frozentundra123456]

I have this machine:

Acer Aspire X3400 Athlon II X3 435 - 2.9 GHz triple-core
8 GB DDR3
Onboard GeForce 9200 (SiSoft sees it as an 8200.)
Rez is 1920x1200
Windows 7
640 GB 7200 rpm hard drive

Even though Blu-ray works perfectly on it as does all the other HD I play on it, I get lag on it with HD Netflix. I have MS Silverlight 5.1 installed (latest version), and whether or not I activate hardware acceleration makes no difference. Netflix HD sometimes stutters.

It works perfectly fine on my iMac and MacBook Pro, so it's not my internet connection. Hell, it even works better on my Pentium SU4100 ultraportable with integrated graphics, although not absolutely perfectly.

I tried setting the UMA frame buffer size to 64 MB and 512 MB and the result is the same. I was tempted to pick up a cheap nVidia GT 520 or AMD HD6450, as my slim desktop can handle a low profile card, just to see if that would solve the problem. However, I'm guessing it will be a waste of money, because Blu-ray and other HD playback already works perfectly, so I'm thinking it may be either a driver issue or a Silverlight thing. Plus, I only have room for a normal sized PCIe card. The nVidia card was a silent double-thickness card, and I was worried about driver issues with the AMD card.

Any advice?

No, I dont have any advice, just an observation. Netflix is very strange. I have a 9800GT and get all kinds of artifacting and loading problems. Amazingly, netflix runs better on my wimpy tablet than on my desktop. Must be some kind of software issue. That said though, the 9200 is really weak, so a low end discrete card might help.

 

[chimaxi83]

Netflix always gave me issues with my Nvidia cards, both a GTX680 and a GTX570. My issue was constant tearing of the image, regardless of anything I ever tried. Maybe it's a driver issue.

 

[toyota]

Netflix always gave me issues with my Nvidia cards, both a GTX680 and a GTX570. My issue was constant tearing of the image, regardless of anything I ever tried. Maybe it's a driver issue.

I dont recall ever having an issue and that's on various drivers over the years with a gtx260, gtx560 SE, 8600gt, gtx570 and gtx670. in fact I am watching a movie on netflix right now but my ADD kicked in. lol

 

[chimaxi83]

I'm not sure about before my 570, because I only started watching Netflix on PC last year. There's definitely a tearing issue though. What's weird about it is that I think it has something to do with putting my PC to sleep. When I wake it and watch Netflix, crazy tearing, every single time, while watching it from a reboot barely ever gives a tearing problem. Not a huge issue, but its present. Tried all kinds of vsync, adaptive vsync, locking refresh rates, custom refresh rates, until I just turn on the bluray player lol.

 

[toyota]

sounds like you have aero disabled because I have never seen tearing in Netflix.

 

[Eug]

Thx for the responses.

I have Aero enabled on the machine, and it works fine. I think I may have rarely gotten tearing in Netflix, but it hasn't been a significant issue for me.

As for loading problems, I hear you guys. On my iMac, Netflix HD works perfectly, but sometimes it takes a very long time to get into HD mode, as in many minutes. On my Sony Blu-ray player, it's very quick to go HD. This is on the same internet connection.

This Microsoft Silverlight Smooth Streaming site seems to work properly on the GeForce 9200 too.

So yeah... Maybe I'll just blame Netflix then save my one remaining PCIe slot for something else, because otherwise I have no use for a discrete GPU in that machine.

 

[Durvelle27]

could be your network bandwidth. i don't have problems with Netflix HD and i use a HD 4870

 

[jacktesterson]

No issues here with Netflix HD, but I run all AMD cards currently. (and traditionally have)

 

[Eug]

could be your network bandwidth. i don't have problems with Netflix HD and i use a HD 4870

Not the bandwidth. I have 25 Mbps DSL, and it works fine on my other machines, including ones running off the same network switch.

 

[KingFatty]

Can you monitor your CPU usage and see if maybe the issues correspond to spikes in CPU usage to 100%?

Also see if you can do the same test for GPU usage.

Might help to settle whether the issue is something with Netflix or your hardware - if you never max out your CPU or GPU, then maybe your computer is fine. I just think it's weird that you have GPU hardware that can accelerate Bluray playback, but it does not appear to be used during Netflix playback (since you say there is no change when you turn on or turn off hardware acceleration for netflix?).

 

[Eug]

CPU usage up to 65% max. That's according to the built-in Windows 7 CPU/memory usage widget. I can't remember if it decreased when I turned on hardware acceleration, but it may have. I'll have to check.

BTW, for Silverlight I closed the browser and relaunched, and I even tried rebooting after a setting change a couple of times, but no difference.

How do I measure the GPU usage?

 

[96Firebird]

Do a speedtest on this machine, just to make sure the network adapter is running at full speed.

 

[Eug]

Do a speedtest on this machine, just to make sure the network adapter is running at full speed.

Thanks, but I've done that before, and it definitely maxes out my internet access, which isn't surprising since it's 25 Mbps.

Also, I can download a 2 GB file from my NAS over the network in a couple of minutes. The NAS itself is the rate limiter. The Ethernet jack is the integrated Gigabit Ethernet on this nForce board.

 

[Eug]

I just upgraded to the latest Nvidia drivers (306), and still get the same behaviour.

How would a Zotac GeForce GT 210 with 1 GB DDR3 perform? They're cheap right now ($15-$20 after rebate) and are fanless, plus I think I'd be able to get one with a low profile bracket. I do zero gaming on this machine.

Or should I be looking at a GT 220 with gDDR3 instead, if I can find a low profile one?

The only problem is a lot of these low end cards still have uber thick heat sinks. I definitely only have enough room for a single-slot card. I only have two PCIe slots, and one is taken up by a USB 3 card.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

A better CPU and gpu (ie.system) will solve the problem 100%. Just the gpu may help but may not make it perfect even if it does help.

 

[Eug]

The CPU isn't maxed out. This is a triple core 2.9 GHz Athlon II.

I'm just wondering why the GPU is maxed out, since Blu-ray works fine. I'm beginning to think it's memory speed in combination with not-so-good Netflix/Silverlight software. I'm hoping having dedicated video RAM might help, although in that case I wonder about needing GDDR3 (probably not).

 

[Eug]

I just bought and installed an ATI Radeon HD 6450 (with advice and help from this old thread). If anything, Netflix HD is worse now. WTF?!?!

I'm thinking the GeForce 9200 was probably fine after all. It seems Netflix with Silverlight (including the latest 5.1 version) are just borked with it. Adding the Radeon 6450 gives me dedicated DDR3 (not GDDR5) RAM and faster 3D (going from 5.1 for the 9200 to 6.1 for the 6450 in the Windows Experience Index), but it hasn't helped Netflix playback at all.

This is really, really irritating. Spent the $ for nothing.

CPU usage (Athlon II X3 435) for Netflix for one stream I tried was around 55%, regardless of whether I had hardware acceleration checked off for Silverlight.

Is there a way to enable DXVA on this? Could there be a residual driver setting from my nVidia install that is screwing something up? I'm thinking not. I uninstalled everything except the nVidia nForce network drivers, etc. Furthermore, DXVA seems to be working for Windows Media Player, because I'm getting about 10% CPU usage, vs. >50% for vlc.

 

[Durvelle27]

I just bought and installed an ATI Radeon HD 6450 (with advice and help from this old thread). If anything, Netflix HD is worse now. WTF?!?!

I'm thinking the GeForce 9200 was probably fine after all. It seems Netflix with Silverlight (including the latest 5.1 version) are just borked with it. Adding the Radeon 6450 gives me dedicated DDR3 (not GDDR5) RAM and faster 3D (going from 5.1 for the 9200 to 6.1 for the 6450 in the Windows Experience Index), but it hasn't helped Netflix playback at all.

This is really, really irritating. Spent the $ for nothing.

CPU usage (Athlon II X3 435) for Netflix for one stream I tried was around 55%, regardless of whether I had hardware acceleration checked off for Silverlight.

Is there a way to enable DXVA on this? Could there be a residual driver setting from my nVidia install that is screwing something up? I'm thinking not. I uninstalled everything except the nVidia nForce network drivers, etc. Furthermore, DXVA seems to be working for Windows Media Player, because I'm getting about 10% CPU usage, vs. >50% for vlc.

I thinks its bandwidth or drivers as i can run netflix on my P4 2.8GHz northwood and a HD 3650 with minimum problems.

 

[Stuka87]

Sorry to derail a bit. But you have an AMD board with a built in nVidia graphics chip? That just sounds so comical to me.

Only nVidia machine I have watched Netflix on is my Dell Precision, which has a Quadro. And it plays Netflix just fine.

A 6450 is not a fast card, so it may still not be fast enough to watch HD content. Does flash based stuff play ok, such as YouTube on a 1080P video?

 

[Eug]

I thinks its bandwidth or drivers as i can run netflix on my P4 2.8GHz northwood and a HD 3650 with minimum problems.

Nah, must be an implementation or driver issue. Both 1080p H.264 MKV (in Windows Media Player with Haali Media Splitter - 12% CPU) and Blu-ray (in PowerDVD 10 - 25% CPU) work absolutely fine - perfectly smooth.

But then again, they worked for my GeForce 9200 too, so the Radeon HD 6450 offers me no advantage there.

YouTube 1080p is iffy. It works fine with relatively low CPU usage if the video is already buffered, but may be choppy while buffering even if the buffer is more than adequate. Internet Explorer with ActiveX Flash works better than FireFox with regular Flash.

So I'm wondering if I should even bother keeping the 6450, as it also occupies my only available full-size PCIe slot. Then again, it was only $28 and it does give an extra digital video output (HDMI + DVI).

Sorry to derail a bit. But you have an AMD board with a built in nVidia graphics chip? That just sounds so comical to me.

Yeah, it's pretty odd, but the machine is several years old, with a CPU that didn't have integrated graphics. It's an nForce board with a standalone AMD CPU - 2.9 GHz triple-core Athlon II X3 435. It's roughly as fast as a fast Core 2 Duo.

AnandTech: AMD's Athlon II X3 435 & New Energy Efficient CPUs: Killing Intel Below $90

A 6450 is not a fast card, so it may still not be fast enough to watch HD content. Does flash based stuff play ok, such as YouTube on a 1080P video?

Actually, I bought it based on AnandTech's review, saying it's a great HTPC GPU. It has enough oomph to do 3D Blu-ray. I don't need 3D Blu-ray but I figure it couldn't hurt since it's only about $8 more than the 5450 (which can't do 3D).

AnandTech: AMD's Radeon HD 6450: UVD3 Meets the HTPC

Due to how little time we’ve had with the 6450 we haven’t been able to run it through our full suite of HTPC tests, but so far it’s looking very good. Between the doubling of memory bandwidth and doubling of shaders, the 6450 is now able to run all of AMD’s post-processing features at full speed—that is they all work with Enforce Smooth Video Playback enabled and without dropping any frames in the process. AMD reports an HD HQV 2.0 score of 188, while we recorded 189 on the 5570 last year (keep in mind scoring is inherently subjective to some degree). We need to do further testing, but with our limited time it looks like the 6450 is as equally capable as the 5570 when it comes to post-processing, which is to say it’s at the top of the charts.

The post-processing capabilities along with the ability to decode and transmit 3D content are what have us so excited about the 6450 as an HTPC card. Although 3D content hasn’t made much progress in the last six months, for HTPC purposes at a bare minimum we’re looking at a 5570 replacement with a bit over half the power consumption and modern display outputs. That alone is quite enticing.

---

So what do we do with a very low power, low performance, budget priced card? We throw it in our HTPCs of course! It’s here where we need to do some more aggressive testing as time allows, but the Radeon HD 6450 has all the makings of an excellent HTPC card. It has all the video decoding features we could ask for at the lowest TDP we’ve ever seen those features made available at. For a pure video decode and 10ft GUI card, I’m not sure there’s anything that can top the 6450. The only area where it comes short is overall gaming performance if you intend to game on your HTPC, in which case the 6800 series, or perhaps a Turks-based card would be a better choice…

I got this one also because it is quiet, low profile, and low TDP. And I don't game. (The computer is a slim chassis machine with only a 220 Watt PSU.)

Sooo.... I think I officially give up on Netflix HD in Windows 7. I have now tried 4 different lower end GPUs on 3 different Windows machines which all support video acceleration. All 4 work perfectly with 1080p MKV and with Blu-ray - Intel GMA 4500MHD, nVidia ION, nVidia GeForce 9200, and ATI Radeon HD 6450, and all 4 have problems with Netflix HD.

Note that my GeForce 9400M in OS X works perfectly fine with Netflix HD, yet the faster and more modern Radeon HD 6450 won't work properly in Windows for Netflix HD.

The one last thing I haven't done is reinstall Windows. I don't know if I should bother though. My Windows installer is a set of recovery disks, so it'd include the nVidia drivers. However, if I get a copy of the plain-Jane Windows 7, can I install that using my existing Windows serial? That way I could do a completely fresh install.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Weird issue the Op is having,i tested out my old spare dell xps 400 which has 768 of ram,a 3ghz pentium 4 with ht and netflix on standard quality non hd and it plays perfectly fine and this is when i installed my 7850.

Maybe the Op can lower the quality and still see if it still lags.

 

[Eug]

Yeah, standard Netflix looks fine. Its just Netflix HD that's the problem. I want Netflix HD because Netflix SD doesn't look so good on a 22" monitor up close.

All these machines I bought specifically because they have hardware that are supposed to handle HD video... and they do just fine with Windows Media Player and Blu-ray.

My conclusion is that Netflix's and/or Silverlight's implementation just royally sucks.

 

[Eug]

My conclusion is that Netflix's and/or Silverlight's implementation just royally sucks.

There we go...

Netflix plans its move from Microsoft Silverlight to HTML5 video

Currently, Netflix primarily uses the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in when streaming video to web browsers, but Netflix's Anthony Park and Mark Watson point out in a blog post that the current solution really can't stand. Plug-ins don't play well with with most mobile browsers, they can be cumbersome for users, and perhaps most importantly, Microsoft itself may not develop a new version of Silverlight beyond the current release.

The solution is HTML5 video, but that relatively young technology requires further development to meet the needs — and DRM requirements — of a service like Netflix. According to the blog post, Netflix has been collaborating on three W3C initiatives that together will provide the required functionality for streaming video services. Dubbed the "HTML5 Premium Video Extensions," they include an extension that will allow the company to handle its delivery streams via JavaScript, another that will allow DRM encryption (perhaps the biggest obstacle for HTML5 video's broad adoption), and a cryptography extension that will allow Netflix to make sure any communication between its JavaScript code and servers remains secure.

---

However, it might not be really soon.

HTML5 Video at Netflix

We currently use Microsoft Silverlight to deliver streaming video to web browsers on the PC and Mac. It provides a high-quality streaming experience and lets us easily experiment with improvements to our adaptive streaming algorithms. But since Microsoft announced the end of life of Silverlight 5 in 2021, we need to find a replacement some time within the next 8 years. We'd like to share some progress we've made towards our goal of moving to HTML5 video.

 

[SPBHM]

it's probably not the case but, the Hyper Transport is a big bottleneck for the IGP memory performance, you could try overclocking (or downclocking to see if it gets even worse) the HT clock, default should be something like 1800MHz for the X3.

but anyway, the 8200 only have 8 cuda cores I think, it's very basic.